Idaho HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026.

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

An Idaho association's authority to restrict short-term rentals comes primarily from the recorded declaration, but that authority is now sharply limited by statute: Idaho Code § 55-3211 bars a homeowner's association from adding, amending, or enforcing any covenant that limits or prohibits renting a property "for any amount of time" unless the affected owner agrees in writing at the time the restriction is adopted.¹ For condominiums, the governing framework is the Idaho Condominium Property Act (§ 55-1501 et seq.), a traditional, non-uniform statute that leaves use and rental rules to the recorded declaration.² For planned communities, no comprehensive statute exists; authority rests on the recorded CC&Rs, the Idaho Nonprofit Corporation Act, common law, and the scattered provisions of the Homeowner's Association Act (Title 55, Chapter 32), which contains § 55-3211.³ A separate state preemption, Idaho Code § 67-6539, prevents counties and cities from prohibiting short-term rentals, but it restrains local governments, not private associations.⁴ The single most important point for boards: § 55-3211 makes rental restrictions consent-based rather than vote-based — a majority or supermajority amendment doesn't bind an owner who didn't sign.¹ Local STR registration and the state lodging tax stand as owner-facing obligations that operate independently of the governing documents. The sections below lay out the statutory framework, the operational mechanics, and the recent legislative and judicial activity that shape compliance.

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

2A. The condominium statute and the thin planned-community framework

Idaho runs as a thin-framework, non-UCIOA state. Condominiums fall under the Idaho Condominium Property Act, Title 55, Chapter 15, first enacted in 1965.² It's a traditional condominium statute, not a uniform act, so its defaults shouldn't be assumed to match modern uniform-act provisions. The Act specifies the required contents of a declaration, § 55-1505, the administration and bylaws, § 55-1506, and unit use and common areas, § 55-1509, but it doesn't itself impose rental caps, minimum lease terms, or owner-protection defaults beyond what the declaration contains.²

Planned communities, non-condominium HOAs, have no single comprehensive Idaho statute. They answer to the recorded CC&Rs, the Idaho Nonprofit Corporation Act (Title 30, Chapter 30), common law, and the Homeowner's Association Act (Title 55, Chapter 32), which the Legislature assembled in 2022 from previously scattered provisions.³ In both community types, the recorded declaration is the primary source of any rental authority. A distinction matters throughout: authority over long-term leasing — screening tenants, requiring written leases, setting minimum terms measured in months — runs analytically separate from authority over short-term or transient rentals — nightly and weekly stays booked through platforms. Idaho's § 55-3211 reaches both, since it applies to a restriction on rental "for any amount of time."¹

2B. Idaho's statutory treatment of HOA rental authority and grandfathering

Idaho does limit HOA rental authority by statute, which places it closer to California and Arizona than to purely declaration-driven states. The operative provision, Idaho Code § 55-3211, titled "Prohibited Conduct — Rental Restrictions," provides that no homeowner's association may add, amend, or enforce any covenant "in such a way that limits or prohibits the rental, for any amount of time, of any property," unless the owner of the affected property "expressly agreed to in writing at the time of such addition or amendment."¹ A second sentence preserves enforcement of transfer restrictions that already "applied to the property at the time the homeowner acquired his interest."¹ The provision originated as § 55-115(3) in 2016, enacted in response to the Idaho Supreme Court's decision in Adams v. Kimberley One Townhouse Owner's Association, and got recodified as § 55-3211 by the 2022 Homeowner's Association Act (2022 Session Laws, ch. 323, sec. 4).⁵

The practical effect: a board can't use a majority or supermajority amendment vote to impose a rental restriction on a dissenting owner. Written consent from each affected owner is required at the time of adoption. On grandfathering, the Idaho Supreme Court resolved the central interpretive question in North Henry's Lake Homeowners Association v. Norton, decided January 6, 2026. The Court held: "we hold that Idaho Code section 55-3211 unambiguously prohibits a homeowner's association from adding a rental restriction to any property within its jurisdiction unless the property owner expressly agrees in writing to that restriction at the time it is added."⁶ The Court read the statute as protecting the property, not merely the consenting owner: if the owner at the time a restriction is added doesn't consent in writing, the restriction never encumbers that parcel, and it can't be enforced against later purchasers even if they took title with record notice of the recorded CC&Rs.⁶ The affected Fremont County parcel's 2016 owner, C&L Lee, L.C., voted "no" on the amendment and never gave written consent; the defendant homeowners, as successors in interest to C&L Lee, L.C., took the property free of the restriction, and the District Court of the Seventh Judicial District's summary judgment in their favor was affirmed.⁶

