Connecticut HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026

Section 1: Overview — Can an HOA restrict short-term rentals in Connecticut?

A Connecticut association's authority to restrict short-term rentals comes from the recorded declaration, backstopped by the Common Interest Ownership Act, CIOA. The central wrinkle: a newly adopted rental restriction can't pass unless a supermajority approves it and it provides reasonable protection for uses that were permitted when it was adopted.¹ CIOA, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-200 et seq., is the unified statute governing condominiums and planned communities created on or after January 1, 1984.⁴ Connecticut adopted the 2008 amendments to the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act through Public Act 09-225, effective July 1, 2010, and its use-and-occupancy amendment provision, § 47-236(f), requires an 80% vote and reasonable protection for existing uses.¹² Apart from that provision, Connecticut doesn't appear to limit an association's rental authority by statute, in contrast to states that cap such authority directly.³ Local zoning and the room occupancy tax are owner-facing layers that regulate or tax the owner, not the association.⁸ Connecticut runs as a UCIOA state that adopted the 2008 amendments, so its principal statutory touch on rentals is the owner-protection embedded in the amendment vote.¹² The sections below lay out the framework, the operational mechanics, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The legal framework for HOA short-term rental restrictions

2A. The CIOA framework and the source of rental authority

CIOA, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-200 et seq. (Chapter 828), forms a unified statute. It governs the creation, alteration, management, termination, and sale of condominiums, cooperatives, and planned communities created in Connecticut on or after January 1, 1984, and § 47-214 provides that the older Chapter 825 doesn't apply to condominiums created on or after that date.⁴ Connecticut doesn't maintain separate modern condominium and planned-community statutes — the same chapter reaches both forms. Condominiums created before January 1, 1984 remain governed by the older Condominium Act, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-68a et seq. (Chapter 825), and predecessor unit-ownership law, except that § 47-216 lists specified CIOA sections that apply to pre-1984 communities to the extent necessary to construe them, without invalidating existing provisions of those communities' declarations, bylaws, surveys, or plans.¹³ The recorded declaration is the primary source of authority on rentals; CIOA operates as a backstop and, in some places, a limit. CIOA requires that any restrictions on leasing that exceed what boards may impose by law be contained in the declaration, § 47-224(a)(12).¹⁴ The practical distinction that matters most separates authority over ordinary long-term leasing — broadly a matter for the declaration — from authority over short-term or transient rentals, which associations increasingly target through minimum-lease-term provisions written into the declaration.

2B. Amendments and the 2008 owner-protection provision

An association that wants to add or strengthen a rental restriction after the community is built almost always must amend the declaration. General amendments require the vote or agreement of unit owners holding at least 67% of the votes, unless the declaration sets a different figure, § 47-236(a).³ A rental restriction usually rises to a higher bar: § 47-236(f) provides that an amendment that "prohibit[s] or materially restrict[s] the permitted uses or occupancy of a unit or the number or other qualifications of persons who may occupy units" requires the vote or agreement of owners holding at least 80% of the votes, and it adds that such an amendment "must provide reasonable protection for a use or occupancy permitted at the time the amendment was adopted."³ This is Connecticut's version of the 2008 UCIOA owner-protection concept, adopted through Public Act 09-225 effective July 1, 2010.¹² Connecticut didn't adopt the verbatim UCIOA mechanism under which a restriction never binds a non-consenting owner until transfer; instead, it built owner protection into the vote threshold and the "reasonable protection" clause. The upshot for grandfathering runs as a rule of degree rather than a bright line: an association can adopt a short-term-rental restriction with an 80% vote, but the amendment must shield uses that were lawful when it passed, which typically means protecting owners who were already renting. No Connecticut Appellate Court or Supreme Court decision within the past three years construes § 47-236(f) as applied to leasing restrictions, so the statutory text and the recorded declaration remain the controlling references.¹⁵ Apart from § 47-236(f) and the rule-making limits discussed below, Connecticut doesn't appear to cap association rental authority by statute — it runs as a declaration-driven regime.³

2C. State law, the room occupancy tax, and the local layer

Connecticut has no statewide statute preempting local short-term-rental regulation. To the contrary, Public Act 24-143, effective October 1, 2024, expressly authorizes any municipality, by vote of its legislative body, to adopt an ordinance requiring the licensure of short-term rental properties and regulating their operation and use, and to engage consultants to help develop such an ordinance.² A separate owner-facing layer is the room occupancy tax. Connecticut has imposed a dual room occupancy tax structure since October 1, 2017, and the Department of Revenue Services applies the tax to the short-term rental of all or part of a home at 15 percent — 11 percent for bed and breakfasts — for occupancy of 30 consecutive days or less. Under Public Act 19-117, §§ 329-330, effective October 1, 2019, qualifying rental facilitators, those facilitating at least $250,000 in sales over the prior 12 months, must collect and remit the tax, and Airbnb has collected Connecticut room occupancy tax under a June 2016 agreement with the Department.⁸ Local zoning regulates the owner-to-government relationship and neither confers nor removes association authority. Towns take different approaches: Groton's Planning and Zoning Commission approved short-term-rental regulations, application REGA23-0001, on April 9, 2024, effective May 15, 2024. The ordinance defines a short-term rental as 30 days or less, requires the owner's primary residence on site for STRs in residential zones, caps the number per lot, bans them in single-unit residential zones, and requires one off-street parking space per bedroom, with existing STRs grandfathered; other towns regulate by ordinance or not at all.¹⁶ Because the two systems run independent, an owner who satisfies local zoning may still violate the governing documents, and an owner who complies with the declaration may still need a municipal permit.

