Houfy & New York City regulations

Starting September 5 2023, New York City began enforcing its rules which require all eligible short- term rental Hosts to be registered with the city, or have Class B status, to continue hosting short-term rental stays.

Under New York City law, the unhosted short-term rental (less than 30 days) of a permanent residential dwelling unit is prohibited.

What this means on Houfy: if we identify your listing as being in New York City, we automatically restrict it to stays of 30 nights or more and hide it from shorter guest searches until you are registered and your registration number is on the listing. If you believe your listing has been restricted in error, email us at info@houfy.com with your listing number.

I. Reporting Law (Local Law 64 of 2020)

The City adopted Local Law 64 of 2020, codified as § 26-2101 et seq. of the Administrative Code of the City of New York (N.Y.C. Admin. Code), and effective on January 3, 2021. The provisions of this statute require disclosure of information to the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (“OSE”) about certain short-term rental (less than 30 consecutive days)transactions by booking services, including, but not limited to: the physical address of the short-term rental; the location online of the advertisement that resulted in the short-rental; information relating to the identity of the host, including contact information; and information related to the scope of the short-term rental transaction.

To comply with the new rules you must:

Register with the city

1. Learn about the registration process on the city’s website and apply if eligible under the new rules. ​​

2. Once you are registered with the City of New York, add your registration number to each affected listing. Go to Edit listing > Verifications and enter your number in the field labelled City Permit Number/City Registration ID (If required). For New York City listings the OSE-STRREG- prefix is shown beside the box already - type only the part that follows it. The same field also appears on the Rates & Fees tab of the listing editor; both write to the same place, so filling in either one is enough. Your registration number is then shown on your public listing as Registration ID.

3. Your listing address (what you have entered on your Houfy listing) must match exactly what is on New York City's list. You can correct it yourself - you do not need to contact us. Go to Edit listing > Location, press Edit on the Address Details card, correct the address and press Save.

   One thing to know before you save: saving a new address looks the address up again on the map and moves your listing's map pin to whatever it finds. If you had previously dragged the pin to the exact spot on your property, drag it back after saving.

   If your listing's rates and availability are synced from a channel manager, the address field will be locked - change the address in that channel manager instead, or contact us at info@houfy.com.

OR

Host long-term stays

Houfy already applies this for you. Listings we identify as being inside New York City are automatically held to a 30-night minimum: bookings, quotes and channel-manager rates are all forced to 30 nights or more, and the listing is hidden from guest searches for stays shorter than 30 nights. This happens whether or not you change anything.

You can still set the minimum yourself so your own listing page reads correctly - go to Edit listing > Pricing and set Minimum Stay (nights) to 30 under Stay Rules. Setting a number lower than 30 will not take effect for a New York City listing.

Please also keep your calendar availability up to date.

New York data-sharing requirements

The City of New York requires that home-sharing platforms share data about listings and you as a host.

Here is a list of the information Houfy might need to disclose to the City of New York:

1. Host & Co-Host(s) information:

• Name

• Physical address (street name, street number, apartment or unit number, borough or county, and zip code)

• Phone number

• Email

• Profile ID number

• Profile URL

2. Listing(s) information:

• Physical address (street name, street number, apartment or unit number, borough or county, and zip code)

• Listing's name

• Listing's ID number

• URL of listing

• Type (ex: entire place, private room etc.)

• Total number of nights booked per listing

Relevant information for Hosts

Taxes

New York City and New York State impose multiple taxes that may apply to transient occupancy or tourist use, subject to certain exemptions. Examples of taxes that could apply to your listing are:

• State and City sales tax

• City hotel room occupancy tax

• State and City nightly room fees

Information about state-administered taxes is available on the New York State’s Department of Taxation website.

Information about City-administered taxes is available on the City’s website.