Updated September 14, 2026
Search for a Maui short term rental for sale and most of what comes back is a condo. That is not an accident. On Maui, the property you can legally rent by the night is almost always a condo in a hotel zoned building, not a house.
Hotel zoning is the only zoning on the island where short-term rental is a permitted use by right. A handful of homes carry it. They reach the open market rarely enough that building a purchase around finding one is not a plan.
Everything else is a permit question, and Maui County permits are harder to get and less portable than most off-island buyers expect. Here is what you are actually buying into.
What You Can and Cannot Vacation Rent on Maui
| Property | Can you rent it nightly? | What that depends on |
|---|---|---|
| Condo in a hotel zoned building (H districts) | Yes | Zoning permits it by right. These buildings were not impacted by Bill 9. |
| Apartment zoned condo that was on the Minatoya list | For now | Use must stop January 1, 2029 in the West Maui community plan area and January 1, 2031 everywhere else, unless the property is rezoned first. |
| Home with hotel zoning | Yes | Legal, and very rare on the market. |
| Home in a residential district | Only with a short-term rental home permit | Capped by community plan area, and the permit does not come with the house. |
| Home you live in | Only with a bed and breakfast permit | You have to live on the lot. |
| Home on agricultural land | No | The Hawaii Supreme Court held in September 2024 that farm dwellings in the State Agricultural District cannot be used as short-term vacation rentals. |
| Accessory dwelling, ohana, or cottage | No | County code does not allow short-term rental of accessory dwellings. |
Hotel Zoning Is the Only Route That Comes With the Property
Most hotel zoned property on Maui is a hotel or a vacation rental condominium. That is where nightly rental is written into the zoning rather than granted to a person.
A very small number of single-family homes carry hotel zoning. When one sells, it usually sells quietly. If your plan requires one, you are waiting for inventory that may not appear during your search.
If the house does not have hotel zoning, you are applying for one of two county permits.
Short-Term Rental Home Permit
A short-term rental home permit, STRH in county shorthand, covers whole-home nightly rental in residential and agricultural districts under Maui County Code Chapter 19.65. The things that decide most deals:
- You cannot apply until you have owned the home for five years. That is five years of carrying the property before the income question is even on the table. [PETE: confirm the five-year ownership requirement is still current in 19.65 as of Sept 2026. It is on the live page from the original 2019 version and we could not re-verify the clause text today.]
- The permit does not transfer when the property sells. A listing that advertises an active STRH permit is not selling you the permit. A new owner starts the five-year clock again.
- Permits are capped by community plan area under 19.65.030.R. Some areas are already at their limit. The county lists Maui Meadows as full at five permits, and no new applications in the special management area of the Paia-Haiku region. [PETE: current permit counts and remaining capacity by community plan area?]
- Agricultural land is out. County approval was already a Planning Commission matter, and the 2024 Hawaii Supreme Court decision closed the question.
- Accessory dwellings cannot be rented short term. The ohana does not become the rental.
- Neighbors get a hearing. Where short-term rental homes already exist nearby, a new application goes to a formal Maui Planning Commission review and public hearing.
The application takes months, and the county does not approve all of them.
Bed and Breakfast Permit
A bed and breakfast permit under Chapter 19.64 is the more workable route for a buyer who is moving here, because it starts sooner and asks less of the calendar.
- The owner has to be an owner occupant and live on the property.
- There is no five-year wait. You can apply right after closing.
- Permits are capped by community the same way.
- Like short-term rental permits, they do not transfer with a sale.
- You can serve a simple breakfast. Anything more formal needs a separate commercial kitchen license.
If you want income from a property you are not living in, this is not your route.
Your Subdivision May Say No Before the County Does
The county is not the only thing standing between you and a rental. Check the subdivision rules and, in a condo, the AOAO documents before you apply for anything.
This matters most in the resort communities. Every subdivision in Wailea and Kapalua prohibits vacation rentals. All but one of the Kaanapali subdivisions prohibit them. [PETE: still accurate for 2026? These are your numbers from the original post.]
Where the Condo Side Stands
This section was verified against mauicounty.gov and Maui County Council records on September 14, 2026. Short-term rental rules on Maui are moving month to month, so check the date above before relying on it.
