u/lisadavismph

The portal is live as of today (May 20).
Hosts in unincorporated DeKalb County now have a 30-day window to register before enforcement kicks in. If you have been putting this off, now is the time

A few things worth knowing before you apply.

Your 24-hour rental agent is not just a phone number on your listing. They need to be legally authorised to accept service of process on your behalf during every guest stay. That is a different standard than most people assume

Historic district properties cannot get a permit at all. Not delayed, not a variance. A flat exclusion. Check your parcel status before you do anything else

Do not assume Airbnb is handling your 8% local excise tax. Open your host dashboard and confirm it is specifically listed. If it is not there, you are personally responsible for collecting and remitting it by the 20th of each month

Any mention of events, weddings, or parties in your listing is grounds for permit revocation. Worth a quick audit before you submit

Also worth confirming: neighbourhood names and municipal boundaries do not always match in DeKalb.

If you are not certain whether your property falls in unincorporated county territory or inside a city limit, check the GIS parcel viewer or email STR@dekalbcountyga.gov before applying

Good luck, guys

EU Regulation 2024/1028 come into effect May 20
If you haven't looked into what it actually requires, here's the short version

Platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com are now required to collect host registration numbers, display them on listings, conduct random compliance checks, and transmit standardized monthly activity data to national government registries. The information gap that made quiet non-compliance possible is now closed

The strictest markets right now: Amsterdam has a 30-night annual cap with proposals to reduce it to 15. Barcelona is phasing out all 10,101 tourist apartment licenses by November 2028. Paris has a 120-night cap with fines up to 50,000 euros. Spain already fined Airbnb 64 million euros for advertising unlicensed rentals

Tourist taxes are also moving fast. Lisbon doubled its overnight tax to 4 euros in January 2025. Porto followed, and nine municipalities in the Azores and Madeira have introduced similar levies

Enforcement has already reduced STR supply by 18 to 30 percent in major EU cities

Worth noting for US operators watching this: California's SB 346 is essentially the same model, monthly platform data sharing with local governments. Europe is just further along in implementation

The ordinance has been in full effect since January 2026 and the final compliance deadline is May 20. That's 12 days away. If you are still operating without a permit in unincorporated DeKalb, now is the time to move.

What the ordinance actually requires:
- Permit from the County Business License Division before you rent a single night
- 24-hour designated agent contact (and they need to be able to accept legal service of process, not just pick up for noise complaints)
- Parking space details on your application
- Annual renewal
- 8% excise tax on every stay

Two things a lot of people are missing:

One, confirm you are actually in unincorporated DeKalb before applying. Properties in Decatur, Brookhaven or any incorporated city fall under completely different rules. The GIS parcel viewer on the county site takes 30 seconds to check.

Two, verify whether Airbnb is remitting that 8% tax for your market or whether it lands on you. Do not assume.

DeKalb is already cross-referencing platform listings against the registration database so the window to sort this quietly is closing fast.

Anyone been through the permit process here?
How long did it actually take?

Heads up for anyone operating in smaller or mid-size markets that have been regulation-free so far.

According to the 2024 State of the Short-Term Rental Industry Report (Rent Responsibly + College of Charleston, 5,000+ operators surveyed), more than 25 percent of US jurisdictions without an STR ordinance expected to enact one within 12 months. The report projected up to 8,746 jurisdictions could enact or update STR rules in a single 12-month window.

That is not a coastal-city thing anymore. Forest Park, Illinois had zero rules. Then residents showed up at a council meeting and an ordinance is now being drafted. Same story playing out in Columbia Falls, Montana and parts of South Florida.

The pattern is pretty consistent: no rules, then one neighbor complaint or one viral party incident, then a council vote, then enforcement. The window between zero rules and active enforcement is getting shorter.

Worth checking your local council agenda if you have not in a while.
Most cities post agendas 72 hours before meetings.

Hey folks,

Thinking about sharing regular content here around STR compliance
New registrations, tax changes, licensing deadlines, that kind of thing, across different markets

Before I start posting, wanted to check if that's actually useful to people here
Are there specific cities or topics you're always trying to track down info on?

Drop a comment, genuinely curious what you think