NYC Airbnb Registrations Backlog Grows as Rules Take Effect

Thousands of Airbnb listings may drop off the home-sharing market as enforcement of NYC’s short-term rental registration rules takes effect today, some because they are no longer eligible—but others because the city is far behind on processing a surge in applications from hosts.

Last month, a state Supreme Court judge dismissed Airbnb’s lawsuit seeking an injection to block New York City’s registration rules for short-term rentals, which requires Airbnb hosts to register with a database overseen by the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE).

OSE now is struggling to keep up with a surging backlog of registration applications required by Local Law 18. According to Skift, a travel publication, OSE so far has approved only 257 short-term rental host registrations out of 3,250 applications, Bloomberg reported. 

OSE has denied 72 applications and returned 479 to request additional information, the Skift report said. According to a report in Gothamist, OSE is operating with a staff of 28, half of its budgeted positions.

More than half of the applications were filed after State Supreme Court Justice Arlene Bluth last month dismissed a lawsuit Airbnb filed in June, Bloomberg reported. 

Under Local Law 18, passed in January 2022, Airbnb hosts registering with the OSE must submit diagrams of their homes and a list of who resides there, and prove they are abiding by zoning and safety regulations.

City officials said the law is aimed at landlords the city claims have been illegally collecting Airbnb booking fees for their properties. Officials estimate that nearly 10,000 short-term rentals are listed illegally.

Local Law 18 imposes penalties of up to $5,000. Airbnb is required to certify that all of the information provided by its hosts to NYC is accurate or be subject to fines of up to $1,500 per violation.

In its lawsuit, Airbnb said the requirements amounted to a “de facto ban” of the home-sharing platform in NYC “by requiring extensive and intrusive disclosures of personal information.

In her ruling, Bluth said the NYC had provided the firm with “a very simple way” to properly verify listings. “Airbnb has known about these rules for many months and has had ample opportunity to tell its hosts about these new rules and tell them to apply for a registration number,” Bluth said, in the ruling.

The registration requirements were enacted in the wake of a lawsuit filed by OSE to shut down what it called an illegal short-term rental operation being run by a licensed real estate broker in Turtle Bay.

The lawsuit was announced by Mayor Eric Adams, who said that “bad actors” have for several years “used fake host profiles on popular sites like Airbnb to deceive and lure unsuspecting guests into paying for substandard lodging at illegal rental listings.”

“We are sending a clear message that this kind of lawlessness will not be tolerated in our city. We are not going to stand by while shady brokers use illegal listings and fake host accounts to skirt the law and defraud consumers,” the mayor said.