Massachusetts HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026

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

A Massachusetts condominium can restrict or prohibit short-term rentals, but the restriction generally must appear in the recorded master deed (or the recorded bylaws), because a restriction resting only in board-adopted rules generally will not bind unit owners as to conduct within the units; a planned community does so through recorded covenants, subject to statutory duration limits. Condominiums are governed by the Massachusetts Condominium Act, G.L. c. 183A, an enabling statute enacted in 1963 under which a condominium is created by recording a master deed and is managed by an organization of unit owners that most commonly takes the form of a trust, with a declaration of trust, a board of trustees, and trustees.³⁴ Non-condominium planned communities have no comprehensive Massachusetts statute; rental restrictions there are covenants running with the land, subject to the duration and enforcement limits of G.L. c. 184, §§ 26 to 30.⁸ Separately, the Commonwealth taxes and registers short-term rentals: Chapter 337 of the Acts of 2018 extended the room occupancy excise to stays of fewer than 31 days, created a state registry administered by the Department of Revenue, and imposed a liability-insurance requirement on operators, while expressly enabling, rather than preempting, local regulation.¹⁰¹²¹⁵ Contested real-property and enforcement actions proceed through the Superior Court or the Land Court, with appeal to the Appeals Court and further review by the Supreme Judicial Court.¹⁹ The sections that follow set out the governing framework, the mechanics of adopting and enforcing a restriction, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

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

The Condominium Act and trust governance

The Massachusetts Condominium Act, G.L. c. 183A, was enacted in 1963 and is an old, enabling statute rather than a modern comprehensive code; it is not based on the Uniform Condominium Act, and it leaves much of the substance of condominium governance to the recorded documents.³ Massachusetts appellate courts describe it as an enabling statute that sets a framework and allows planning flexibility beyond the statutory minimums.² A condominium is created by recording a master deed, which must state the use restrictions, if any, to which the units are subject (§ 8).⁴ The organization of unit owners may take one of three forms under § 10: a trust, a corporation, or an unincorporated association.²⁰ The trust form has historically predominated; where it is used, the governing instrument is a declaration of trust (which contains the bylaws), the governing body is the board of trustees, and its members are trustees, not directors.²¹ Multi-state operators should note this vocabulary, because it differs from the "declaration" and "board of directors" terminology common in other states.

The source of an association's authority to restrict rentals is the master deed and the trust documents, not a statutory grant of substantive rental control. There is no dedicated statewide regulator of condominiums; the Commonwealth itself states that it has no jurisdiction or regulatory oversight over condominiums, which are governed by their documents and c. 183A.²² Nothing in Massachusetts law prohibits a condominium from restricting or banning rentals, and the analysis is the same in principle whether the target is long-term leasing or short-term, transient rentals; what matters is where the restriction is located and how it was adopted.⁷ Because "short-term" has no statewide statutory definition binding associations, a restriction must define its own trigger, for example a minimum lease term, in the documents.

Locating and adopting a rental restriction, plus the chapter 184 limits

The most error-prone point in Massachusetts practice is the master-deed location rule. Under c. 183A and long-standing case law, a restriction on the use of units, including a rental restriction, generally must appear in the recorded master deed or the recorded bylaws to bind unit owners; a restriction resting only in board-adopted rules and regulations reaches the common areas but generally cannot regulate conduct within the units.¹⁷ Section 8 requires the master deed to state use restrictions, and § 11(e) provides that use restrictions not set forth in the master deed belong in the bylaws.⁴⁷ Courts have applied this principle for decades, invalidating unit-level restrictions that were adopted only as rules.¹

Adding or strengthening a rental restriction therefore generally requires amending the master deed or the recorded bylaws. Because c. 183A predates the Uniform Condominium Act, it contains no owner-protection provision of the kind found in the 2008 revisions to that uniform law. The amendment threshold is set by the master deed's own amendment provision together with c. 183A, and is commonly a supermajority of the beneficial or percentage interest.⁶ The statute's unanimous-consent rule in § 5(b)(1) applies specifically where an amendment would alter unit owners' percentage interests, not to every use restriction.⁵ Whether an amendment adding a rental restriction binds owners who purchased before the amendment is contested and document-specific in Massachusetts; practitioners frequently add grandfather or hardship clauses precisely because the answer is not automatic, and there is no Florida-style or California-style statutory grandfathering shield that resolves the question by statute.⁶