Section 3: Operational mechanics and enforcement

Adopting a valid restriction (the tools)

The most common tool is a minimum-lease-term provision in the declaration — a floor of 30 days or more, say — which functions as a short-term-rental ban without singling out any platform. Because such a provision restricts a permitted use, adopting it by amendment triggers the 80% vote and the reasonable-protection clause of § 47-236(f).³ Rental caps by percentage of units may be written into the declaration, and CIOA also lets an executive board restrict leasing by rule, but only in a narrow lane: § 47-261b(f)(3) permits rules that restrict leasing to the extent reasonably designed to meet the underwriting requirements of institutional lenders, and any such restriction stays unenforceable unless notice is recorded on the land records of each town where the community sits.⁶ Leasing restrictions that exceed what boards may impose by rule must appear in the declaration, § 47-224(a)(12).¹⁴ An association may also impose internal registration, owner-information, and lease-filing requirements to administer whatever restriction is in force, bounded by the reasonable-protection principle where a new restriction reaches existing uses.

Enforcement

Before an association levies a fine for a rental violation, § 47-244(a)(11) permits reasonable fines only "after notice and opportunity to be heard," and CIOA generally requires the board to schedule a hearing before bringing an action or proceeding against a unit owner, with exceptions for immediate and irreparable harm and for foreclosing an assessment lien.⁹ Available remedies run cumulative: reasonable fines under § 47-244(a)(11); enforcement action, including a suit for injunctive relief, under § 47-244(g); and a statutory lien on the unit for assessments and fines, enforceable by foreclosure in the same manner as a mortgage, under § 47-258.¹⁰ These remedies are default statutory rules; the governing documents may set fine schedules and add detail, but they can't dispense with the notice-and-hearing requirement, which CIOA doesn't permit waiving. Association enforcement runs on a track separate from local-government enforcement: a town's zoning enforcement officer or STR-permit administrator can cite an owner independently of anything the association does, and vice versa.¹⁶

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

B. Recent appellate rulings

No Connecticut Appellate Court or Supreme Court decision within the past 36 months directly addresses the enforceability of a CIOA declaration-based or rule-based rental restriction, or the application of § 47-236(f) to leasing.¹⁵

C. Active legislative or local debates

Following PA 24-143, additional Connecticut towns have moved to draft or refine STR ordinances. As of February 2024, only 12 towns — Ashford, Bozrah, Bridgeport, Canton, Chester, Greenwich, Hartford, Ledyard, Lyme, Preston, Simsbury, and Stonington — had expressly regulated STRs by ordinance or zoning, and East Lyme's Ad Hoc Short-Term Rental Committee held a public hearing on its draft report on February 25, 2025 before presenting recommendations to the Board of Selectmen.¹⁸

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Connecticut occupies a distinct place among the ways states handle short-term rentals and associations. It runs as a UCIOA state that adopted the 2008 amendments, so its principal statutory touch on rentals is the owner-protection built into § 47-236(f): a use or occupancy amendment needs an 80% vote and must provide reasonable protection for uses permitted when it was adopted.³ That posture differs from states that limit HOA rental authority directly, such as California and Arizona, and from 1982-anchored UCIOA states such as Alaska, where the 2008 transfer-based owner protection generally doesn't apply.¹² Local zoning and the room occupancy tax restrain or tax owners, not associations, whose rental authority is set by the declaration and CIOA.⁸ For a multi-state operator entering Connecticut, the practical implication: rental authority runs declaration-driven with a 2008-style owner-protection overlay applied at the amendment stage.³

HOA Weekly's Connecticut Short-Term Rentals coverage updates quarterly as the General Assembly, the Connecticut Appellate Court and Supreme Court, and local governments act. Federal frameworks — the Fair Housing Act, the ADA, the FDCPA, the SCRA, and OTARD — also apply to Connecticut associations regardless of the state framework.

Footnotes

1. Conn. Gen. Stat. Chapter 828, Common Interest Ownership Act, § 47-200 et seq. ↩
2. Conn. Office of Legislative Research, Acts Affecting Housing (2024-R-0100), describing PA 24-143, § 7. ↩
3. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-236(a) and (f), Amendment of declaration or bylaws. ↩
4. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-214, Applicability of chapter to common interest communities. ↩
5. Conn. Dept. of Revenue Services, Room Occupancy Tax Information (30 consecutive days or less). ↩
6. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-261b(f)(3), Rules (leasing restrictions and recording requirement). ↩
7. Conn. Dept. of Revenue Services, Room Occupancy Tax registration requirements. ↩
8. Conn. Office of Legislative Research, Room Occupancy Tax Rates on Hotels, B&Bs, and Short-Term Rentals (2019-R-0276); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 12-407(a)(2)(H) and § 12-408(1)(B); PA 19-117, §§ 329-330. ↩
9. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-244(a)(11), Powers and duties of unit owners' association (fines after notice and opportunity to be heard). ↩
10. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-244(g) and § 47-258, enforcement action and lien for assessments and other sums due. ↩
11. Conn. Judicial Branch, Supreme and Appellate Courts overview. ↩
12. Public Act 09-225, An Act Concerning Amendments to the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (effective July 1, 2010). ↩
13. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-216, Applicability to preexisting common interest communities. ↩
14. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-224(a)(12), Contents of declaration (leasing restrictions). ↩
15. Conn. Judicial Branch, Connecticut Law About Condominiums (case index). ↩
16. Conn. Office of Legislative Research, Municipal Regulation of Short-Term Rentals in Connecticut (2024-R-0044); Town of Groton, Short Term Rentals (Planning & Development Services). ↩
17. Wihbey v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the Pine Orchard Association, 350 Conn. 87, 323 A.3d 324 (2024), Conn. Judicial Branch summary. ↩
18. Conn. Office of Legislative Research, Municipal Regulation of Short-Term Rentals in Connecticut (2024-R-0044). ↩