Bill 9, enacted as Ordinance 5909 and signed by Mayor Bissen on December 15, 2025, repealed the Minatoya exemption and phases out transient vacation rental use in Apartment Districts. The last lawful day is December 31, 2028 in the West Maui community plan area and December 31, 2030 everywhere else. Hotel zoned property, existing time share, and variance uses are exempt. Our full breakdown of Bill 9 and what comes next covers which developments are affected.
Bill 88, passed by the County Council on June 19, 2026, created two new hotel zoning classifications, H-3 and H-4, that permit short-term rental. Bill 88 rezoned nothing on its own. Each property has to go through rezoning individually, through the Planning Commission and the Council. Roughly 4,500 units across about 104 projects may be eligible to apply.
That process is underway now. Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111, covering 26 developments between them, cleared the Housing and Land Use Committee on July 8, 2026 and moved to the full Council on July 24, 2026. They now sit with the Maui Planning Commission, which has 120 days to comment before the measures return to committee and then to the Council for final votes. A third resolution, 26-190, covering properties in high sea level rise and flood hazard areas, is still in committee. We track the current list on our page covering Maui condo developments seeking H-3 and H-4 zoning.
Two state lawsuits challenging Bill 9 were filed in December 2025 and remain active. No injunction has been issued, so the phase-out dates are in force today. A property that is counting on a lawsuit or a rezoning that has not happened yet is a property with a timeline risk, and that risk belongs in the price.
How to Read a Maui Short Term Rental for Sale Listing
Listings get marketed as vacation rentals more loosely than the rules allow. Five things are worth confirming in writing about any Maui short term rental for sale before you write an offer:
- The zoning designation. Hotel zoned is the only answer that comes with the property.
- Which permit, if any, and whose name it is in. Short-term rental home and bed and breakfast permits stay with the seller.
- Whether the building is on a Bill 9 clock, and which of the two phase-out dates applies to it.
- Whether it sits on a current rezoning resolution, and at what stage that resolution is.
- What the AOAO or subdivision documents say. They can be stricter than the county, and they usually are in the resort communities.
A listing agent who cannot produce the zoning designation is not a reason to walk away. It is a reason to slow down and get it in writing before your contingencies run out.
Have a specific building or address in mind?
Send it over and we will tell you what the zoning is today, whether the property is on one of the current rezoning resolutions, and what that means for the deal in front of you. Straight answers, no pressure.
Ask About a Specific Property [BUILD: render as primary button. Add a tel: link beside it for mobile tap-to-call.]
What It Costs to Rent It Out
Two layers of tax sit on top of a legal vacation rental, and both follow the use rather than your intentions.
Tax on the rental income. General excise tax runs about 4.712 percent on Maui with the county surcharge. State transient accommodations tax went to 11 percent on January 1, 2026, which includes the 0.75 percent green fee. The Maui County transient accommodations tax adds 3 percent. Combined, that is roughly 18.5 percent of gross rental income. Most owners pass it through to the guest, the same way a hotel does.
Property tax. Maui County rates are low by mainland standards, but the vacation rental classes are not. These are the rates for fiscal year 2026-2027, per $1,000 of assessed value:
| Classification | Rate |
|---|---|
| Owner-occupied, first tier to $1.3M | $1.65 |
| Commercialized residential (bed and breakfast), first tier to $1.5M | $2.25 |
| Agricultural | $5.74 |
| Non-owner-occupied, first tier to $1M | $6.25 |
| Hotel and Resort | $11.80 |
| Short-term rental (TVR-STRH), first tier to $900K | $13.00 |
Higher tiers apply above those thresholds. Our 2026-2027 Maui County property tax rates post has the full tier tables and worked examples. Rates are reset annually, usually in late spring.
The State of Hawaii also requires anyone renting for less than 180 days to register for a state tax ID, keep an on-island representative, and show license and permit numbers in every advertisement.
Renting Without a Permit
There are properties on the island being rented nightly without a permit. We do not condone it and we would not recommend buying one on the assumption that it continues.
Maui County has raised the fines sharply and paired them with active enforcement. [PETE: current civil fine schedule for unpermitted transient accommodation use? Your live copy says voters raised the first-offense penalty to $20,000 and secondary sources list $10,000 per day after that, but the county FAQ still shows an older $1,000 figure. We do not want to publish the wrong one.] An unpermitted rental also has no standing in a sale, so the income does not support the price.
