North Dakota HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026

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

A North Dakota condominium association restricts short-term rentals through its recorded declaration under the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act, and a planned community does so through its recorded covenants. For condominiums, the governing statute is the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act (N.D. Cent. Code ch. 47-04.1), which makes the declaration of restrictions the operative instrument and provides that recorded restrictions are enforceable equitable servitudes where reasonable.¹ Planned communities have no comprehensive North Dakota statute; their rental authority rests on the recorded covenants, with the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act (N.D. Cent. Code ch. 10-33) supplying corporate governance and common law filling the gaps.²

The Condominium Ownership Act is a traditional, condominium-only statute that predates the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, and it contains no 2008-UCIOA rental owner-protection provision.¹ North Dakota does not appear to preempt local short-term-rental regulation, so the operator-facing rules come from local governments, principally in Medora and Billings County (the Theodore Roosevelt National Park gateway) and the lake and Bakken-area communities, while many North Dakota communities regulate short-term rentals lightly or not at all.⁶ The state court structure is distinctive: contested matters begin in the North Dakota District Court and proceed on appeal directly to the North Dakota Supreme Court, because the North Dakota Court of Appeals is a temporary body that hears only cases assigned to it.¹³ The sections below set out the framework, the operational mechanics, and recent activity.

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

2A. The Condominium Ownership Act and the CC&R-primary planned-community framework

North Dakota condominiums are governed by the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act, N.D. Cent. Code ch. 47-04.1, a short traditional statute of sixteen sections. It is not based on UCIOA, and it addresses formation, the declaration, common elements, assessments, liens, and owner compliance rather than the detailed governance rules found in modern uniform acts.¹ The Act requires the owner of a project, before conveying any unit, to record a declaration of restrictions, and it provides that those restrictions are enforceable equitable servitudes where reasonable that bind all unit owners.¹⁴ Rental authority for a condominium therefore comes from the declaration operating within this statute, not from a rental-specific command in the Act itself.

Planned communities (non-condominium homeowners associations) have no comprehensive North Dakota statute. Their authority comes from the recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions; from the North Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act (N.D. Cent. Code ch. 10-33) when the association is incorporated as a nonprofit, which most are; and from North Dakota common law on servitudes and restrictive covenants.² North Dakota does not have a standalone "HOA Act," so for planned communities the recorded covenants are the primary and usually the only instrument that speaks to rentals.

The distinction that matters most in practice is between authority over long-term leasing and authority over short-term or transient rentals. Many older North Dakota declarations and covenants speak only of "residential use" or bar "commercial" or "business" use, language drafted before platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo existed. Whether a short-term rental violates a bare residential-use covenant is a question of interpretation on which courts nationally are split, with the majority treating short-term rental as a residential use absent clearer language.¹⁵ North Dakota courts interpret residential-use covenants, as illustrated by the North Dakota Supreme Court's treatment of a "single family residential purposes only" covenant in Hill v. Linder, but no North Dakota decision squarely resolves the short-term-rental question, so associations that want a clear rule should adopt one by amendment rather than rely on general use language.¹⁶

2B. Restricting rentals, amendments, and grandfathering

The standard way to add or strengthen a rental restriction is to amend the governing documents. For a condominium, the Condominium Ownership Act requires that any modification or amendment of the bylaws be set out in an amendment to the declaration and recorded in the office of the recorder to be valid, but the Act does not itself fix a percentage vote for that amendment.⁴ The required approval threshold is therefore whatever the declaration and bylaws specify. The Act also provides a lender-approval mechanism: after thirty days' written notice, a contacted lender that neither approves nor refuses a proposed amendment is deemed to have approved it, except where the amendment affects the lender's right to enforce its mortgage.¹⁷ For a planned community, the amendment threshold and procedure come entirely from the covenants' own amendment clause and North Dakota common law; there is no statutory percentage.

