Washington HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026

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

A Washington condominium or homeowners association restricts short-term rentals through its recorded declaration, and that declaration operates within the statute that applies to the community by its type and its creation date. The first analytical step in any Washington community is classification, because four statutes are in play: the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (WUCIOA, RCW 64.90) for communities created on or after July 1, 2018; the Washington Condominium Act (RCW 64.34) for condominiums created from July 1, 1990 through June 30, 2018; the Washington Homeowners' Associations Act (RCW 64.38) for homeowners associations and planned communities created before July 1, 2018; and the Horizontal Property Regimes Act (RCW 64.32) for condominiums created before July 1, 1990.¹ Washington is a comprehensive-statute state, not a jurisdiction where the recorded covenants operate free of a governing code.

WUCIOA is based on the 2008 Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so it carries provisions that the older statutes lack, including a limit on use-restriction amendments and an owner-protection rule; the reach of any WUCIOA provision back to pre-2018 communities must be verified section by section under RCW 64.90.080 (recodified as RCW 64.90.365), not assumed.¹³ Washington also has a state short-term-rental operator statute (RCW 64.37) and active local regulation in cities and counties, but neither grants nor removes association authority.² Contested enforcement runs from the Superior Court to the Court of Appeals of Washington (Division I in Seattle, Division II in Tacoma, or Division III in Spokane) and then to the Washington Supreme Court. The sections that follow set out the framework, the mechanics, and the recent activity.

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

2A. The four-statute layered structure

Washington layers a modern uniform act on top of three older statutes, and each governs by community type and creation date. WUCIOA (RCW 64.90), effective July 1, 2018, governs all common-interest communities (condominiums, plats and planned communities, and cooperatives) created on or after that date. The Condominium Act (RCW 64.34) governs condominiums created from July 1, 1990 through June 30, 2018. The Homeowners' Associations Act (RCW 64.38) governs homeowners associations and planned communities created before July 1, 2018. The Horizontal Property Regimes Act (RCW 64.32) governs condominiums created before July 1, 1990.¹ Classification comes first: applying a WUCIOA section to a 1994 condominium, or a Condominium Act section to a plat community, is a category error, because the statutes differ in substance and in amendment mechanics.

The layering is also changing on a fixed schedule. Under RCW 64.90.080 (recodified as RCW 64.90.365), WUCIOA reaches back to pre-2018 communities only for enumerated sections, and the list has grown.¹³ Enacted through ESSB 5796 (Chapter 321, Laws of 2024) and expanded by ESSB 5129 (Chapter 119, Laws of 2025), a defined set of WUCIOA sections applies to most pre-July 2018 communities beginning January 1, 2026, covering open meetings and owner comment (RCW 64.90.445), emergency powers (RCW 64.90.502), budgets and reserves (RCW 64.90.525 and 64.90.545), and other governance items.¹⁴ The older chapters (RCW 64.32, 64.34, and 64.38) are repealed effective January 1, 2028, after which WUCIOA governs nearly all communities regardless of formation date.¹⁴ The retroactivity provision itself states that the enumerated sections apply only to events occurring on or after July 1, 2018 and do not invalidate existing provisions of the governing documents, which is why the reach of any single provision must be confirmed rather than presumed.¹³

Within whichever statute applies, the recorded declaration is the operative source of rental authority. The statute supplies the default rules, the amendment mechanics, and, in WUCIOA, certain limits and owner protections; the declaration supplies the specific rental terms the community chooses to adopt. A short-term-rental restriction that is not grounded in the declaration, and not adopted through the amendment process the applicable statute requires, is exposed to challenge.

2B. The rental provision, amendments, and grandfathering

WUCIOA does contain owner-protection language relevant to rentals, and it should be cited to the Washington text rather than borrowed from another 2008-UCIOA state. Under RCW 64.90.285(6), a declaration may require a higher approval percentage for an amendment intended to prohibit or materially restrict permitted uses, but it may not require more than 90 percent of the votes (or all but one owner, whichever is less), and, critically, an amendment adopted under that subsection "must provide reasonable protection for a use permitted at the time the amendment was adopted."⁴ Separately, RCW 64.90.510(10)(c) allows a board to adopt rules restricting the leasing of residential units only to the extent those rules are reasonably designed to meet institutional-lender underwriting requirements; broader leasing restrictions must sit in the declaration itself (RCW 64.90.225(1)(k)).⁵ The older statutes lack a comparable owner-protection provision, so their treatment of rentals turns on the declaration and on case law.

