South Dakota HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026

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

Yes. A South Dakota condominium restricts short-term rentals through its recorded master deed or declaration, and a planned community (a non-condominium homeowners association) does so through its recorded covenants. The authority is document-driven in both cases, because South Dakota law leaves the question largely to the governing instruments rather than to statute.

Condominiums are governed by the South Dakota Condominium Act, SDCL chapter 43-15A.¹ Planned communities have no comprehensive governing statute; they operate under their recorded covenants, the South Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act for corporate formalities, and common law.²

The Condominium Act is a traditional, condominium-only statute that predates the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, and it contains no rental provision and no 2008-UCIOA rental owner-protection provision.¹ South Dakota does not appear to preempt local short-term-rental regulation, so that regulation is set locally, concentrated in the Black Hills tourism market (Rapid City, Deadwood, Custer, Hill City, Keystone, and Spearfish), where the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally each August drives Rapid City's active listings from roughly 600 in the off-season to as many as 900 during tourism season.³⁴ South Dakota has no intermediate appellate court; a contested enforcement action proceeds in a South Dakota Circuit Court, with appeal directly to the South Dakota Supreme Court.⁵ The sections that follow set out the statutory framework, the mechanics of adopting and enforcing a restriction, and recent activity.

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

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

The South Dakota Condominium Act, SDCL chapter 43-15A, is a traditional, non-UCIOA, condominium-only statute enacted in 1975.¹ Its thirty sections are directed almost entirely at developer disclosure and South Dakota Real Estate Commission oversight: recording the master deed, registering the project, delivering a public report to buyers, holding deposits in escrow, and related developer duties.¹ The particulars the Act requires in a master deed are limited to a land description, unit descriptions, common-area descriptions, and a requirement that the council of co-owners maintain insurance.⁶ The Act does not address use, leasing, rentals, amendments, grandfathering, fines, or notice-and-hearing procedures. An older chapter, SDCL 43-15 (Vertical and Horizontal Property Regimes), was repealed, and pre-1992 regimes created under it are validated by SDCL 43-15A-28; there is no separate active "Apartment Ownership Act."⁷ SDCL 43-15B governs Time-Share Estates, not planned communities.⁸

Planned communities are not governed by a comprehensive South Dakota statute. They operate under their recorded covenants, the South Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act (SDCL chapter 47-22 and following) for corporate governance, and common law.² No South Dakota "Planned Community Act" exists, and secondary sources that describe one are incorrect.

In both settings the governing instrument is the source of rental authority. A declaration or covenant that limits leasing, sets a minimum lease term, or bars transient occupancy is the operative rule. A distinction matters here: authority over long-term leasing (for example, a minimum lease term or a cap on leased units) is analytically separate from authority over short-term or transient rentals, and a document drafted only against "commercial use" may not reach short-term rentals unless its language is clear, as South Dakota case law illustrates.

2B. Restricting rentals, amendments, and grandfathering

Adding or strengthening a rental restriction is done by amending the governing documents. For condominiums, the Condominium Act supplies no amendment provision and no vote threshold, so the master deed or declaration controls how it is amended.¹ For planned communities, the covenants' own amendment clause governs, and there is no statutory threshold; amendment procedures vary from instrument to instrument.²

Because the Condominium Act predates UCIOA and contains no owner-protection provision on rental amendments, grandfathering of an owner who bought before a restriction was adopted is not resolved by statute. It turns on the governing documents and South Dakota common law. South Dakota does not provide a Florida-style or California-style statutory grandfathering shield, and none should be assumed.

Two features of South Dakota common law bear directly on rental restrictions. First, South Dakota courts construe restrictive covenants using ordinary rules of contract interpretation and, where a covenant is unambiguous, look to the four corners of the instrument. In Wilson v. Maynard, the South Dakota Supreme Court held 3-2 that short-term rental of a home in a Deadwood-area subdivision was a "residential purpose" that did not violate a covenant limiting lots to residential use; as the majority put it, "It is undisputed the Property is used to eat, sleep, and enjoy recreational activities. Therefore, short-term vacation rentals are a residential purpose consistent with the Covenants."⁹ Justice Kern, joined by Justice DeVaney, dissented, arguing the covenant read as a whole barred the rental activity.⁹ The ruling aligns South Dakota with the majority of jurisdictions that treat eating, sleeping, and similar activities as residential regardless of rental duration. The practical lesson is that a covenant intended to bar short-term rentals must say so specifically; a generic "residential purposes" clause will likely not suffice. Second, a covenant can become unenforceable through waiver or acquiescence, a point the Court reaffirmed in 2025 (discussed in Section 4).