Because the Condominium Ownership Act predates UCIOA, it contains no owner-protection provision governing rental amendments, meaning there is no statutory command that a newly adopted rental restriction exempt owners who bought before the amendment.¹ Grandfathering in North Dakota is therefore governed by the declaration or covenants and by North Dakota common law, not by statute. North Dakota does not provide a Florida-style or California-style statutory grandfathering shield; unlike California Civil Code § 4740, which exempts an owner who acquired title before a rental restriction was adopted, North Dakota has no equivalent statute for either condominiums or planned communities.¹⁸ Whether a pre-existing owner is bound turns on the language of the documents, the procedural regularity of the amendment, and common-law doctrines such as reasonableness and the rule that restrictive covenants are construed in favor of the free use of land.

North Dakota also does not limit an association's authority to restrict rentals. Unlike California (Civil Code § 4741) and Arizona (A.R.S. § 33-1806.01), which cap or channel association rental rules, North Dakota has no statute limiting HOA rental authority; the Condominium Ownership Act is silent, and there is no planned-community statute at all.¹ The practical result is that a validly adopted, reasonable, properly recorded restriction is generally enforceable, and the main constraints are the documents themselves, the amendment procedure, and common-law reasonableness rather than a statutory ceiling.

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

North Dakota does not appear to have a statewide statute that preempts local short-term-rental regulation, and it has no statewide short-term-rental licensing scheme.³ Regulation is local, and it varies widely. Billings County, which surrounds Medora and the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, regulates short-term rentals as a conditional use through its zoning ordinance.⁶ West Fargo adopted a licensing ordinance (Ordinance 1254) that received unanimous approval on second reading on November 3, 2025 (the first reading passed 4-1 on October 20, with Commissioner Amy Zundel dissenting) and takes effect July 1, 2026.⁷ Fargo and Bismarck, by contrast, have no short-term-rental-specific licensing and instead treat the activity under general zoning while monitoring the market.¹⁹ Many smaller North Dakota communities have little or no short-term-rental regulation.

On tax, North Dakota imposes its state sales tax on the leasing or renting of hotel, motel, or tourist court accommodations, including bed and breakfast facilities, for periods of fewer than 30 consecutive days, and the state rate is 5% under N.D. Cent. Code § 57-39.2-02.1.⁸ Cities may impose a city lodging tax not exceeding 2% and a separate city lodging and restaurant tax of up to 1% under N.D. Cent. Code ch. 40-57.3, and counties may impose a county lodging tax under ch. 11-09.2; these are additional to the state sales tax.⁹ The thirty-day line is a tax threshold: the North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner treats renting a house, apartment, portion of a home, or room for less than 30 days as a taxable lodging rental, and the homeowner must acquire a sales-and-use tax permit and collect and remit the tax.⁵ A stay of thirty or more consecutive days is generally not taxable lodging.

The critical point is that local regulation and the lodging tax govern the owner-to-government relationship. They neither grant nor remove association authority. An owner can hold a Billings County conditional use permit or a West Fargo license and remit every dollar of lodging tax and still violate a declaration or covenant that bars short-term rentals; conversely, an owner whose documents permit short-term rentals still owes the tax and any applicable local permit. West Fargo's own ordinance makes the separation explicit, providing that a license issued to a property subject to private covenants prohibiting short-term rentals is the licensee's sole responsibility and does not override those covenants.⁷ Compliance with one layer says nothing about compliance with the other.

Section 3: Operational mechanics and enforcement

A. Adopting a valid restriction (the tools)

The most common and most defensible mechanism is a minimum-lease-term restriction written into the declaration or covenants, for example a requirement that no unit be leased for a term shorter than thirty days or some other stated period. North Dakota sets no statewide statutory minimum lease term for associations, so any day-count comes from the documents themselves; the thirty-day figure that appears in state tax law defines taxable lodging and is not an association default.⁸ A clear duration rule avoids the interpretive fights that arise when an association tries to read a short-term-rental ban into a bare "residential use" covenant.