Adopting or strengthening a rental restriction is done by amending the declaration under the applicable statute and its amendment clause. For Condominium Act communities, RCW 64.34.264(1) sets a general 67 percent threshold, but RCW 64.34.264(4) requires 90 percent approval for an amendment that changes "the uses to which any unit is restricted," and Washington courts have held that leasing restrictions are use restrictions subject to that 90 percent rule.⁶¹⁵ RCW 64.34.264(2) also imposes a one-year statute of limitations on challenges to a recorded amendment.⁶ For WUCIOA communities, the amendment percentage is the figure stated in the declaration, subject to the 90 percent cap in RCW 64.90.285(6) for use restrictions and the objection-and-reasonableness process in RCW 64.90.285(12).⁴ For Horizontal Property Regimes Act and Homeowners' Associations Act communities, the statutes do not fix a rental-amendment percentage, so the declaration controls, and common law fills the gaps.

Whether a validly adopted restriction binds an owner who bought before it turns on the applicable statute, the declaration, and Washington common law rather than on any imported statutory shield. WUCIOA supplies the closest thing to a statutory grandfathering rule: an amendment restricting uses must provide reasonable protection for a use permitted when it was adopted (RCW 64.90.285(6)).⁴ Outside WUCIOA, the question is decided by covenant-interpretation principles. In Wilkinson v. Chiwawa Communities Ass'n, 180 Wn.2d 241, 327 P.3d 614 (2014), involving the 367-lot Chiwawa River Pines planned community in Chelan County, the Washington Supreme Court invalidated an amendment banning short-term rentals to protect the "reasonable and settled expectations of landowners in their property," reading covenants that permitted rentals as not putting owners on notice of a ban.¹⁶ An association that never reserved the power to add new covenants may therefore face a unanimity requirement to adopt one. A Florida-style or California-style statutory grandfathering shield should not be imported; any owner protection should be cited to the Washington provision or to Washington case law.

2C. The state operator statute, tax, and the layering

Washington's short-term-rental operator statute, RCW 64.37, regulates operators and platforms, not associations. It defines a short-term rental as lodging offered for fewer than 30 consecutive nights (RCW 64.37.010),⁷ and requires that an operator "must maintain primary liability insurance to cover the short-term rental dwelling unit in the aggregate of not less than one million dollars or conduct each short-term rental transaction through a platform that provides equal or greater primary liability insurance coverage" (RCW 64.37.050).¹⁷ It imposes consumer-safety duties such as providing contact information and carbon-monoxide compliance, and requires platforms to register with the Department of Revenue and to inform operators of tax and safety obligations (RCW 64.37.040).² Taxes are addressed in RCW 64.37.020, which requires operators to remit applicable local, state, and federal taxes unless the platform does so on their behalf.¹⁸

Local governments regulate on top of that state floor, and the state does not broadly preempt them. Under Seattle Ordinance 125490 (effective January 1, 2019), an operator "may operate up to two dwelling units you own as short-term rentals," and "if you operate two dwelling units as STRs, one must be your primary residence," with a $75 annual operator license and, for non-primary units, registration under the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance.¹⁹ Tourism markets regulate more tightly: under Chelan County Code 11.88.290, non-owner-occupied short-term rentals are capped at 6 percent of housing stock in most zones, and the Leavenworth-area zones exceed their caps and are closed to new non-conforming permits (in 2026 the Leavenworth zip code held 70 rentals over the caps, comprising 5 in unincorporated Leavenworth, 59 at Lake Wenatchee, and 6 in Plain, down from 120 above cap in 2023), while the City of Leavenworth largely prohibits vacation rentals in residential zones.²⁰ On tax, Washington plainly has a retail sales tax; short-term lodging of fewer than 30 consecutive days is subject to the retail sales tax plus additional lodging taxes (the special hotel-motel tax, convention-and-trade-center taxes in King County, and tourism promotion area charges) administered through the Department of Revenue and RCW 67.28, and platforms commonly collect and remit them.¹¹

The critical point is that these regimes govern the owner-to-government relationship and neither grant nor remove association authority. An owner can hold a valid Seattle operator license, meet every RCW 64.37 duty, and pay every lodging tax, and still violate a declaration that bars or caps short-term rentals. Conversely, an owner can satisfy the declaration and still be shut out by a local cap or an operator-licensing limit. Compliance with one layer says nothing about compliance with the others, and a property manager entering Washington has to clear all of them.

