Nashville short-term rental permits: owner-occupied versus not, and where a whole-home rental is still legal

Sergej Sitki · founder of ReceptionGO and host
Published October 30, 2026 · 5 min read

General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change often and vary by state, county and city — confirm your situation with the local agency or a CPA.

Nashville requires a short-term rental property (STRP) permit before you advertise. An owner-occupied permit is only for a natural person who lives there — not an LLC, corporation or trust — and in most houses you may not advertise the entire home. A not-owner-occupied permit is for named commercial and mixed-use zones. New ones are not issued in ordinary residential zones (R, RS, RM, AR2A). Permits last a year.

Try ReceptionGO free for 30 days — no credit card required. →

Nashville’s short-term rental fight ended, for now, in a split. If you live in the house, you can host — with a permit, as a person rather than a company, and usually without advertising the whole place. If you do not live there, you can host only where the zoning is commercial or mixed-use, plus a shrinking set of older residential permits that die when the house is sold. The current ordinance is BL2024-478, in effect since November 12, 2024.

Which permit you can get

	Owner-occupied	Not owner-occupied
Who owns it	A natural person who lives there	Whoever is on the deed, matching the Register of Deeds
Where	Accessory use in residential zones that allow housing, with exceptions (not NS)	New permits only in listed mixed-use and commercial districts (MUN, MUL, MUG, MUI, OG, OR, ORI, CN, CL, CS, CA, CF, the DTC districts, SCN, SCC, SCR) and only if the SP or PUD allows it
Whole home	Do not advertise the entire home, except a legal ADU, accessory apartment, or qualifying two-family unit	The unit is not owner-occupied; still a single party, no more than four sleeping rooms
How many	One permit per lot in single-family and two-family zones	No new permits in AR2A, R, RS or RM

Two-family homes have an extra trap. Both units have to stay in the same ownership, one of them has to be your primary residence, and you record a covenant saying so before the permit is issued. You cannot condo-split the duplex, sell half, and keep the permit story.

A not-owner-occupied permit you already hold in a residential zone can be renewed. It cannot be handed to a buyer. If you are under contract on a “cash-flowing Airbnb” in a residential neighborhood, read the permit type before you read the pro forma.

The application

Metro Codes moved the application online on March 11, 2026. Owner-occupied applicants upload four documents proving they live there, and those documents have to match the deed. Applications are valid 90 days and then die. The permit itself lasts 365 days. Renewal emails go out at 60 and 45 days; they land in spam often enough that Metro tells you to check. Payment is what renews it, not the affidavit alone.

Every advertisement needs the permit number in a prominent place, or a legible image of the permit. “It’s in my profile bio” is not that.

Tax, which is a second account

Davidson County and the city collect hotel-motel tax on short stays, and Tennessee collects sales tax. A permit does not open the tax account, and a platform that remits one tax often does not remit the other. The habit to build is the same as everywhere else: know which line the platform paid, and file the rest. Start with the occupancy tax guide. A cabin in Sevier County is a different regime entirely — Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

Why permits get pulled

Nashville’s file is full of permits lost to advertising the whole house, to an owner who was not actually there, and to complaints. The permit conditions — single party, four sleeping rooms, the owner-occupied limits — only work if the guest sees them before arrival. Put occupancy and quiet hours in the check-in, not only in the listing you wrote in 2024. The national pattern of registration-plus-platform-checks is summarized in short-term rental laws by city.

From our own practiceThe entity question comes up every time someone has been told to “put the rental in an LLC”. In some cities that is a paperwork detail. In Nashville it decides which permit you can even apply for. Read the permit rule before you file the articles.

Frequently asked questions

Can I put the house in an LLC and still get an owner-occupied permit?

No. The owner has to be a natural person. LLCs, corporations, trusts, partnerships and joint ventures are ineligible for the owner-occupied permit. Holding the house in an LLC is a common insurance and liability move — see the insurance guide — and in Nashville it costs you this permit type. People solve that by owning in their own name, or by qualifying for a not-owner-occupied permit in a zone that allows it.

Can I rent the whole house while I travel?

Not on an owner-occupied permit, except for a legal detached accessory dwelling, a legal accessory apartment, or a two-family unit that meets the common-ownership rules. Advertising “entire home” on an ordinary owner-occupied house is itself a violation, even if you happen to be home.

I bought a house that already had a non-owner permit in a residential zone. Does it transfer?

No. Existing not-owner-occupied permits in AR2A, R, RS and RM may be renewed by the current holder. They are not transferable when the property is sold. Budget the purchase as if the permit dies at closing, unless the zoning itself allows a new one.

How do I know which permit my address can get?

Metro’s eligibility viewer answers it from the zoning. Specific-plan and planned-unit developments depend on the SP or PUD documents — Planning, not the STR office, reads those. Email [email protected] if the viewer and the deed disagree.

What is the current ordinance?

Ordinance BL2024-478, effective November 12, 2024, is the law Metro points to. The online application process itself changed on March 11, 2026. Fees and forms sit on nashville.gov; use those, not a screenshot from a Facebook group.

Try it free

30 days, no commitment and no credit card. Setup takes minutes, and we help you personally with the first steps.

Start free

Sources

Rules last checked on October 22, 2026.