New Data Released By The Office Of Special Enforcement Details How Many New Yorkers Are Complying With City’s Short-term Rental Laws In 2025 – And How Many Illegal Applications Have Been Denied, Returning Crucial Rental Inventory To The Housing Market.

Denied Applications Include Over 550 Rent-regulated Housing Units, Which Local Law 18 Prohibits From Being Used For Short-term Rentals.

Report Also Details How Legal Hosts Are Benefiting From New Streamlined Application And Registration Process.

 NEW YORK – The Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) announced the vast majority of New York City’s illegal short-term rental activity has been eradicated, two years after major booking companies started complying with the city’s Short-Term Rental Registration Law (also known as Local Law 18 of 2022, or LL18).

Compared to an estimated 60,000 illegal listings on major booking platforms in 2018 – and over 38,000 active listings at the beginning of 2023 on a single site – OSE reports there are now just 3,000 active short-term rental registrations in the city, representing tens of thousands of critical housing units protected for long-term New York renters.

The announcement is accompanied by the office’s annual report on LL18, which details how OSE approved 40% of registration applications received in the last year – with average review times shrinking to less than a week. The report also details how over 4,300 applications were not in compliance with the city’s decades-old short-term rental laws and required denial.

Because LL18 required online booking sites, beginning in 2023, to confirm registration before processing booking transactions, the online sites are now actively preventing illegal listings from being activated.

“With a vacancy rate of a mere 1.4 percent, New York City cannot afford to have housing units siphoned off for illegal short-term rentals,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Every unit of permanent housing saved is a unit that can house a New York City family. We’re the most pro-housing administration in city history and that’s because we continue to use every tool we’ve got to connect New Yorkers with homes as we make sure our city is the best place to raise a family.”

“Local Law 18 is about prevention – and it’s working,” said Christian J. Klossner, Executive Director of the Office of Special Enforcement. “It prevents online companies from processing illegal transactions, it prevents affordable units from being misused, it prevents tenants from breaking landlords’ rules, and it prevents homeowners from unknowingly breaking the city’s half-century-old short-term rental laws.”

Applicants are granted opportunities to correct deficiencies before a denial is issued, but nearly 3,000 applicants did not and had their application denied.  In addition, OSE rejected more than 550 applications to conduct short-term rentals in rent-regulated units, which is prohibited by Local Law 18.

Local Law 18 also established the Prohibited Buildings List, which now totals over 21,000 according to the new report.  OSE cannot grant registrations to units in a prohibited building because they are either subject to rent regulation, they are owned by NYCHA, or the buildings’ bylaws prohibit short-term rentals.

OSE has long maintained a goal of compliance first, working with online booking services to ensure they can verify registration status, and working with applicants to help them offer only legal short-term rentals. Nonetheless, in 2025, OSE filed its first lawsuit using new penalties created by Local Law 18 to reclaim 10 apartments in Manhattan’s West Village.

The Office of Special Enforcement’s FY25 annual report on the Short-Term Rental Registration Law is available to the public and can be downloaded at: https://www.nyc.gov/assets/specialenforcement/downloads/excel/Short_Term_Rental_Registration_Report_FY25.xlsx

About Local Law 18
Since the late 1960s, New York City’s laws have restricted rentals of less than 30 days in homes to two guests staying with permanent occupants. OSE estimates that by 2018, as many as 18,000 units of permanent housing were being used as illegal short-term rentals. In 2022, Local Law 18 created a new registration and verification program to protect New York City’s housing stock. The law: 1) requires hosts to register with OSE and operate the rentals in compliance with the city’s existing laws;  2) prohibits registration for rent-regulated and NYCHA units; 3) created a mechanism to prevent registrations from being issued in buildings where short-term rentals are prohibited by the owner; and 4) mandates that booking services verify the status of a registration before processing transactions. More than 3,000 host registrations have been granted, and more than 14,000 property owners and managers have placed their buildings on the prohibited list. The full text of Local Law 18 can be found online at https://www.nyc.gov/assets/specialenforcement/downloads/pdfs/LL18-of-2022.pdf and downloaded as a PDF.

About the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement
The Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) is an innovative task force that addresses public safety and quality-of-life issues related to illegal and unregulated industries. The multi-agency team is currently comprised of legal, inspection, and investigation team members from the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (which oversees OSE), the Law Department, the Department of Buildings, the Fire Department, and the Sheriff’s Offices. The office’s main focus has been preserving New York City’s housing stock, which has a vacancy rate of 1.4%. OSE also conducts illegal massage parlor inspections and has handled enforcement of an array of special projects, such as closing counterfeit product bazaars and overseeing programs to ensure compliance with COVID-era health and consumer protections. For more information, visit nyc.gov/ose.

###

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Noah Pransky, [email protected]
Bonnie Huie, [email protected]