The Flagstaff short-term rental license, plainly.
Arizona law has allowed short-term rentals statewide since 2017; in 2023, Flagstaff decided exactly how it would live with them. What came out is a licensing regime that is short, strict, and entirely manageable — if you take the steps in order. Here is the whole of it, including the one step no ordinance mentions: the gate.
What Flagstaff requires
In 2023, Flagstaff adopted City Code Chapter 3-12 under A.R.S. 9-500.39 — the state statute that limits what Arizona cities may ask of rental owners — and began requiring a license for every short-term rental within city limits. One license per home. Renewed every year. It is unlawful to rent, or even to offer to rent, without one; the ordinance treats an online listing as evidence all by itself.
The full list is shorter than most owners fear: a state tax license, the city license, written notice to the neighbors, a contact who can answer for the property at any hour, and the license number on every listing. None of it is difficult. All of it is checked.
First, the tax license
Before the city will look at your application, the state needs its paperwork. Every short-term rental in Arizona needs a transaction privilege tax (TPT) license from the Arizona Department of Revenue, with the rental's address listed as a location. Flagstaff's application asks for the TPT number and the location code — a license that doesn't show the property will stall it.
Two things owners are often told otherwise. Flagstaff taxes short-term stays at the same rate as a hotel, and the requirement applies even if you rent a few nights a year — the city's own FAQ answers that question with one word. The booking platforms collect and remit certain taxes on your behalf; that does not replace your license. The city wants your number, not the platform's.
The city license, in order
The ordinance sets out exactly what the application must contain. Done in sequence, it is one sitting of paperwork.
Questions go to the city's STR desk: ShortTermRental@flagstaffaz.gov, (928) 213-2231.
- Get the TPT license first. The city application requires the number, including the location code for the property.
- Apply through the city's online STR portal: the property's address, the owner's details (and any designee's), and the name, physical address, email, and 24-hour phone number of an emergency point of contact. The contact's information becomes public record.
- Sign the attestations. The owner and every designee must attest they are not registered sex offenders and have no felony convictions within the past five years involving death, serious physical injury, or use of a deadly weapon. Proof of lawful presence in the U.S. is also required.
- Pay the license fee: $250, the state-law maximum, effective July 1, 2026 (existing licenses pay the new amount at their next renewal). It is nonrefundable, never prorated, and covers one year whether you operate for twelve months or one.
- Once the license issues — and before the home is offered for rent at all, listing included — notify the neighbors in writing: every single-family property adjacent to yours, directly across, directly behind, and diagonally. (For a condo or multifamily unit: the same floor, plus the units directly above and below.) The notice must carry the license number, the property address, and the emergency contact's details.
- File the attestation of compliance with the city — which properties you notified, and how. Then put the license number on every advertisement, and post the required notice inside the home within ten feet of the primary entrance.
What has to stay true
The license is valid for one year from issuance and is renewed through the same online account — a renewal fee, a current TPT license, and a fresh round of neighbor notice each time. If the emergency point of contact changes, the neighbors must be re-notified within ten days.
The sixty-minute rule deserves respect. When a police officer asks, the emergency contact must be on the premises, or reachable by phone or text, within sixty minutes. Letting the contact information on file go stale costs $1,000 for every thirty days it stays wrong.
Some uses are simply off the table — special events that would need their own permit, retail or restaurant or banquet use, and a list of criminal uses you were not planning anyway. Advertising a prohibited use is itself treated as evidence of the violation.
As of July 1, 2026, Flagstaff requires liability insurance: at least $500,000 in coverage before the home is offered or rented. Booking exclusively through a platform that provides equal or greater coverage satisfies the letter of it — but a home worth renting is worth insuring like one, not by borrowed policy.
The cost of getting it wrong
Operate without a license and the city sends written notice. Fail to apply within thirty days of that notice and the penalty runs $1,000 per month — and you must stop renting either way until the license exists.
For a licensed rental, verified violations at the same property stack within any twelve-month window: $500 for the first, $1,000 for the second, $3,500 for the third and each one after. Three in a year — or a single serious one — and the city may suspend the license for up to twelve months. A suspension is not an inconvenience. It is every booking for up to a year.
Just outside the city line
Not every Flagstaff-area home answers to Flagstaff. If the parcel sits in unincorporated Coconino County, the city license does not apply — the county runs its own short-term rental permit: annual, a $250 fee, the TPT license first, neighbor notification, and a requirement that the dwelling be a lawfully permitted, habitable structure. A twin statute underneath, and a different desk.
Which one governs is a matter of the parcel, not the mailing address. Check before you file — the county assessor's records settle it in minutes.
The gate is its own jurisdiction
A city license makes a rental legal. Inside a gated community, it does not make the rental work. Communities like Flagstaff Ranch require guests to be registered with the association before they arrive — names, dates, vehicles — so the gatehouse knows who is coming. The community's rules bind your guests whether or not they have read them: quiet hours, speed limits, where they may go and where they may not. The gate does not care that the platform confirmed the booking.
In practice this means every reservation generates a filing. Not once a year, like the license — every stay. A guest who books at noon for a same-day arrival has to exist in the gate system by evening, or the first thing they experience of your home is being turned around in the dark. This is precisely where national managers fumble: the license framed on the office wall, the guest idling at the gate.
Tend manages Breakthrough Lodge inside the gated Flagstaff Ranch Golf Community — 5.0 across 34 reviews — and files the association's guest registration for every stay, before arrival, as part of the same routine that keeps the city license current and the TPT filed. Compliance here is not a form we completed once. It is a service that runs.
If you own a home here
If you own a home in or around Flagstaff and want to know what it would earn with the license, the taxes, and the gate handled as one job — ask for a First Look. It is a complimentary written earnings brief for your specific home: what it would likely earn, what we would change, and exactly what we charge — 22% of accommodation revenue, everything else passed through at cost. A real look, not a glance.
Questions owners actually ask.
How much does the Flagstaff short-term rental license cost?
State law caps any Arizona city's license fee at $250 or the actual cost of issuing it, whichever is less. Flagstaff sets its fee in the city user-fee schedule and adjusted it in 2026 — confirm the current amount in the city's STR portal when you apply. The fee is nonrefundable, not prorated, and covers one year.
Do I still need a TPT license if Airbnb or Vrbo collects the tax?
Yes. The platforms collect and remit certain taxes for bookings they process, but Flagstaff's license application requires your own TPT number, including the property's location code — and the requirement applies even if you rent only a few nights a year.
What happens if I rent without a license?
The city sends written notice and you must stop renting until you are licensed. Fail to apply within thirty days of that notice and the city may impose $1,000 per month. For licensed properties, verified violations run $500, then $1,000, then $3,500 within a twelve-month period — and three in a year can suspend the license for up to twelve months.
Will my neighbors get my personal information?
They get the emergency point of contact's information — name, physical address, email, and a 24-hour phone number — along with the license number and the property address. That contact's details are public record. The contact does not have to be you; an owner may name a designee, and a local manager typically serves that role.
I'm buying a Flagstaff home that already has an STR license. Does it transfer?
No. The license is nontransferable and nonassignable. A new owner applies fresh — new TPT license, new application, new neighbor notice — before offering the home for rent.
Reviewed July 2026 against the sources below. Ordinances change; where this page and the current code differ, the code governs — confirm with the city before relying on any single detail.
Sources: flagstaff.az.gov · flagstaff.az.gov · flagstaff.az.gov · codepublishing.com · azleg.gov · coconino.az.gov