STATE HOUSE – Senators and representatives from across Rhode Island are reminding owners of short-term rental properties of a new requirement this year: registering their business with the state. They are singling out owners in the city of Newport, which has fallen behind other cities and towns.

Last year the General Assembly passed legislation (2021-H 5505A, 2021-S 0501B) requiring owners of short-term rental units to register with the state by Dec. 31, 2022.

Nearly 3,000 did so, but there are likely others who have not. Owners that haven’t registered will face fines for noncompliance.

In a review of Rhode Island short-term rentals on the site AirDNA, the majority (68%) of rentals around the state have complied with the registration requirement. But in Newport, only 268 (33%) of the 821 active rentals are registered in the state system, meaning 553 have not.  

AirDNA is the leading provider of data and analytics for the $140 billion-dollar short-term rental industry and has developed a method to track the short-term rental performance of every listing on many short-term rental sites.  

Additionally, according to the data and analytics from AirDNA in October 2022, over 700 short-term rental properties advertised on sites such as Airbnb and Vrbo in Newport produced more than $40 million in revenue from August 2021 to August 2022.