Please sign to urge the Austin City Council to use existing regulations and resources to enforce the city’s short-term rental ordinance!

In 2012 the City of Austin adopted a policy that was widely viewed as a “best practice” with regard to the regulation of short-term and vacation rentals. The ordinance allows property owners to register their home, pay taxes and easily understand the rules. The City Auditor has reviewed the program and shows that Austin has the highest compliance rate in the country.

Cities around the world that have created burdensome regulations, or implemented bans, have only driven the short-term rental industry underground, resulting in properties not complying with local laws and tax requirements.

By using existing regulations, Austin taxpayers will not have to fund ineffective and burdensome new rules. Furthermore, by preserving the short-term rental program, you will be supporting the City of Austin Cultural Arts Funding Programs, which are funded by the Hotel Occupancy Tax.

The short-term vacation rental industry contributes tens of millions of dollars per year locally to the Hotel Occupancy Tax. It also creates over $200 million dollars a year in economic impact for the community and affects over two-thousand jobs including landscapers, accountants, housekeepers, managers and more. Visitors have used short-term rentals for as long as Austin has been incorporated. Families, visiting professors, music, film and digital media production all depend on short-term rentals.

Even the United States Conference of Mayors has stated: “Fair regulation of short-term rentals ensures greater compliance and greater receipt of local hotel taxes,” and, “Onerous regulations of short-term rentals can drive the industry underground, thus evading local regulations and local hotel taxes.”

If you support fair and effective regulation, please sign this petition and tell the City Council to use existing regulations to enforce the ordinance, and to keep Austin's short-term rental policy a success.

Please also join the Facebook Group below to show your support of short term rentals and to find others ways you can help.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/atxstrs/