South Dakota does not otherwise limit an association's authority to restrict rentals by statute. It has no analog to California Civil Code § 4741 or Arizona Revised Statutes § 33-1806.01, both of which constrain association rental rules. The working framework is therefore document-driven, bounded by common-law interpretive rules and the equitable doctrines of waiver and acquiescence.

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

South Dakota does not appear to have a statute preempting local short-term-rental regulation, and no such preemption surfaced in the Codified Laws or the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions.¹⁰ Regulation is therefore local and uneven. Rapid City adopted Ordinance No. 6698 on an 8-2 vote on December 2, 2025 (effective January 30, 2026), its first vacation-rental ordinance, defining a vacation home as a residence rented for less than 28 consecutive days and more than 14 days in a calendar year, requiring registration and a state lodging license, capping occupancy at two people per bedroom plus two additional guests, requiring two off-street parking spaces, and mandating a conditional use permit for homes with more than five bedrooms.⁴ Deadwood prohibits transient commercial use of residential property and allows vacation home establishments "only in Commercial and Commercial Highway zoning districts with an approved Conditional Use Permit," with a narrow exception: the ban does not apply to transient rental "for a period of fourteen (14) days or less during the month of August, commencing four days immediately preceding the official start of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and ending three days after the end of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally each year."³ Custer, Deadwood, and Hill City each passed ordinances banning new short-term rentals in residentially zoned areas; Hill City's measure passed in June 2022 and bars an existing residential short-term rental from that use once the property is sold or changes ownership.¹¹ Sioux Falls requires a residential rental permit for units rented more than fourteen days a year.¹² Many South Dakota communities have little or no regulation.

South Dakota has a state sales tax, contrary to any suggestion that it does not. Lodging for stays under 28 consecutive days is subject to the state sales tax of 4.2%, a municipal sales tax of up to 2%, a municipal gross receipts tax of 1%, and a state tourism tax of 1.5%.¹³ The tourism tax is imposed under SDCL chapter 10-45D, and the state sales tax under SDCL chapter 10-45.¹⁴ Operators who advertise and rent for more than fourteen days a year generally also need a state lodging license from the Department of Health.¹⁵

The critical point for associations is that local regulation and the lodging taxes govern the owner-to-government relationship. They neither grant nor remove association authority. An owner who holds a Rapid City permit, a state lodging license, and a sales tax account, and who remits every applicable tax, may still violate a declaration or covenant that bars short-term rentals, and the association may enforce that restriction. Conversely, an owner who satisfies the governing documents may still be shut down for failing a local permit rule or the lodging-tax obligations. The two systems operate in parallel.

Section 3: Operational mechanics and enforcement

A. Adopting a valid restriction (the tools)

The most common and defensible tool is a minimum-lease-term restriction in the governing documents (for example, a 30-day or six-month minimum), which reaches transient use without depending on a contested reading of "residential purposes." South Dakota sets no statutory minimum lease term for associations, so any threshold comes from the document itself.¹

Rental caps, such as a limit on the percentage of units that may be leased at one time, are permitted where the governing documents authorize them. The Condominium Act neither authorizes nor limits caps, so a condominium's authority to impose one rests on the master deed or declaration; for a planned community, the covenants control.¹ Associations may also impose internal registration, owner-information, and lease-filing requirements (for example, requiring owners to register tenants or file leases with the board) as a matter of document-based rulemaking, distinct from any state or local permit.

B. Enforcement and the appellate path

Neither the Condominium Act nor a planned-community statute prescribes notice-and-hearing procedures before an association imposes a fine, so those procedures come from the master deed, declaration, bylaws, or covenants; boards should follow whatever the documents require and observe corporate formalities under the Nonprofit Corporation Act.¹² The remedies available to an association are fines where the documents authorize them, injunctive and declaratory relief in court, and liens. The Condominium Act provides a lien mechanism for the erection, repair, or improvement of a development, apportioned among affected units; assessment liens otherwise arise from the governing documents.¹⁶ Injunctive and declaratory relief is the usual route for a contested rental dispute, as the covenant litigation in Wilson v. Maynard shows.⁹

A contested enforcement action is filed in a South Dakota Circuit Court, the state's court of general jurisdiction. South Dakota has no intermediate appellate court, so an appeal runs directly from the Circuit Court to the South Dakota Supreme Court.⁵ There is no South Dakota Court of Appeals.