For non-condominium planned communities, a rental restriction is a covenant running with the land and is subject to the duration and enforcement limits of G.L. c. 184, §§ 26 to 30.⁸ A restriction imposed after December 31, 1961 that does not state its own duration is generally enforceable for 30 years, and longer or perpetual restrictions must be preserved by recording notices of extension in the manner the statute prescribes (§§ 27 and 29).⁸ Section 30 governs enforceability and the availability of relief. Massachusetts appellate courts have enforced these limits strictly, holding that a common-scheme restriction can be extended beyond 30 years only where the original instrument expressly allowed extension.⁹

The state short-term-rental framework, tax, and the local layer

Chapter 337 of the Acts of 2018 extended the room occupancy excise under G.L. c. 64G to short-term rentals, defined as occupancy for a period of not more than 31 consecutive calendar days, and took effect for rentals beginning on or after July 1, 2019.¹⁰¹¹ It created a state registry of short-term rentals and required operators to maintain at least $1,000,000 in liability insurance per rental (G.L. c. 175, § 4F), unless a hosting platform provides equal or greater coverage.¹⁵ The Act is a tax-and-registry framework; it enables municipalities to regulate rather than preempting them. Municipalities may adopt local registration, licensing, day caps, zoning, and inspections under G.L. c. 64G, § 14.¹²

The tax layer is cumulative. The state room occupancy excise is 5.7% (a 5% statutory rate plus a 0.7% surtax). A municipality may adopt a local-option excise of up to 6%, and up to 6.5% in Boston (G.L. c. 64G, § 3A). An additional Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund excise of 2.75% applies in participating municipalities (§ 3C). A municipality that has adopted the local excise may also impose a community impact fee of up to 3% on professionally managed short-term rentals and on certain multi-unit properties (§ 3D), producing combined rates as high as 17.45% in towns such as Provincetown.¹³¹⁴ Operators renting for 14 days or fewer in a calendar year are exempt from the excise but must still register and insure.¹¹

Boston has a restrictive short-term-rental ordinance built around a primary-residence requirement, which classifies eligible units and generally excludes investor units; Airbnb challenged it in federal court, and U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin ruled on May 3, 2019 that the city could impose a $300-per-day fine on platforms each time a platform collects a fee on a booking for an illegal rental, after which the parties settled on August 29, 2019.¹⁶²³ Cape Cod and the Islands and the Berkshires are major seasonal markets with active local regimes; Provincetown, for example, adopted Articles 11 and 12 at its October 2023 Town Meeting, effective April 22, 2024 after Attorney General certification, barring corporations from holding short-term-rental certificates and limiting an individual to two certificates.²⁴ The critical point for associations is that state and local regulation governs the owner-to-government relationship and neither grants nor removes association authority: an owner who registers with the Department of Revenue and pays every applicable excise may still violate the master deed or covenants, and an owner who complies with the documents may still violate a local ordinance.

Section 3 — Operational mechanics and enforcement

Adopting a valid restriction (the tools)

The single most important mechanic is location. To bind unit owners, a condominium should place a minimum-lease-term provision or an outright short-term-rental prohibition in the recorded master deed or the recorded bylaws, not in board-adopted rules and regulations (G.L. c. 183A, §§ 8, 11(e)).⁴⁷ A planned community should place the equivalent restriction in its recorded covenants, mindful that the covenant is subject to the c. 184 duration limits.⁸ Rental caps, such as a limit on the percentage of units that may be leased at one time or a limit on the number of units one owner may control, are permitted where they appear in the documents; the Condominium Act does not cap or limit such restrictions, and the documents govern their terms.⁷ Registration, owner-information, and lease-filing requirements, for example a rule requiring owners to register tenants and provide copies of leases, are internal association tools that can be layered on top of a validly located restriction, and are distinct from the state and municipal registration obligations that run to government.

