Nantucket, MA Short-Term Rental Rules (2026)
Can I operate a short-term rental in Nantucket?
Short-term rentals are lawful by right on most of the island for natural-person owners who register annually with the Board of Health, insure the unit and pay lodging taxes; corporate and investment-entity ownership is barred for new operators.
Key facts
What the record says about short-term rentals in Nantucket, with the level of law each comes from. What do these facts mean?
Can you operate?
Stay limits
Taxes
Why this score
The main reasons Nantucket scores the way it does. Listed most important first.
What holds it back
Not yet known
- 15 more factors — free account
- 22 facts are not yet established, so the score leans on typical values.
Operating restrictions
What limits how, where and how often you can rent in Nantucket.
Occupancy / night caps / zoning limits
Occupancy is limited by bedroom count with a fixed allowance for additional guests, and nuisance conditions such as noise and parking are handled through Board of Health regulations.
- Two people per bedroom plus two additional people
Owner-occupancy / primary-residence rules
Ownership rather than residence is regulated: new rentals are barred in units owned by corporations, partnerships, REITs and similar pooled-investment entities, while LLCs and S corporations whose members are all natural persons are treated as natural persons. Natural-person owners who paid state excise on a rental before 2024 and owned before May 2024 are exempt from the entity, affordable-housing and time-share bars until the unit is transferred or the certificate lapses.
- Entity-owned units barred for new operators
- Income-restricted and time-share units barred
- Pre-2024 natural-person operators exempt until transfer or lapse
Enforcement / penalties
Violations can be handled through daily non-criminal fines, court action or civil penalties, and the Board of Health may suspend or revoke a certificate and disqualify an operator after repeated violations. The Town runs a complaint hotline.
- Non-criminal fines of $100, $200 and $300 for first, second and later offenses, each day separate
- Civil penalty up to $5,000 per violation, each day separate
- Suspension, revocation or disqualification for up to three years after a hearing
New to this? Owner-occupied vs non-owner-occupied STRs, explained
Permit requirements
What you need to file or hold before hosting in Nantucket.
Permits & licensing
Operators obtain an annual certificate of registration from the Board of Health, supported by their state Department of Revenue certificate or proof of exemption, proof of insurance and a local contact. The certificate is personal to the operator and does not pass with the property, and renewal is at the Town's discretion. The Town moved to a new online registration system for the 2026-2027 certificate period.
- Board of Health certificate of registration per unit, renewed each year by November 1
- Annual registration fee of $250 per unit
- Liability insurance of at least $1,000,000 unless platform coverage equals or exceeds it
- Local contact reachable within two hours
- Registration identifier shown in advertisements
- No outstanding building, sanitary, zoning or fire code violations and current town charges
New to this? How short-term rental permits and licensing work
Taxes
Lodging, occupancy and related taxes or fees.
Taxes & fees
Operators register with the Department of Revenue, and the state room-occupancy excise applies together with a local option excise and a regional Cape Cod and Islands water-protection surcharge; a community impact fee can apply to units that are one of several run by the same operator. Major platforms collect most or all of these for the operator.
- State registration with the Department of Revenue
- Community impact fee for professionally managed units
New to this? Short-term rental lodging taxes, explained
Recent changes
The dated change history is part of the free account. Email alerts above need no account.
Market assumptions
Estimates, not lawRevenue, occupancy and returns depend on the specific property and are estimates, separate from the rules above.
Run any property in Nantucket through the deal analyzer for cash flow, cap rate, and long-term projections.
Sources
Last verified October 22, 2026 (19 days ago). Short-term rental rules can change between checks. Confirm current requirements with the jurisdiction before relying on this for a real decision.
- ecode360.com
- nantucket-ma.gov
- nantucketcurrent.com › …-short-term-rentals-and-rejects-legal-challenge
- nantucketcurrent.com › …rm-rentals-island-wide-after-years-of-stalemate
- avalara.com
- nantucketcurrent.com › …rrant-articles-for-the-2026-annual-town-meeting
- bnbcalc.com
- mass.gov
- malegislature.gov › Chapter64G/Section14
- malegislature.gov › Chapter64G/Section15
- lexblog.com
- malegislature.gov › 194/H1573
A free STRVE account shows which rule each source supports, plus the full jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction breakdown, change history, and rule-change alerts for Nantucket.
More STR-friendly options nearby
Nearby cities with a higher regulation score than Nantucket.
- 79/100Westerly~89 mi
Short-term rental rules near Nantucket
All Massachusetts cities →How we research this
The STRVE Score is our own regulation rating, built from seven levels of authority: state, county, town, HOA, deed restrictions, special districts, and platform rules. Each level is scored separately, with its own citations and the date we verified it. The headline number is the strictest of the seven, never an average, because the tightest rule is the one that governs you.
We keep a history of what a city's rules said before and when they changed, so a score that moves is traceable to the rule that moved it.
- Highly permissive
- 90+
- Friendly
- 70–89
- Moderate
- 45–69
- Heavily restricted
- 20–44
- Effectively banned
- 0–19
Not legal advice
STRVE is a research tool, not financial or legal advice. Always verify regulation, tax, and permitting details with the local jurisdiction and a licensed professional before you buy.
The STRVE Score and the seven-level breakdown are our own rating framework, not an official or government rating, and no jurisdiction endorses or reviews them. The rules behind them are researched from public sources with AI assistance and are current only as of the verification date shown, so they can be incomplete, outdated, or wrong. None of it substitutes for advice from local counsel. Confirm every permit, tax, occupancy, and zoning requirement against the jurisdiction's own municipal code and with an attorney licensed in that jurisdiction before you buy, list, or operate. Terms of Service