StayNotice Weekly — sample issue
Sample issue, compiled August 2026 from primary sources only: adopted ordinances, city fee schedules, the city clerk's records, the state code, and the legislature's own bill status pages. No item here rests on a news story or a trade blog. Every item links to the record it came from, and where a city contradicts itself we show you both answers instead of picking one.
Texas · Houston
Houston does not require short-term rental insurance
The city's FAQ asks “Will STR owners/operators be required to purchase STR insurance or provide proof of having STR insurance on the property?” and answers, in full, “No.” We checked that against the binding document rather than the FAQ: the string “insur” appears zero times across all 14 pages of the adopted ordinance, No. 2025-322. (The caption is a fill-in template, “Ordinance No. 2025-__________,” with 322 stamped into the blank. Two of the three date lines on the signature page are filled the same way. The third, “APPROVED ON,” is still an empty blank. We mention it because we briefly took the number off this page for that reason, and that was wrong: it is how an executed document looks.)
The caveat you would find yourself: that FAQ is headed “Proposed Short-Term Rental Regulations” and dated April 25, 2025, nine days after the April 16, 2025 adoption it describes. The ordinance is what binds, and the ordinance is silent.
Source: City of Houston, STR answers to FAQs · Adopted ordinance (PDF)
Texas · Houston
The fee is $275, and three city documents give two different answers about when registration would open
The City-Wide Fee Schedule carries the short-term rental registration fee at $275.00 with an as-of date of 01/01/2026. The FAQ says the $275.00 is collected “plus any applicable City of Houston administrative fee.” That fee is $33.56 for 2026, up from $33.10 in 2025, because Houston raises most permit, license and registration fees by a CPI figure it publishes each year (1.3910% for 2026).
On the opening date, here is every version the city publishes: the adopted ordinance, Section 7(a), directs that the department “shall begin accepting certificate of registration applications on August 1, 2025”. The FAQ says the site would go live “on or about August 1, 2025.” A city news page says “Registration opens October 1, 2025.” That is three documents and two dates, two months apart. An ordinance states what must happen rather than what did, so we are not resolving this for you.
The date with consequences attached is January 1, 2026, and the ordinance manages to give two effective dates of its own. Section 6 passed it as an emergency measure on the day it was introduced, “and shall take effect at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2026.” The FAQ agrees, giving applicants “until January 1, 2026, to come into compliance.” But the signature page of the same document says something else: “Pursuant to Article VI, Section 6, Houston City Charter, the effective date of the foregoing Ordinance is: April 22, 2025.” We are not resolving that either. January 1, 2026 is the date the operative text and the FAQ both give you, and it is the one to work from. And the number we should not have taken off this page: Sec. 28-723(a) of the same ordinance says anyone violating any provision of the article “shall be punished by a fine of not less than $100.00 and not more than $500.00 for each violation,” and “Each day any violation continues shall constitute and be punishable as a separate violation.” That is on conviction, and it is per violation per day, so the exposure is not capped at $500. An earlier version of this page carried a vaguer form of this and we deleted it as unsourced. It was in the ordinance the whole time. The city's page says: “On January 1, 2027, the City will begin notifying platforms to remove STR listings that lack a certificate of registration.”
Source: City-Wide Fee Schedule · 2026 Fee Increase Notice · Adopted ordinance (PDF) · City of Houston, Short-Term Rentals · Houston Permitting Center, newly adopted STR update · City of Houston, STR answers to FAQs
Arizona · Scottsdale
Ordinance 4719 takes effect July 23, 2026, and that date is nowhere in the ordinance
4719 adds a definition of “event center,” aimed at rentals used as commercial event venues. The city's news release describes it as covering “weddings, receptions, banquets, corporate events, promotional events and conferences, while excluding ordinary residential gatherings that are incidental to lawful occupancy of the home.” The two documents word the definition differently, so both are quoted here rather than blended. The release: an event center is “a property used for organized gatherings, parties, receptions or functions that involve a commercial purpose, event-related impacts, or activities requiring a city permit or license.” The ordinance text in the council packet reaches weddings, receptions, parties or banquets “conducted for a fee or open invitation.” An earlier version of this page called the ordinance wider than the release because it added “parties” and a permit catch-all. Both were already in the release, in a sentence we had cut short. Council approved it June 23, 2026.