Association enforcement and local-government enforcement proceed on separate tracks. A city can cite or fine an owner for operating without a permit, and an association can separately pursue a covenant violation in Circuit Court; neither forecloses the other, and compliance with one does not establish compliance with the other.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill in the 2025 or 2026 South Dakota regular sessions addressed short-term-rental regulation, condominium or homeowners association rental authority, or the lodging and tourism taxes specifically.¹⁰ The Legislature's principal tax action in this window, Senate Bill 245 (2026), created a homeowner property tax reduction fund and is tied to the scheduled increase of the statewide sales tax from 4.2% to 4.5% on July 1, 2027; it does not change the lodging or tourism tax framework and does not affect association rental authority.¹⁰ Because it does not bear on short-term rentals or association authority, no audience-implication table is provided.

B. Recent rulings

The earlier decision in Wilson v. Maynard, 2021 S.D. 37, 961 N.W.2d 596, holding that short-term rentals are a "residential purpose" absent specific covenant language, remains the leading South Dakota authority on rental restrictions but falls outside the 36-month window and is discussed in Section 2B.⁹

C. Active legislative or local debates

The most active local development is municipal: Rapid City adopted Ordinance No. 6698 in December 2025 and signaled that it would revisit the rules within a year, while Deadwood, Custer, and Hill City continue to enforce zoning-based limits on short-term rentals in residential areas.⁴ These measures regulate owners and operators, not associations.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

South Dakota sits at the document-driven end of the spectrum of state approaches to short-term rentals and community associations. It is a CC&R-primary state with a traditional, non-UCIOA condominium statute and no comprehensive planned-community statute, which leaves rental authority to the governing documents. It does not appear to preempt local short-term-rental bans, unlike Florida and Arizona in various respects, and it does not limit association rental authority directly, unlike California (Civil Code § 4741) and Arizona (A.R.S. § 33-1806.01). The local ordinances and the lodging taxes restrain local governments and owners; they do not expand or contract what an association may do. For a multi-state operator entering South Dakota, the practical implications are that association authority is defined by the recorded documents, that the meaningful short-term-rental market is concentrated in the Black Hills tourism economy, and that any contested matter runs through a Circuit Court with appeal directly to the South Dakota Supreme Court.

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

1. South Dakota Condominium Act, SDCL ch. 43-15A ↩
2. SDCL 43-15A-4 (particulars required in master deed or lease) ↩
3. SDCL ch. 43-15 (Vertical and Horizontal Property Regimes) [Repealed]; validation at SDCL 43-15A-28 ↩
4. SDCL ch. 43-15B (Time-Share Estates) ↩
5. South Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act, SDCL ch. 47-22 et seq. ↩
6. SDCL 43-15A-29 (lien for erection, repair, or improvement) ↩
7. SD Dept. of Revenue, Hotels, Motels and Campgrounds tax fact (state 4.2%, municipal up to 2%, MGRT 1%, tourism 1.5%; 28-day transient threshold) ↩
8. SDCL ch. 10-45D (Gross Receipts Tax on Visitor Related Businesses / tourism tax); SDCL ch. 10-45 (retail sales tax) ↩
9. SD Dept. of Health, Lodging Licensure and Codes ↩
10. Wilson v. Maynard, 2021 S.D. 37, 961 N.W.2d 596 (official opinion via SD Unified Judicial System / cross-verified) ↩
11. Hood v. Straatmeyer, 2025 S.D. 12, 18 N.W.3d 649 (SD Unified Judicial System) ↩
12. City of Rapid City, Short-Term Rental / Bed and Breakfast regulations (Rapid City Municipal Code § 17.50.340; Ordinance No. 6698, adopted Dec. 2, 2025) ↩
13. City of Deadwood, Short Term Rental Information (Deadwood City Ordinance ch. 17.53) ↩
14. Custer City Council amendment prohibiting short-term rentals in residential districts; Hill City June 2022 measure (South Dakota News Watch) ↩
15. Sioux Falls Code of Ordinances § 150.177 (residential rental permit) ↩
16. South Dakota Unified Judicial System, Supreme Court opinions (Circuit Court to South Dakota Supreme Court; no intermediate appellate court) ↩
17. SB 245 (2026); 2025 and 2026 session bill records, South Dakota Legislature ↩