Rental caps, such as a limit on the number or percentage of units that may be leased at once, are likewise governed by the declaration or covenants rather than by statute. The Condominium Ownership Act does not address rental caps, and there is no planned-community statute, so an association's power to impose one and the level at which it is set both depend on the documents and on the amendment procedure used to adopt it.¹ Associations may also impose internal registration, owner-information, and lease-filing requirements, such as requiring owners to register tenants or file copies of leases, as an exercise of their rulemaking and enforcement authority under the documents. The Condominium Ownership Act requires that bylaws, rules, and regulations be reduced to writing and made available to every owner, and it bars bylaw provisions that set common charges based on whether a unit is owner-occupied or tenant-occupied.²⁰

B. Enforcement and the appellate path

Neither the Condominium Ownership Act nor any general North Dakota statute prescribes a notice-and-hearing procedure that an association must follow before imposing a fine for a short-term-rental violation. Those procedures come from the declaration, bylaws, and rules, and an association's fining power exists only if the documents create it. The Condominium Ownership Act does supply the enforcement backbone for condominiums: a unit owner must comply with the declaration, bylaws, and rules, and failure to comply is grounds for an action for damages, injunctive relief, or other relief by the administrative body or, in a proper case, an aggrieved owner.¹¹ The Act also makes reasonable assessments a lien on the unit when the association records notice, which supports collection of authorized charges.¹² For planned communities, remedies track the covenants and common law, with the association typically empowered to seek injunctive relief and to enforce assessment obligations.

A contested enforcement action is filed in the North Dakota District Court, the state's trial court of general jurisdiction. An appeal runs, in practice, directly from the District Court to the North Dakota Supreme Court. North Dakota does have a Court of Appeals, but it is a temporary, assignment-based body created in 1987 that hears only those cases the Supreme Court assigns to it; the North Dakota Court System reports that since its establishment the court has written opinions disposing of 90 cases, and in some years it hears none.¹³ It is not a standard, regularly sitting intermediate court, and an association or owner planning litigation should assume the appellate forum is the Supreme Court. Finally, association enforcement and local-government enforcement run on separate tracks: a city or county can cite an owner for operating without a required permit while the association separately pursues a covenant remedy, and neither action resolves the other.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills (past 24 months)

A review of the 2025 regular session of the North Dakota Legislative Assembly (the 69th Legislative Assembly) identified no enacted bill amending, creating, or repealing any section of the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act (ch. 47-04.1), and no enacted bill addressing statewide short-term-rental regulation, the city lodging tax (ch. 40-57.3), the county lodging tax (ch. 11-09.2), or association rental authority.²¹ Because the Legislative Assembly meets in regular session only in odd-numbered years, the next regular session is in 2027, and no qualifying condominium, short-term-rental, or lodging-tax measure is in force from the past twenty-four months. For context, the most recent substantive change to the Condominium Ownership Act was the electric-vehicle-charging-station provision now codified at § 47-04.1-16, enacted by HB 1310 in the 2023 session, which is outside the twenty-four-month window and unrelated to rentals.²²

B. Recent rulings (past 36 months)

No North Dakota Supreme Court decision in the past thirty-six months squarely resolves whether a short-term rental violates a residential-use covenant or the enforceability of a rental-restriction amendment; the point remains governed by document language and general covenant law.

C. Active legislative or local debates

The most active local development is West Fargo's Ordinance 1254, adopted November 3, 2025 and effective July 1, 2026, which introduces annual short-term-rental licensing (a $150 annual license fee plus a $65 safety and compliance inspection fee, with licenses valid July 1 through June 30 and applications opening May 1, 2026), safety inspection, and occupancy limits; Fargo and Bismarck continue to monitor short-term rentals without adopting a dedicated licensing regime.⁷

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

North Dakota sits at the light-touch, document-driven end of the national spectrum. It is a CC&R-primary state with a traditional, non-UCIOA condominium statute and no comprehensive planned-community statute, so rental authority rests with the governing documents. Unlike Florida and Arizona, which restrain local short-term-rental bans, North Dakota does not appear to preempt local regulation, and unlike California and Arizona, it does not limit HOA rental authority by statute. Local regulation and the lodging tax discipline local governments and owners, not associations, which retain broad latitude to restrict rentals through properly adopted documents. For a multi-state operator entering North Dakota, the practical takeaways are that authority is document-driven, the short-term-rental market is small and concentrated in a few tourism and energy markets, and litigation runs from the District Court directly to the North Dakota Supreme Court.

HOA Weekly's North Dakota Short-Term Rentals coverage updates quarterly as the Legislative Assembly, the North Dakota Supreme Court, and local governments act. Federal frameworks (the FHA, ADA, FDCPA, SCRA, and OTARD) also apply to North Dakota associations regardless of the state framework.

