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Western Australia’s short-term rental register: the number on the ad, and the Perth 90-night exemption

Sergej Sitki · founder of ReceptionGO and host
Published 30 October 2026 · 9 min read

General information, not legal, tax or insurance advice. Check your own case with your council, the ATO or the state revenue office, or an accountant. Rates and dates below were checked on the date shown — recheck the linked official page before you lodge, register or set a price from them.

Since 1 January 2025 a WA short-term rental must be registered before it is advertised, and the number must be on the ad. There is no statewide night cap. In Perth, unhosted stays past 90 nights in the registration year need development approval. Hosted stays do not. You enter direct bookings yourself.

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Western Australia built the register NSW-style operators will recognise, and then made a different choice about nights. You cannot advertise until the property is registered. You are not, by that fact, limited to a fixed number of nights. In Perth, the 90-night mark is a planning line: under it, an unhosted place can run without a development approval; over it, the approval has to exist. Confusing the two is how a spare room and an investment unit get the same wrong advice.

What has to be registered

The test in the FAQ is plain. A residential premises let for periods of less than three months, whether you live there or not, and whether or not you need development approval, goes on the register. Hosted means the host lives on site. Unhosted means the guest has the house, unit or apartment to themselves.

The inclusion table on the department’s site names houses, townhouses, apartments, bed and breakfasts, and ancillary dwellings such as granny flats. A granny flat is hosted if you live in the main house on the lot. If both the house and the granny flat are let, both are unhosted and both are registered separately.

The exclusion table is just as important for anyone running a traditional property. Hotels, wholly managed serviced apartments, wholly managed tourist and visitor complexes — the page gives farm stays, motels and chalets as examples — caravan parks and camping grounds under the Caravan Parks and Camping Grounds Act, and canvas glamping without plumbing or a kitchen, are not STRA for this register. A Margaret River house on Stayz is not a motel. A licensed holiday park is not a house. If the operation is half and half, use the table and then ring the STRA line on 1300 304 054 rather than picking the row you prefer.

Register before the listing goes up

The owner or tenant starts the registration. A manager can complete it once they are assigned, which is the only workable version for anyone with a portfolio. You record whether development approval is granted (and the number), lodged, refused, not obtained, or unnecessary because the zone permits the use. Registration is not itself the planning approval. The FAQ is explicit that failing to get a DA where one is required can lead to suspension or cancellation.

From 1 January 2025 the number goes on every advertisement, where a guest can see it, and it has to be the number for that premises. Penalties apply to prohibited advertisements. Renewal is 12 months from the day registration is completed, with reminders beforehand.

The public can check that a number is real. They cannot browse your phone number. There is a heat map of how many registered premises sit in an area. Assume a neighbour can check the number on your Stayz listing against the register, because that is what the system is for.

Ninety nights, and only in one situation

Planning policy, updated on the department’s site on 5 January 2026, says the reforms do not cap the number of nights if the approvals are in place. The Perth metropolitan exemption is narrower: unhosted STRA of 90 nights or fewer in the registration year does not need development approval. The nights need not be consecutive. The register sends a courtesy reminder at 80 and at 90. If you always meant to let most of the year, get the DA first rather than treating 90 as a target you will “sort out in spring”.

Hosted STRA does not need planning approval anywhere in Western Australia. Regional councils decide for themselves when an unhosted property needs a DA from night one. A rule of thumb copied from a Perth Facebook group is how a Denmark or Broome property gets an angry letter from the shire.

In August 2025 the government said metropolitan councils had to require a development application for unhosted STRA over 90 nights, and that about 11,600 premises were registered at that time. The 11,600 figure is a point-in-time media number, not a current census. The live picture is the register.

Direct bookings are the gap in the data

Airbnb, Stayz/Vrbo and Booking.com pass booking events to the register. A booking you take by phone, email or your own site does not, until you enter it. Private blocks do not count, which is correct and also a temptation to “block” a stay that was actually a mate with a bank transfer. The exemption is monitored from booking transactions. Enter the real direct stays. A channel manager does not lodge the form for you; it does stop the direct stay and the Airbnb stay occupying the same weekend, which is the other way the night count goes wrong.

Strata, safety, and the things the register does not check

The register’s job, in the department’s words, is to gather information. Hand over what is asked and you are registered. Smoke alarms are still the law; the register is not your certifier. Councils use the data to do their own enforcement. A strata by-law that prohibits short stays can sink the registration even after the number is issued. Insurance that excludes paying guests is your problem on the night something burns, not the register’s. Those pieces are in fire safety, pools and insurance and, for the by-law, strata.

A guest who stays more than three months may be outside this Act and inside the Residential Tenancies Act. The FAQ tells you to get advice on that arrangement rather than stretching a holiday booking.

For the other states — NSW’s real cap, Victoria’s levy, Queensland’s councils — use the national comparison.