—Short-term rental rules · Maui
Maui County (which covers Maui, Molokai, and Lanai) runs one of the most politically charged STR regimes in the country. After the 2023 Lahaina wildfires, the County Council passed Bill 9 to phase out apartment-zoned STRs entirely on a multi-year clock. Outside the small set of resort and hotel districts, most non-resort properties cannot legally rent below 30 days at all.
Last reviewed against current municipal sources on 2026-05-20.
01The Maui context
The Minatoya List is the relevant artifact here — it is the pre-1989 list of apartment-zoned condos that were grandfathered into being allowed as STRs. Bill 9 phases those out by district. If your property is on the Minatoya List, you have a known sunset date; if it is not on the list and you are in an apartment district, you should not have been operating short-term to begin with.
Resort-zoned hotels in Kaanapali, Wailea, Kapalua, and Kihei are the carve-outs that remain straightforward. Lahaina itself is in recovery; many properties physically are not available, and the County is explicit about not encouraging tourism into the historic district while neighborhoods are still being rebuilt.
Local rules change — confirm current requirements with your city before you list. This page is a market-context summary and a house-rules starting point, not a legal source or a substitute for Maui's own Hawaii guidance.
02The house-rules angle
A Maui host should be specific about whether the property is resort-zoned (free to rent), Minatoya-listed (a clock is running), or restricted apartment-zoned (this should be a 30+ day stay). Reef-safe sunscreen is mandated by Hawaii state law, not a suggestion. Sacred-site access and kapu-acknowledging behavior land differently here than on the mainland — call those out by name.
The political climate matters in a way it does not elsewhere. A guest who has signed concrete rules on respecting Lahaina recovery, reef chemistry, and local cultural sites is a host showing visible compliance, not making a sales pitch.
These are starting points to adapt — not legal advice, and not specific to any one Hawaii ordinance. Edit the wording and any amounts to your property and what your platform and city allow.
03Put the rules on the file
A house-rules block in your listing is disclosure — it proves the rule existed. It does not prove the guest who booked your Maui place ever saw that specific rule or agreed to it. What sits in the file as evidence after an incident, and what shows good-faith compliance in a regulated market, is acknowledgment: the guest confirming each rule and each fee individually, with a timestamp, before check-in.
PreArrive turns the tuned rules above into a packet the guest signs in about ninety seconds. They tap each rule and each fee to acknowledge it, draw a signature, and you get a PDF certificate — disclosure and acknowledgment in one file, with a two-event audit trail and a content hash. It is evidence, not a verdict: it does not litigate a dispute or decide a code question for you, but it puts a traceable record behind every stay.
Build a packet from these rules once, send it on every reservation. Free covers one property. No credit card.
04Verify with the source
This page is a plainspoken summary. The municipal sources below are where the actual rules live. If something here disagrees with the source, the source is right — let us know and we'll re-review.
Page reviewed 2026-05-20.
05Other regulated markets
The same disclosure-versus-acknowledgment gap shows up across every active STR market. Each city below has a plain-language local summary and a house-rules angle tuned to that market.
Want all of them in one place? See PreArrive for regulated-market hosts.
06Keep reading