Footnotes

1. N.D. Cent. Code ch. 47-04.1 (Condominium Ownership of Real Property), North Dakota Legislative Branch (full chapter text) ↩
2. N.D. Cent. Code ch. 10-33 (Nonprofit Corporations), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
3. No North Dakota Century Code chapter creates a statewide short-term-rental statute or a statewide STR licensing scheme; regulation is left to local ordinance. See North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner, Local Taxes and 2025 Session Laws bill table ↩
4. N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-07 (Administration – Bylaws – Rules and regulations; amendment must be set forth in a recorded amendment to the declaration), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
5. North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner, Sales Tax: Hotels, Motels, and Lodging Facilities Guideline ("Renting a house, apartment, a portion of a home, or a room in a home for less than 30 days is a taxable lodging rental. The homeowner is responsible for acquiring a sales and use tax permit, collecting, and remitting the tax."), tax.nd.gov ↩
6. Billings County, Short-Term Rentals (Zoning Ordinance § 6.18) and Application/Checklist (conditional use permit for short-term rentals in the Medora area), Billings County, ND; see also Billings County Planning & Zoning ↩
7. City of West Fargo, Ordinance 1254 (Short-Term Rentals), westfargond.gov; program details at City of West Fargo, Short-Term Rentals ↩
8. N.D. Cent. Code § 57-39.2-02.1 (state sales tax on lodging accommodations rented for fewer than 30 consecutive days; 5% state rate), North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner ↩
9. N.D. Cent. Code ch. 40-57.3 (City Lodging Tax; § 40-57.3-01 city lodging tax not exceeding 2%; § 40-57.3-01.1 city lodging and restaurant tax up to 1%), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
10. N.D. Cent. Code ch. 11-09.2 (County Lodging Tax), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
11. N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-08 (Compliance with covenants, bylaws, and administrative provisions; failure to comply is grounds for an action for damages, injunctive relief, or other relief), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
12. N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-11 (Liens against units for common expenses), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
13. North Dakota Court System, Court of Appeals ("Since it was established, the Court of Appeals has written opinions disposing of 90 cases"; hears only cases assigned by the Supreme Court), ndcourts.gov; see also District Court Appeal to Supreme Court and N.D. Cent. Code ch. 27-02.1, North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
14. N.D. Cent. Code §§ 47-04.1-02, 47-04.1-04 (recording of declaration; declaration of restrictions as enforceable equitable servitudes), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
15. National Legal Research Group, "Short-Term Rentals and HOA 'Residential Use Only' Covenants" (majority view treats short-term rental as residential use absent duration or rental-prohibition language), nlrg.com ↩
16. Hill v. Lindner, 2009 ND 132 (North Dakota Supreme Court, interpreting a "single family residential purposes only" covenant), opinion text via FindLaw (cross-verify at ndcourts.gov) ↩
17. N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-15 (Approval by lender of amendment; 30-day deemed-approval mechanism), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
18. Comparative note: California Civil Code § 4740 (rental-restriction grandfathering) and § 4741 (rental-restriction limits); Arizona Revised Statutes § 33-1806.01. North Dakota has no equivalent provision; ch. 47-04.1 contains no owner-protection provision. See N.D. Cent. Code ch. 47-04.1 ↩
19. City of Bismarck, Frequently Asked Questions ("Yes, any housing unit may be rented on a short-term basis ... The City of Bismarck is monitoring this business sector and may institute regulation if the need arises"), bismarcknd.gov ↩
20. N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-07(2)–(3) (bylaws must be in writing and available to owners; may not base assessment of common charges on owner/tenant occupancy), North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
21. North Dakota Legislative Branch, 69th Legislative Assembly (2025) Bills & Resolutions Index, ndlegis.gov; 2025 Session Laws NDCC Sections Affected by Bill table, ndlegis.gov ↩
22. HB 1310 (2023, 68th Legislative Assembly), electric vehicle charging station installation in condominiums, now N.D. Cent. Code § 47-04.1-16, North Dakota Legislative Branch ↩
23. Industrial Commission of North Dakota v. Gould, 2024 ND 32 (North Dakota Supreme Court), opinion text via FindLaw (cross-verify at ndcourts.gov); summary at Justia ↩