On amendment thresholds, condominiums operate under § 55-1505(1)(k), which provides that a declaration amendment made on the vote or consent of more than 50% of the voting power binds every owner.⁷ Planned communities amend under the declaration's own clause. In either case, § 55-3211 overlays a separate, more demanding requirement for rental restrictions specifically. Whether § 55-3211 reaches condominiums remains unresolved: the Chapter 32 definition of "homeowner's association" turns on ownership-based membership and lien authority, which most condominium associations have, but several companion definitions in § 55-3203 are keyed to a "residential subdivision" rather than a condominium "project," and no Idaho court has decided the point.³ The conservative course for a condominium board treats the individual-written-consent rule as applicable.

2C. State preemption, lodging tax, and the local layer

Idaho Code § 67-6539 prohibits any county or city from enacting or enforcing an ordinance with the express or practical effect of prohibiting short-term rentals.⁴ House Bill 583, signed March 16, 2026 and effective July 1, 2026, significantly expanded the provision, reclassifying short-term rentals as a "non-transient residential use" for zoning and building-code purposes and barring local governments from imposing "different restrictions or obligations" than apply to single-family dwellings.⁸ As amended, the statute permits only narrow safety regulations — smoke alarms, a fire extinguisher and carbon monoxide detector on each floor, escape ladders, occupancy limits tied to the International Building Code, and a guest information handout — and prohibits any license, fee, permit, certification, or registration to operate an STR.⁴ One subsection bars a county or city from enforcing "any covenant, condition, restriction, or contract that regulates a short-term rental," but this addresses local-government action; it doesn't touch a private association's declaration-based authority, which flows from § 55-3211 and the governing documents.⁴

Short-term lodging gets taxed regardless of association rules. Idaho imposes a 6% state sales tax and a 2% Travel and Convention Tax on lodging rented for 30 days or fewer, with an auditorium or community-center district tax where applicable.^9,10 The auditorium/community-center district tax runs 5% within the Greater Boise, Idaho Falls, and Pocatello/Chubbuck districts, per the Idaho State Tax Commission.¹⁰ Resort cities layer local option taxes on top: Ketchum imposes a 3% local option tax "on room sales (including short-term rentals of less than 30 days)" under Ordinance No. 712, and Sun Valley collects a 4% local option tax on rentals under 30 days.^11,12 These tax and registration duties run between the owner and the government. An owner who satisfies every local registration and tax obligation may still violate the governing documents — by renting where the owner did expressly consent to a valid restriction, say — and an owner who complies with the CC&Rs may still owe unpaid lodging tax. The two systems run independent.

Section 3: Operational mechanics and enforcement

A. Adopting a valid restriction (the tools)

The most common mechanism, a minimum-lease-term covenant — no lease shorter than 30 days or six months, say — is fully available in Idaho only prospectively or by consent. Because § 55-3211 reaches any restriction that limits rental "for any amount of time," a board that wants to add a minimum-term or short-term-rental ban must obtain the written consent of each affected owner at adoption; owners who don't sign, and their successors, aren't bound.¹ A restriction already in the declaration when an owner acquired the property remains enforceable against that owner.⁶

Rental caps by percentage of units answer to the same constraint: a cap "limits" rental and therefore triggers the consent requirement rather than the ordinary amendment vote. For condominiums, the general amendment mechanic is the more-than-50% vote of § 55-1505(1)(k), but that vote doesn't override § 55-3211's consent overlay for rental restrictions.⁷ Associations retain the ability to impose internal administrative requirements that don't "limit or prohibit" renting, such as registering rental units, filing lease copies, and providing tenant contact information, provided the governing documents authorize them and they aren't a disguised prohibition.