Enforcement

Chapter 183A is enabling and leaves fining procedure largely to the documents; it does not itself prescribe a statutory notice-and-hearing sequence before an association fines a unit owner, so the master deed, trust, and bylaws control what process is due.²¹⁷ The Act authorizes an association to levy reasonable fines for violations of the master deed, trust, bylaws, restrictions, rules, or regulations (§ 10(b)(5)).¹⁷ The remedies available to an association are fines where the documents authorize them, injunctive relief to stop a prohibited use, and the common-expense lien under § 6. That lien is significant: for the six months of common expenses immediately preceding an enforcement action, together with reasonable costs and attorneys' fees, it takes priority over a prior recorded first mortgage, and the Supreme Judicial Court has held that an association may file successive actions to establish multiple contemporaneous priority liens.¹⁸²⁵ Whether unpaid fines are lienable depends on the documents and how the charge is characterized, so associations should draft the documents to treat fines and enforcement costs as assessable charges.¹⁸

A contested enforcement or rental-restriction dispute is a real-property action that may be brought in the Superior Court (general jurisdiction) or the Land Court, a specialized real-property court that hears many condominium and covenant matters, often concurrently with the Superior Court. Appeal lies to the Appeals Court, with further review by the Supreme Judicial Court.¹⁹ Association enforcement runs on a separate track from government enforcement: a municipality or the Department of Revenue may pursue an owner for registration or tax violations at the same time an association pursues the same owner for violating the documents, and success or failure in one forum does not determine the other.

Section 4 — Recent legislative and judicial activity

Recent bills

Recent rulings

Massachusetts appellate and Land Court decisions in the past 36 months have addressed short-term rentals almost entirely through municipal zoning, as in Ward and, earlier, the Supreme Judicial Court's decision in Styller v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Lynnfield, 487 Mass. 588 (2021).²⁸ No recent Massachusetts appellate or Land Court decision squarely adjudicates a condominium association's enforcement of a short-term-rental ban through its master deed or bylaws; the governing principles there rest on the Condominium Act and older, still-controlling authority establishing the master-deed location rule.¹⁷

Active legislative or local debates

Local activity continues to be the most active front, with Cape and Islands communities such as Nantucket and Provincetown adjusting zoning and certificate rules, and Boston enforcing its primary-residence ordinance; these measures regulate owners and governments, not associations, though they shape the environment in which associations set their own rules.¹⁶²⁴

Section 5 — National positioning and related coverage

Massachusetts occupies a distinctive position among state approaches. It pairs an old, enabling, non-UCIOA condominium statute, defined by trust governance and the master-deed location rule, with a covenant-primary planned-community regime that has no comprehensive statute and is disciplined instead by the c. 184 duration limits. Layered on top is a state tax-and-registry short-term-rental framework that enables rather than preempts local regulation. That posture contrasts with states that preempt local short-term-rental bans, such as Florida and Arizona, and with states that limit HOA rental authority directly by statute, such as California and Arizona. The Massachusetts framework restrains governments and owners, not associations, so state registration and excise obligations neither create nor defeat an association's authority to restrict rentals. For a multi-state operator entering Massachusetts, the practical implications are concrete: expect master deeds and boards of trustees rather than declarations and boards of directors, treat the master-deed location rule as decisive for any unit-level restriction, and anticipate that many disputes will be litigated in the specialized Land Court.

HOA Weekly's Massachusetts Short-Term Rentals coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature, the Supreme Judicial Court, the Appeals Court, the Land Court, and state and local governments act. Federal frameworks, including the FHA, ADA, FDCPA, SCRA, and OTARD, also apply to Massachusetts associations regardless of the state framework.

