Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement Unveils Streamlined Portal to Help Hosts More Easily Register Legal Short-Term Rentals to Comply With City Laws

Illegal Listing Face New Scrutiny as City Warns Hundreds of Hosts Conducting Illegal Activity, Plus Sends City’s First Notices of Intent to Revoke

NEW YORK – The Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) has entered the next step in its mission to protect the city’s housing market, by introducing new tools — and new enforcement — to help good-faith hosts comply with city laws and to stop bad-faith hosts from taking advantage of New Yorkers and visitors alike.

OSE launched an improved application portal that makes it easier for short-term (less than 30 days) rental hosts to track their applications. OSE also released a public dataset of short-term rental registrations and listings, which will allow guests to ensure they are staying with registered hosts — and allow members of the public to know when their neighbors are registered.

OSE noted that while the majority of registered hosts appear to be following the law, approximately 20 percent of registered listings have reverted to illegal activity — such as advertising entire homes or allowing bookings for more than two guests — in violation of the rules.

As a result, OSE issued warning emails to approximately 500 registered hosts notifying them they may be subject to inspections, fines, revocation of their registration, and denial of future renewals — while also offering resources for recipients to return their rentals into compliance. OSE also announced that it has begun a revocation program, sending Notice of Intent to Revoke letters to five registered hosts.

“We are committed to protecting New York City’s housing stock for the people who call this city home — not for those seeking to profit at the expense of our communities,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Illegal short-term rentals reduce the supply of permanent housing, drive up rents, and threaten the stability and affordability of our neighborhoods. The Office of Special Enforcement is making it easier for legal hosts to follow the rules, while holding accountable those who choose to violate them because this is a matter of housing justice. We will continue using every tool at our disposal to make our city more affordable, preserve neighborhood integrity, and ensure that New York City remains a place where working-class New Yorkers can live and thrive.”

“New York City is making it easier for short-term rental hosts to follow the rules — and taking the next step in stopping those who try to profit from deception and illegal activity,” said OSE Executive Director Christian Klossner. “We will continue to go out of our way to help hosts comply with the law – but we are moving on to a new stage of enforcement for those who do not.”

These coordinated steps mark a deepening of the city’s efforts to ensure that the short-term rental market operates within legal bounds and underscores the city’s readiness to use the full scope of its enforcement tools to protect New York City’s permanent housing supply from illegal conversion and profiteering.

About Local Law 18: New York City passed Local Law 18, also known as the Short-Term Rental Registration law, in 2022. The city opened its registration application process in March 2023, and began enforcing the law’s verification requirements in September 2023. The law requires short-term rental hosts to register with the Office of Special Enforcement (OSE), and conditions registration on following longstanding laws that prohibit the rental of entire apartments for fewer than 30 days at a time, limit short-term rentals to units where the host resides, and allow no more than two guests at a time.  It also requires online booking services to verify that listings are associated with a valid registration before allowing bookings. The law also requires OSE to deny registration requests for buildings on a prohibited buildings list, comprised of buildings whose owners notify OSE that short-term rentals are not allowed in their buildings.

About the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement: The Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE), positioned within the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ), is an innovative, solutions-oriented task force that ensures communities are safe from harmful, illegal, and unregulated industries that one agency and one set of enforcement tools alone can’t address. OSE’s multi-agency enforcement team devises strategic solutions to complex problems and is responsible for both the enforcement of laws and regulations on short-term residential rentals and the education of the public on these laws. For more information, visit nyc.gov/ose.

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MEDIA CONTACTS:
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