Short-Term Rentals in NYC: The 30-Day Rule and Airbnb

Everything about staying short-term in New York City comes down to one rule: since September 2023, the city has banned rentals of fewer than 30 days unless the host is registered and physically lives in the home. That single law removed most of the Airbnb inventory visitors expect to find, and it splits your realistic options cleanly by length of stay. Here is what is actually available for a few days, for a month or more, and for a year.

What is available, by length of stay

The 30-night line decides everything. Below it the market is hotels and host-present rooms; at or above it the whole furnished-apartment market opens up — which is why a 28-night trip and a 31-night trip are entirely different problems.

The practical consequence for anyone scouting a move: extending a 28-night trip by three nights changes both the price per night and the type of accommodation available. Renting monthly also puts you in a real neighbourhood rather than a hotel district, which is the point of the exercise if you are choosing where to live. Where the areas sit against each other is mapped in our New York neighbourhood guides.

Looking at this from the owner's side — whether you can legally rent your own place out short-term? That is a different question, answered in our article on the NYC short-term rental rules.

The 30-Day Rule, in Brief

Local Law 18 requires any host offering a stay under 30 days to register with the city, to be present in the home during the stay, and to host no more than two guests. Buildings can also place themselves on a list that prohibits short-term rentals outright, and many condo and co-op buildings have. Platforms cannot process bookings for unregistered listings, which is why whole-apartment stays of a few days have largely vanished from Airbnb in all five boroughs. The rules are covered line by line in our Local Law 18 guide.

Staying a Few Days

For a stay of two or three days the realistic choices are three. A hotel is the simplest. A registered host-present listing is legal — you rent a room while the host lives in the home, which suits some travellers and not others. The third option is to cross the river: New Jersey is outside New York City's jurisdiction, so short Airbnb stays remain available in Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken, all of them a PATH ride or ferry from Manhattan.

Staying a Month or More

At 30 days and over, the market opens up. Furnished monthly apartments are legal, plentiful and considerably cheaper per night than a hotel. A furnished studio in a building with amenities such as a gym generally runs $4,500 to $8,000 a month depending on the length of stay, with cleaning or pool access available as add-ons. Most units have full kitchens.

Two things make this tier especially useful for people planning a move to the US. First, these stays do not require the US credit score, visa documentation or guarantor that a standard one-year lease demands — which is exactly what someone on a preliminary scouting trip lacks. Second, a month in a real apartment in a real neighbourhood answers questions about daily life that no hotel stay can.

At the top of the market, ultra-luxury buildings offer fully furnished monthly stays from roughly $10,000 to over $30,000 a month, with gyms, pools and housekeeping — available from a single month.

Staying a Year or More

Past the one-year mark you are in the standard rental market: annual leases, income requirements, and a documented application. How the process works is covered in our guide to renting an apartment in New York, and the paperwork side — the 40x income rule, guarantors and what landlords actually check — in the rental application guide.

Before You Book Anything

Three checks prevent most bad outcomes. For any stay under 30 days, confirm the listing shows a city registration number — an unregistered short-stay listing is operating illegally, and your booking can disappear with it. For monthly stays, confirm the building itself permits them; condo and co-op houses rules override whatever the host advertises. And never wire money for a unit you have not seen at least by live video walkthrough.

Arranging a Stay

We arrange furnished monthly stays — from practical studios to serviced luxury buildings — for clients scouting New York before a move, without US credit history or visa paperwork. Tell us the dates, the budget and the neighbourhoods you are weighing, and we will send what is actually available.