Section 3: Operational mechanics and enforcement

A. Adopting a valid restriction (the tools)

The most common and most defensible tool is a minimum-lease-term restriction placed in the declaration, because it defines "short-term" for the community and ties the restriction to the document courts treat as controlling. In a Condominium Act community, such a restriction is a use restriction and must be adopted by the 90 percent vote required by RCW 64.34.264(4); in a WUCIOA community it must clear the declaration's amendment percentage, capped at 90 percent for use restrictions under RCW 64.90.285(6).⁶⁴ Rental caps (limiting the percentage of units that may be leased) are permitted, and the substance of the cap is governed by the declaration rather than limited by statute, but the amendment that adopts the cap is subject to the same date-keyed thresholds. A WUCIOA board cannot substitute a rule for a declaration amendment: RCW 64.90.510(10)(c) permits board-adopted leasing rules only to the extent they meet institutional-lender underwriting requirements, so anything broader has to be in the declaration.⁵

Short of a leasing restriction, an association may impose internal, administrative requirements that do not ban rentals: registration of rental units, collection of owner and tenant contact information, and lease-filing or lease-addendum requirements that incorporate the governing documents. These can be adopted at the rule level if they regulate conduct and administration rather than prohibit a permitted use, and if they do not conflict with the declaration. The line between an enforceable administrative rule and an unenforceable use restriction adopted without a declaration amendment is exactly where Washington litigation concentrates, so counsel review of the specific declaration language is important before a board acts.²¹

B. Enforcement and the appellate path

Before an association fines an owner for a short-term-rental violation, it must give notice and an opportunity to be heard, and the fine must follow a schedule adopted in advance and furnished to owners. That requirement is express in RCW 64.90.405 (WUCIOA), RCW 64.34.304 (Condominium Act), and RCW 64.38.020 (Homeowners' Associations Act).¹² The oldest condominiums are the exception: the Horizontal Property Regimes Act (RCW 64.32) did not authorize fines at all, leaving those associations to injunctive relief and damages unless they have opted into a newer scheme.⁸ Available remedies otherwise include reasonable fines where authorized, injunctive relief to stop the prohibited rentals, and the assessment lien for unpaid, properly levied charges. Washington sets no statutory dollar cap on fines but requires that they be reasonable.²²

A contested enforcement action is filed in the Superior Court, the court of general jurisdiction. An appeal goes to the Court of Appeals of Washington, which sits in three divisions (Division I in Seattle, Division II in Tacoma, and Division III in Spokane), with discretionary review by the Washington Supreme Court. Any cited ruling should be attributed to its specific division. Association enforcement runs on a track separate from government enforcement: a city or county can cite an operator, and the Department of Revenue can pursue unpaid lodging taxes, without regard to the association's covenant claim, and the association's covenant action proceeds without regard to the owner's licensing or tax status. Whether a statutory rule may be varied by the declaration depends on the statute; WUCIOA in particular bars variation of many provisions except where the act expressly allows it (RCW 64.90.015 and RCW 64.90.509), so a board should confirm that a declaration term it intends to rely on is one the act permits to be varied.²³

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

B. Recent rulings

C. Active legislative or local debates

The Legislature continues to consider authorizing cities and counties to impose a local short-term-rental excise tax of up to 4 percent for affordable housing: ESSB 5576 (prime sponsor Sen. Liz Lovelett, D-Anacortes) passed the Senate on March 11, 2025 but did not become law, and companion HB 2559 carried into 2026, drawing a reported multimillion-dollar Airbnb lobbying campaign.²⁶ Locally, Chelan County continues to administer its capped permit system under Code 11.88.290, with the Leavenworth-area zones remaining over their caps and closed to new non-conforming permits.²⁰

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Washington sits among the more structurally complex states for short-term rentals and community associations. It uses a four-statute layered structure keyed to community type and creation date (WUCIOA, the Condominium Act, the Homeowners' Associations Act, and the Horizontal Property Regimes Act), with WUCIOA, a 2008-UCIOA act, layered on top and steadily displacing the older statutes by 2028. The state is not covenant-primary; the applicable rule depends on classification, and WUCIOA supplies rental-amendment limits and an owner-protection provision (RCW 64.90.285(6)) that the older statutes lack. That makes Washington more complex than most states and distinct both from states that preempt local bans (Florida, Arizona) and from states that limit HOA rental authority through a single statutory provision (California, Arizona). The state operator statute (RCW 64.37), local regulation, and the lodging taxes restrain operators, local governments, and owners, not associations. For a multi-state operator entering Washington, the practical implication is to classify each community by type and creation date, verify which WUCIOA provisions apply and when, and account for very large mountain, lake, island, and urban short-term-rental markets that regulate independently of any association.

