St. Louis cannot enforce its Airbnb permit law — so it imposed a 3 percent fee instead
St. Louis cannot enforce its Airbnb permit law — so it imposed a 3 percent fee instead
2026-09-12 · Missouri · Compliance
What happened. The City of St. Louis has been unable to enforce its short-term rental permit law since April 2025, under a court order. In its own words: “the City will not be enforcing the permit requirements of Ordinance 71729.” In February 2026 the Board of Aldermen enacted a separate 3 percent license fee on short-term rental revenue — defined by reference to the same ordinance the city cannot enforce.1
The injunction
Ordinance 71729, the city's short-term rental permit law, was signed in 2023 and took effect in November 2024 with a $150 annual permit application fee. A city short-term rental owner sued on 7 April 2025 in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, pleading the ordinance as unconstitutional and as a violation of Missouri's Hancock Amendment, which bars a new tax or tax increase without voter approval. With the application fee due 6 May, the plaintiff moved on 10 April for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction.
From the city's own public notice: on 22 April 2025, “a court's order prohibited the City of St. Louis from enforcing Ordinance 71729, which governs short-term rentals in the City of St. Louis.” On 5 May 2025, the court “extended a previously-issued order prohibiting the City of St. Louis from enforcing Ordinance 71729 for a period of fifteen additional days.”
The city says it halted permit applications, inspections, permit issuance, conditional use permits for Single Family A zones, permit-fee collection and Proposition S fee collection, and that it will “act quickly to issue guidance to permit applicants and short-term rental platform operators” once the court rules further. As of February 2026 the law remained on hold; aldermen moved tax legislation while waiting.
We should be clear about a gap: no case number appears on the city's public notice, and we did not obtain one from a court source. Anyone citing this litigation formally should pull the cause number from Missouri Case.net first. Secondary write-ups also state that a purported class action has since joined the fight; we could not verify that from a court record or from the city, and we are not asserting it.
The fee the city passed anyway
Ordinance 72095 (Board Bill 126 Committee Substitute), sponsored by Alderman Bret Narayan with President Megan E. Green and Alderman Rasheen Aldridge. Mayor approved 23 February 2026; the city's record gives an effective date of 23 February 2026.
“An ordinance requiring all short term rental operators to obtain a short term rental business license; imposing a license fee of three percent of the rent charged for each short term rental, to be paid quarterly; authorizing the License Collector to collect such license fee on behalf of the City of St. Louis…”
The licence requirement, with its own start date:
“Beginning sixty days after the effective date of this ordinance, no short-term rental operator shall offer or operate a short-term rental in the City without a current short-term rental business license.”
The fee:
“The qualified voters of the City of St. Louis having approved Proposition S, a license fee is imposed in an amount of three percent (3%) of the rent as defined herein, for each short-term rental. The fee is imposed on the licensee, which is the short-term rental operator.”
“Collection by a short-term rental platform shall be entirely voluntary, and unless a voluntary collection agreement is currently in effect between a short-term rental platform and the License Collector's Office of the City of St. Louis, the sole responsibility for collecting and remitting the license fee shall remain with the short-term rental operator…”
The definitional loop
“'Short-term rental' allows residential occupancy of the rented dwelling for a term of thirty (30) days or less, and requires that the short-term rental use is permitted to operate pursuant to Ordinance 71729 or any such successor ordinance requirements.”
So the fee ordinance defines its own subject by reference to a use being “permitted to operate pursuant to Ordinance 71729” — the ordinance the city is barred from enforcing. The city's permit track is paused; its fee track is live.
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Related Missouri HOA Topics
- City of St. Louis public notice — court orders of April 22 and May 5, 2025 barring enforcement of Ordinance 71729 ↩
- City of St. Louis Ordinance 72095 (Board Bill 126 CS) — the 3 percent short-term rental license fee ↩
- Kansas City legislative record, Ordinance 250965 — Major Event Short Term Rental Registration ↩
- Columbia, Missouri City Council minutes, January 5, 2026 — parcel-level short-term rental and ADU conditional use permits ↩
- KCTV5 (Jan. 9, 2026) — Riverside, Missouri adopts its first short-term rental regulations ↩
- HB 1768 (2026) bill page — short-term rental property-tax classification, referred to Fiscal Review on the last day ↩
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