1. Marcus, Errico, Emmer & Brooks, P.C., "Rules and Regulations that are Unenforceable" (discussing the master-deed/bylaws location rule and citing Granby Heights Ass'n, Inc. v. Dean, 38 Mass. App. Ct. 266 (1995)) ↩
2. Moriarty Troyer & Malloy LLC, "Condominium Ownership and Operation in Massachusetts" (G.L. c. 183A is an enabling statute; Queler v. Skowron, 438 Mass. 304 (2002)) ↩
3. Moriarty Troyer & Malloy LLC, "The Massachusetts Condominium Act, Mass. Ann. Laws ch. 183A" (Act originally passed June 27, 1963; enabling statute) ↩
4. G.L. c. 183A, § 8 (Master deed; recording; contents), malegislature.gov ↩
5. G.L. c. 183A, § 5 (Interest in common areas; percentage; division; consent to alter percentage interests), malegislature.gov ↩
6. Goldman & Pease, "Condominium Unit Rental Restrictions and Bans" (supermajority amendment; grandfather/hardship clauses; effect on owners who purchased before the amendment) ↩
7. Robert Nislick, "Condominium Restrictions, By-Laws, and Rules and Regulations in Massachusetts" (G.L. c. 183A, § 11(e); rules reach only common areas; Woodvale Condominium Trust v. Scheff, 27 Mass. App. Ct. 530 (1989)) ↩
8. G.L. c. 184, § 26 (restrictions subject to §§ 26–30) and §§ 27, 29, 30 (30-year limit; extension; enforceability), malegislature.gov ↩
9. Mintz, "Massachusetts Appeals Court Holds Restrictive Covenants Created as Part of a Common Scheme May Be Extended Beyond Thirty Years Only if Explicitly Allowed in the Original Instrument" (construing G.L. c. 184, § 27) ↩
10. Chapter 337 of the Acts of 2018, "An Act Regulating and Insuring Short-Term Rentals," malegislature.gov ↩
11. Mass. Dept. of Revenue, TIR 19-3 (short-term rental defined as ≤31 consecutive days; effective July 1, 2019; 14-day exemption; state registry) ↩
12. Mass. Division of Local Services, Guidance on Short-Term Rentals (G.L. c. 64G, § 14 local by-law/ordinance authority) ↩
13. G.L. c. 64G, §§ 3, 3A, 3C (Room Occupancy Excise; local option up to 6% / 6.5% Boston; Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund excise 2.75%), reproduced from statutory text ↩
14. Town of Provincetown, Renter/Rental Certificate Information (5.7% state + 6% local + 2.75% Water Protection Fund; additional 3% community impact fee on professionally managed units, combined 17.45%) ↩
15. G.L. c. 175, § 4F (operator liability insurance of not less than $1,000,000 unless hosting platform maintains equal or greater coverage), malegislature.gov ↩
16. City of Boston, "City of Boston, Airbnb reach agreement" (Aug. 29, 2019; primary-residence classifications; registration), boston.gov ↩
17. G.L. c. 183A, § 10(b)(5) (power to levy reasonable fines for violations of the master deed, trust, by-laws, restrictions, rules or regulations), malegislature.gov ↩
18. G.L. c. 183A, § 6 (common expense lien; six-month priority over a prior recorded first mortgage; costs and reasonable attorneys' fees), malegislature.gov ↩
19. Massachusetts Land Court, court structure (specialized real-property court; concurrent jurisdiction with the Superior Court; appeals to the Appeals Court and the Supreme Judicial Court), mass.gov ↩
20. G.L. c. 183A, § 10 (organization of unit owners may be a corporation, trust, or unincorporated association), mass.gov ↩
21. "Massachusetts Condominium Rules and Regulations Explained" (in practice most Massachusetts condominiums use a trust structure with a declaration of trust and trustees), citing G.L. c. 183A, § 10 ↩
22. Mass.gov, "Condominiums" (the Commonwealth has no jurisdiction or regulatory oversight over condominiums, which are governed by their documents and G.L. c. 183A) ↩
23. The Boston Globe, "Judge blocks parts of Boston's Airbnb ordinance" (May 4, 2019; U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin ruling) ↩
24. Provincetown Independent, "Short-Term Rentals: an Industry of Ones and Twos" (Articles 11 and 12 adopted Oct. 2023 Town Meeting, effective April 22, 2024 after AG certification; corporate ban and two-certificate limit) ↩
25. Law Offices of Richard Mucci, summary of Drummer Boy Homes Ass'n, Inc. v. Britton, 474 Mass. 17 (2016) (successive priority liens under G.L. c. 183A, § 6(c)) ↩
26. Mass.gov, G.L. c. 183A section list (amendments by St. 2024, c. 239, §§ 84–86, effective February 18, 2025, to §§ 6, 10 and new § 10A) ↩
27. Nantucket Current, coverage of Ward v. Town of Nantucket, Land Court Docket No. 22 MISC 000064 (MDV) (Judge Michael Vhay; June 2025 declaratory judgment; June 10, 2025 vote to seek appellate review) ↩
28. Styller v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Lynnfield, 487 Mass. 588 (2021) (SJC-12901, decided June 7, 2021), masscases.com ↩