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

1. Wash. Rev. Code ch. 64.90 (WUCIOA); ch. 64.34 (Condominium Act); ch. 64.38 (Homeowners' Associations Act); ch. 64.32 (Horizontal Property Regimes Act), Washington State Legislature ↩
2. Wash. Rev. Code ch. 64.37, Short-Term Rentals (incl. RCW 64.37.040, platform registration and operator notice), Washington State Legislature ↩
3. Municipal Research and Services Center, Lodging Tax (Hotel-Motel Tax); cities and counties regulate short-term rentals locally ↩
4. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.90.285 (amendment of declaration; subsection (6) 90% cap and reasonable protection for permitted use), Washington State Legislature ↩
5. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.90.510(10)(c) (board rules restricting leasing limited to institutional-lender underwriting), Washington State Legislature ↩
6. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.34.264 (amendment of declaration; subsection (4) 90% use-restriction vote; subsection (2) one-year limitation), Washington State Legislature ↩
7. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.37.010 (defining "short-term rental" as fewer than 30 consecutive nights), Washington State Legislature ↩
8. Wash. Rev. Code ch. 64.32 (Horizontal Property Regimes Act; RCW 64.32.060 provides for damages or injunctive relief, no fine authority), Washington State Legislature ↩
9. Lasher Holzapfel Sperry & Ebberson, "Is There Anything My Neighborhood Can Do to Ban Short-Term Rentals?" (discussing unanimity requirement for new covenants under Wilkinson and Twin W) ↩
10. City of Seattle, Short-Term Rentals – Business Regulations (Ordinance 125490); Chelan County Code 11.88.290, Chelan County Community Development ↩
11. Washington Department of Revenue, Lodging – transient (short-term); retail sales tax plus lodging taxes on stays under 30 days ↩
12. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.90.405 (WUCIOA powers, notice and opportunity to be heard before fines); see also RCW 64.34.304 and RCW 64.38.020, Washington State Legislature ↩
13. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.90.080 (preexisting common interest communities; recodified as RCW 64.90.365), Washington State Legislature ↩
14. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.90.365 (Common interest communities—Exceptions; enumerated WUCIOA sections applying to pre-2018 communities; older chapters repealed effective January 1, 2028), Washington State Legislature ↩
15. Beresford Booth, "Washington State Condo Leasing Restrictions" (Filmore LLLP v. Unit Owners Ass'n of Centre Pointe Condominium, Wash. Ct. App. Div. I, holding leasing is a "use" requiring 90% approval under RCW 64.34.264(4)) ↩
16. Brandt Law Group, discussing Wilkinson v. Chiwawa Communities Ass'n, 180 Wn.2d 241, 327 P.3d 614 (2014) ↩
17. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.37.050 (liability insurance; one million dollars aggregate or platform coverage), Washington State Legislature ↩
18. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.37.020 (taxes; operator remits unless platform does so), Washington State Legislature ↩
19. City of Seattle, Short-Term Rentals – Business Regulations (two-unit limit, primary residence requirement, $75 operator license under Ordinance 125490) ↩
20. Icicle Creek Real Estate, summarizing Chelan County Code 11.88.290 6% cap and 2026 over-cap figures (70 rentals over cap in the Leavenworth zip code) ↩
21. Condominium Law Group, "Use Restrictions Must be Contained in a Condominium's Declaration" (Kawawaki v. Academy Square Condominium Ass'n, Wash. Ct. App.) ↩
22. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.38.020 (HOA powers, including reasonable fines after notice and opportunity to be heard per a previously established schedule), Washington State Legislature ↩
23. Wash. Rev. Code § 64.90.509 (governing documents may not vary provisions of chapter—exceptions); see also RCW 64.90.015, Washington State Legislature ↩
24. Spader Bay Condominium Owners Ass'n v. Thompson, No. 40142-1-III (Wash. Ct. App. Div. III July 10, 2025) (unpublished), Washington State Courts ↩
25. Twin W Owners' Ass'n v. Murphy, No. 39299-6-III (Wash. Ct. App. Div. III 2023); opinion text at Washington State Courts / FindLaw ↩
26. Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5576, Senate Bill Report (local option lodging excise tax up to 4%, passed Senate March 11, 2025); companion HB 2559, Washington State Legislature ↩