Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026 | 3:56 p.m.
Clark County Commissioners unanimously approved a faster licensing process for short-term rentals today, the county’s latest attempt to revive a crackdown on the fast-growing industry that a federal injunction has stalled.
The changes come after the Ninth Circuit told the county last month that people need “a meaningful opportunity to apply for a short-term rental license and to have their applications processed in a reasonable time,” said Deputy District Attorney Jeff Rogan, who presented the ordinance.
Under the new ordinance, the county must decide on applications within 45 business days, with some exceptions. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis as soon as they are complete. Applicants will have 14 days to respond to county requests, and the window to appeal a denial shrinks from 30 days to 14. Fees won’t be due until an application is approved.
What the ordinance doesn’t change are the licensing standards themselves.
“The court has latched onto the idea that we were denying some kind of process to applicants, people that wanted to start a short-term rental,” Rogan said. “I do want to point out that the court did say that short-term rentals still may be regulated despite the concerns the court had with our process, and we’re keeping those regulations today, we’re not changing those policies. Those licensing standards, inspections and enforcement rules all remain the same.”
Applicants will begin with an intake appointment at the county’s business license office. From there, the county will check eligibility, conduct a fire inspection and issue a written approval or denial.
If the application is approved, the county will then collect fees.
Revised applications will be available Dec. 1. Applicants can start scheduling intake appointments Dec. 15, and the first appointments begin at 8 a.m. Jan. 5.
Rogan said the county will start processing applications right away, as long as an applicant isn’t caught in a cluster.
Why the old system bogged down
Clusters were a major reason the original system stalled, Rogan said. Because rentals must be at least 1,000 feet apart, approving one application could disqualify others nearby.
That meant applications in the same area had to be decided in a set order, which the county had previously attempted with a random number generator.
Clusters didn’t always form in neat lines, and overlapping groups complicated things further. Applicant responses, fee payments and appeals added weeks more.
Volume played a role, too.
After the state law and county ordinance passed, applications for regulated business licenses nearly tripled, from 430 in 2022 to 1,140 in 2023, according to business license office data.
Rogan expects clustering to be “less of a problem this time around,” because the 242 licenses the county has issued since its 2022 ordinance took effect will automatically disqualify any applications within 1,000 feet of them.
Another 47 applications are pending, Rogan said. They will be judged under current standards but will follow the new timelines and rules once those take effect at the end of November. He added that commissioners remain free to make further policy changes as long as they are consistent with state law.
The county’s rules have been tied up in court since June 2025, when the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association sued, alleging the rules infringed on “the long-established, fundamental rights of property owners” and imposed “unlawful burdens on short-term rental platforms.” Airbnb later joined the suit.
In December, U.S. District Judge Miranda Du denied a motion to dismiss the suit from Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford and placed a moratorium on fines, penalties and liens against short-term rental owners in Clark County. Du ruled that banning property owners from renting out their properties could violate the 14th Amendment’s guarantee that no state may “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property” without due process.
Since then, the county has been barred from requiring short-term rental licenses, issuing fines or declaring properties a public nuisance. Commissioners have looked for other levers: In August, they voted 5-0 to hold platforms responsible for unlicensed properties listed on their sites, with fines of $500 for a first violation and $1,000 for each one after.
The market has shrunk dramatically regardless. Las Vegas had just 250 active short-term rental listings as of October, down about 99% from a year earlier, according to AirDNA, which aggregates and analyzes short-term rental data. Those listings averaged roughly 47% occupancy and $230 a night.
Operators still unhappy
Members of the rental association called the licensing system a “sham process” and took aim at the distance requirement.
“I’m a good operator who’s trying to do things the right way,” said Dwight Calwhite, who owns two short-term rental properties. “I’m asking you to create a workable path for responsible operators like me. Let us prove that we can be good neighbors and contribute to the county rather than stifling our legal path to serving the Las Vegas visitors that rely on us to provide private accommodations.”
Some commissioners defended the ordinance as a necessary first step, arguing that it fixes the process while keeping existing standards in place and gives the county a chance to see how the new system performs. If applicants keep running into problems, they said, the commission can make further changes.
“I know that people may be upset or wanna talk about the distance requirement but if the process doesn’t work, which is what we’ve heard for years and years and we’ve heard from the court, we have to fix the process first in order for it to go,” Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick said. “This’ll start January, right, and then we’ll be able to have you come back, I believe, by mid-February to tell us what you’re seeing — I mean, that’s consistent with what we do in almost anything that we try so that we can work out the bugs.”