B. Enforcement

For planned communities, the Homeowner's Association Act imposes a due-process sequence before any fine. Under § 55-3206, fine authority must be clearly set forth in the covenants; a majority board vote is required; the member must receive written notice by personal service or certified mail at least 30 days before the meeting at which the fine is considered; and no fine may be imposed if the member begins resolving the violation in good faith.¹³ The Condominium Property Act doesn't impose this specific procedure, so condominium fine procedure answers to the declaration and bylaws.²

Remedies include fines, injunctive relief, and liens. A planned-community association may record and enforce an assessment lien for common-area maintenance costs under § 55-3207.¹⁴ A condominium association may enforce its assessment lien under § 55-1518.¹⁵ Injunctive relief stands as the standard remedy for an ongoing covenant violation, and in North Henry's Lake the association sought exactly that before losing on the statutory-consent question.⁶ Association enforcement runs in parallel with, and separate from, any local-government enforcement of the narrow safety rules still permitted under § 67-6539; a valid CC&R restriction can be enforced by the association even where local government cannot act.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No other bill enacted in the past 24 months amended the Condominium Property Act, the Homeowner's Association Act's rental provision, or STR taxation.

B. Recent rulings

Adams v. Kimberley One Townhouse Owner's Association, Inc., 158 Idaho 770, 352 P.3d 492 (2015), the earlier decision upholding a rental amendment under general covenant law, prompted the 2016 statute; it now carries limited force since § 55-3211 changed the governing rule.⁵

C. Active legislative or local debates

Resort cities are revising ordinances to conform to HB 583 before July 1, 2026, with Sandpoint and Driggs among those repealing density caps and permit structures; the Idaho Supreme Court's 2025 decision striking down the City of Lava Hot Springs' residential-zone STR ban reinforced that a functional prohibition is unlawful under § 67-6539.¹⁷ These debates concern local-government authority and don't alter association rights under § 55-3211.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Idaho preempts local short-term-rental bans through § 67-6539, as Florida and Arizona do, while leaving association authority primarily to the recorded declaration. Unlike states that never touch HOA rental authority, though, Idaho also limits associations directly: § 55-3211 requires the affected owner's written consent before a rental restriction can attach, a protection the Idaho Supreme Court read broadly in favor of property owners in 2026. This places Idaho alongside California (Civil Code § 4741) and Arizona (A.R.S. § 33-1806.01) as a state that constrains HOA rental authority by statute, though Idaho's mechanism — individual consent — differs from the grandfathering-and-cap models used elsewhere. The § 67-6539 preemption and any surviving local registration restrain local governments and owners, not associations; a board's authority to restrict rentals stays unaffected by what a city may or may not require. For a multi-state operator entering Idaho, the practical implication: authority runs declaration-driven and consent-gated, sitting atop a traditional condominium statute and a thin planned-community framework with no dedicated state HOA or STR regulator.

HOA Weekly's Idaho Short-Term Rentals coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature, the Idaho appellate courts, and local governments act. Federal frameworks — the Fair Housing Act, the ADA, the FDCPA, the SCRA, and OTARD — also apply to Idaho associations regardless of the state framework.

Footnotes

1. Idaho Code § 55-3211, Prohibited Conduct — Rental Restrictions ↩
2. Idaho Condominium Property Act, Title 55, Chapter 15 (§ 55-1501 et seq.) ↩
3. Idaho Code § 67-6539, Limitations on Regulation of Short-Term Rentals ↩
4. North Henry's Lake Homeowners Association, Inc. v. Norton, Docket No. 51990 (Idaho, Jan. 6, 2026) ↩
5. Idaho Homeowner's Association Act, Title 55, Chapter 32; § 55-3203 definitions ↩
6. Idaho Code § 55-1505(1)(k), Contents of Declaration (amendment vote) ↩
7. Idaho Code § 55-3206, Violations — Due Process and Notice — Limitation on Fines ↩
8. Idaho Code § 55-3207, Homeowner's Association Liens ↩
9. Idaho Code § 55-1518, condominium assessment lien (Condominium Property Act) ↩
10. Idaho State Tax Commission, Lodging: Basics (30-day threshold, 6% sales tax) ↩
11. Idaho State Tax Commission, Travel and Convention Tax (2%); auditorium/community-center district tax (5%) ↩
12. House Bill 583 (2026), Short-term rentals, regulations ↩
13. City of Ketchum, Local Option Tax (3% on room sales, Ordinance No. 712) ↩
14. Idaho Mountain Express, Sun Valley 4% local option tax on rentals under 30 days ↩
15. Adams v. Kimberley One Townhouse Owner's Association, Inc., 158 Idaho 770 (2015) ↩
16. BoiseDev, coverage of HB 583 and City of Lava Hot Springs STR litigation ↩
17. Rent Responsibly, "Idaho governor signs bill limiting local restrictions on short-term rentals" (March 2026) ↩