—Short-term rental rules · Seattle
Seattle caps STR operators at two units: a primary residence plus one secondary unit elsewhere in the city. A separate operator’s license and platform license track the program.
Last reviewed against current municipal sources on 2026-05-20.
01The Seattle context
Seattle requires both an STR operator’s license and a regulatory license per platform listing. The two-unit cap is one of the narrowest in any major US market — investor portfolios are effectively outside the program.
Department of Finance and Administrative Services enforces. Lodging tax filings are part of the program; a host who isn’t filing the tax is also probably out of compliance with the operator license.
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 Seattle's own Washington guidance.
02The house-rules angle
A Seattle host should be explicit about which of the two licensed units the listing is, the bedroom-count cap, and quiet hours. The city’s "good neighbor" framing is the language to lean into — guests signing rules in that voice engage with the same expectations the city does.
Capitol Hill and Ballard see the most active complaint flow; shared-building stays carry the most noise sensitivity. Specific rules on those matter.
These are starting points to adapt — not legal advice, and not specific to any one Washington 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 Seattle 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