Where July 23 comes from: we pulled the clerk's record for that meeting, Item 23, with the ordinance attached. The word “effective” appears zero times in it, the word “emergency” appears zero times, and the execution block is still the blank template. Arizona law fills that kind of gap. A.R.S. § 19-142(B) says a city or town ordinance “shall not become operative until thirty days after its passage by the council and approval by the mayor,” excepting emergency measures. Thirty days after June 23 is July 23.
Three limits from us, and we would rather state them than round them off. We have not checked the date the mayor approved it, which the statute also references. The copy we read is the agenda-packet version proposing adoption, an OCR'd scan, so a zero-count on it is weaker evidence than a search of a clean text file and it is not the signed instrument. And there is a charter question we have not settled. § 19-141(A) says “This chapter applies to the legislation of cities, towns and counties, except as specifically provided to the contrary in this article.” We do not know what that carve-out reaches. Neither statute section addresses charter status directly, we have not read Scottsdale's own charter, and we have not sourced whether Scottsdale is a charter city at all. Treat July 23 as the date the state default produces, not as a date the city has published.
Source: City of Scottsdale news release · City Council Report, June 23, 2026, Item 23 · A.R.S. § 19-142 · A.R.S. § 19-141
Arizona · Scottsdale
Five things in the code that the city's own owners page does not mention
The city's owners page gives you the $250 annual fee and the $500,000 liability minimum. It also has a 30-day clock on it, and it is worth being precise about what that clock is for, because we got this wrong ourselves in an earlier version. The page's “Within 30 days of receiving your Scottsdale license” sentence attaches to notifying your neighbors. Its insurance sentence carries no deadline at all. We searched the page: “transfer” returns zero hits, and the only two dollar figures on it are $250 and $500,000. The code it links to adds the rest.
• There is a 30-day insurance filing deadline, and it is in the code, not on that page. Sec. 18-173(b): “Within thirty (30) days of obtaining a vacation rental license issued pursuant to this article, the owner or owner's designee shall provide evidence to the city of liability insurance to cover the vacation rental or short-term rental in the aggregate of at least five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) or evidence that each vacation rental or short-rental transaction will be provided through an online lodging market place that provides equal or greater primary liability insurance coverage.” Note the second half: if you book only through a platform carrying that coverage, you file evidence of that instead. Missing the deadline is “a minimum fine of five hundred dollars ($500.00),” which the court may reduce to $100 once you show you have the insurance.
• If you did not apply for a license after the city sent you written notice that you needed one, that is “an additional one-thousand-dollar ($1,000.00) penalty for every thirty (30) day period the applicant failed to apply.”
• Unlicensed operation is “a fine of not less than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) per violation,” and “The court shall not suspend any part of any fine required by this section.” That is a floor, not a range.
• Verified violations escalate “within the same twelve-month (12) period” at up to $500, then $1,000, then $3,500. Each step also reads “or up to an amount equal to one night's rent for the vacation rental or short-term rental as advertised, whichever is greater,” and two and three nights' for the later steps. On an expensive property the dollar figure is not the ceiling.
• The license “shall be valid for a period of one (1) year from the date of issuance” and “No license shall be transferable either as to location or as to person.” The $250 is also due on “any renewal application,” not just the first one.
How long this has been law: Sec. 18-151(a) says it directly. “Effective January 8, 2023, no person shall operate a vacation rental or short-term rental in the city without first having obtained a current vacation rental license from the city and paying the applicable fees.”
Source: City of Scottsdale, Information for Owners and Operators · Scottsdale Revised Code, Ch. 18 Art. IX
Arizona · Statehouse
HB2429 passed the House twice, died in the Senate, and would have left it to your city whether to cap occupancy at all
It did pass the House, and it passed twice. The Legislature's record: introduced January 14, 2026; rewritten by a strike-everything amendment in House Commerce on February 17; Third Reading March 10, 2026, PASSED 36-19 with 4 not voting; a motion to reconsider that third reading, PASSED March 11; then a second Third Reading March 16, 2026, PASSED 37-14 with 8 not voting. Transmitted to the Senate March 16, first read there March 17, second read March 18, assigned to two Senate committees, and neither ever acted. Final disposition “Held in Senate.” No governor action. No chapter number.
So it is dead, and both halves matter. “It passed the House” is true and is why you keep seeing it cited. “It is law” is false. Its record links it to seven other bills, HB2430, HB2566, HB4002, SB1076, SB1084, SB1105 and SB1261, and all seven died in committee or in rules, none with a chapter number.
What it would actually have done, since this gets garbled too: two separate things, and almost everyone collapses them. Whether your city limited occupancy would have stayed the city's choice, because the language sits inside the list introduced by “A city or town may regulate vacation rentals or short-term rentals as follows:” at item 10. What the limit could be would not have been the city's choice. Item 10 reads “TO LIMIT THE MAXIMUM OCCUPANCY FOR AN OVERNIGHT STAY IN A VACATION RENTAL OR SHORT-TERM RENTAL THAT SHALL BE CALCULATED AS FOLLOWING:” and the calculation is fixed in the statute: “THE MAXIMUM OCCUPANCY... SHALL BE LIMITED TO TWO ADULTS PER SLEEPING AREA PLUS UP TO TWO ADDITIONAL PERSONS, NOT INCLUDING MINORS,” applying only to guests staying overnight. So a city could have declined to limit occupancy at all, and could not have chosen a different number. Comparable language covers counties, in unincorporated areas only.
Why we are being this exact: an earlier version of this page told you the bill “would set a statewide overnight occupancy standard,” which left out that no city was ever obliged to impose it. Then our own correction notes called that phrase flatly false, which went too far the other way, since the number really is fixed in state law. Both readings came from reading one piece of the provision instead of all of it.
Scope, honestly: that is HB2429 plus the seven bills its related-bills field reaches. We followed those one hop further, which reaches 26 more. Exactly three of those were signed into law and none of the three is a short-term rental law. This is not a search of every bill the 2026 session considered.
Source: Arizona Legislature bill status, HB2429 · HB2429 bill text (PDF)
Tennessee · Nashville
$313, non-transferable, and a mandatory year off the market if you skip it
The permit fee is $313.00, due when your application is approved, and the permit “is valid for 12 months from the time of approval.” It is not transferable: the city quotes its own code at 6.28.030.A.5.k and .B.5.k, “An STRP permit shall not be transferred or assigned to another individual, person, entity, or address.” The new online application process became effective March 11, 2026.
Renewal requires insurance: “A Short term rental permit may be renewed each year by submitting a $313.00 permit fee, proof of current property insurance, and proof of Hotel Occupancy Tax payment.” So Houston not requiring insurance tells you nothing about Nashville. Being careful here: we verified the renewal requirement and we have not checked what Nashville requires at initial application, so do not read this as renewal-only.
The number that hurts most: “Failure to register is equivalent to operating without a permit and will result in enforcement action, including citations, and a mandatory waiting period of one year before applying for a permit and beginning operation as a short term rental.”
Source: Metro Nashville Codes, STR FAQ · Metro Nashville Codes, Short Term Rentals
Florida · Cape Coral
The city publishes three different answers on what not registering costs, on one page
Registration became required effective January 1, 2026. Annual fees are $35 per property for long-term (more than six months) and $350 for short-term (six months or less). There is also a 6-night minimum stay for short-term rentals, which matters more than any fee here if you are deciding whether to list at all.
Now the contradiction, which we are not going to resolve for you. Asked “What happens if I don't register?”, the city answers “Failing to register will result in a $50 fine and referral to Code Compliance for enforcement.” Asked about misrepresenting your rental type, it answers that registering a short-term rental as long-term “(or not registering at all)” brings “First offense: $1,000” and “Repeat offenses within 36 months: $2,000.” And its own summary block gives a third version, dropping the 36-month window and adding a tier past the second: “Violations can result in a $1,000 for the first offense, a $2,000 for the second, and additional penalties for repeat offenses.” Three answers, one page. Assume the higher ones are possible and do not plan around the $50.
Separately, on late or repeat violations: long-term is $250 then $500, short-term is $500 then $1,000, and the city adds “Each day the violation continues counts as a separate offense” and “Penalties cannot be reduced by the Special Magistrate.”
One more conflict worth knowing: renewal runs from your own registration anniversary rather than January 1, but the city's two pages word it in opposite directions, one saying the date you last registered and the other the date you first registered. Check your own notice rather than either page.
Source: City of Cape Coral, Rental Property Registration · City of Cape Coral news release
What we have not checked: what Nashville requires at initial application, because we verified the renewal requirement only. The date Scottsdale's mayor approved Ordinance 4719, which A.R.S. § 19-142(B) also references. And any 2026 Arizona bill outside HB2429's own related-bills field and one hop beyond it. When we have not checked something, we say so rather than printing it.
Coverage limit, so nobody takes this for more than it is: four cities, not four states. Cape Coral, Houston, Nashville and Scottsdale. And these are the registration and penalty rules only. We have not covered zoning, occupancy caps, parking or state-level licensing here, any of which can matter more than a fee.