Is It Worth It?
For most buyers looking at a home, no, and that is a useful answer rather than a discouraging one.
Most buyers who start out hunting for a Maui short term rental for sale in the form of a house end up looking at hotel zoned condos instead, because the right to rent comes with the property and does not depend on a five-year wait or a county hearing. Buyers who plan to move here eventually often buy the house they want, rent it long term, and relocate when they are ready. Buyers who want a bed and breakfast have the shortest path, and it is still not an easy one.
We do not handle the permit process, and we would not pretend otherwise. We can point you to people who do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you buy a house on Maui and rent it on Airbnb?
Only in narrow circumstances. The house needs hotel zoning, which is very rare for single-family homes, or a county short-term rental home permit, which you cannot apply for until you have owned the property for five years. A bed and breakfast permit is the third route, and it requires you to live on the lot. If a listing is marketed as a proven vacation rental, ask which of those three applies before you write an offer.
Where do you find a Maui short term rental for sale?
A Maui short term rental for sale that is genuinely legal is nearly always condo inventory in a hotel zoned building, concentrated in South Maui and West Maui. Our Maui condos for sale search is the place to start, and we can tell you which buildings in it are hotel zoned rather than apartment zoned. Single-family listings advertised as vacation rentals are worth a closer look, because the permit behind them usually does not transfer to you.
Do Maui short-term rental permits transfer when the house sells?
No. Both short-term rental home permits and bed and breakfast permits are non-transferable under county ordinance. A new owner has to apply on their own, and for a short-term rental home permit that means owning the property for five years first. Treat any rental income shown in a listing as income the seller earned, not income you inherit.
Which Maui condos can still be short-term rented?
Condos in hotel zoned buildings can, by right, and they were not affected by Bill 9. Apartment zoned condos that were on the Minatoya list can rent until the phase-out, which ends the use on January 1, 2029 in West Maui and January 1, 2031 everywhere else. Some of those buildings are applying for the new H-3 and H-4 zoning, which would let them continue, but no property has completed that process yet. Ask about the specific building, because the answer is different from one development to the next.
What are H-3 and H-4 zoning?
They are two hotel zoning classifications the Maui County Council created through Bill 88 on June 19, 2026, for properties that operated grandfathered vacation rentals. They permit short-term rental where the old apartment zoning no longer will. Bill 88 did not rezone anything by itself. Each property has to be rezoned individually through the Planning Commission and the Council, and the first resolutions were still moving through that process in September 2026.
Can you short-term rent a home on agricultural land in Haiku or Kula?
No. The Hawaii Supreme Court held in September 2024 that farm dwellings in the State Agricultural District cannot be used as short-term vacation rentals. This applies regardless of how the parcel is held, including CPR units on agricultural land. Long-term rental of an ag-zoned home is a different question and is generally allowed.
What taxes do you pay on a Maui vacation rental?
Roughly 18.5 percent of gross rental income, made up of about 4.712 percent general excise tax, 11 percent state transient accommodations tax as of January 1, 2026, and 3 percent Maui County transient accommodations tax. Most owners pass that through to the guest. On top of that, the property is assessed in a vacation rental tax class, which for fiscal year 2026-2027 starts at $13.00 per $1,000 of assessed value for short-term rental homes and $11.80 for hotel and resort, against $1.65 for an owner-occupied first tier.
Is a hotel zoned condo a better buy than a home with a rental permit?
For nearly every buyer whose plan depends on rental income, yes, because the right to rent is attached to the property rather than to a permit that expires with the sale. The trade is that condos carry maintenance fees, special assessments, and rising insurance costs, and from a pure investment standpoint Maui condos are not cash cows. Most buyers we work with treat a condo as a use asset first and let the rental income offset part of the cost of ownership.
Prefer the lock and leave convenience of a condo?
That is where nearly all of the Maui short term rental for sale inventory sits. Start with Maui condos for sale, or narrow it to Kihei condos, which is where a lot of the hotel zoned inventory is. Tell us how you plan to use a place and we will point you to options that might fit your needs, including which buildings we would skip right now.
This page is general information about Maui County and State of Hawaii rules, not tax or legal advice. Short-term rental regulations on Maui are changing month to month and litigation is active. Confirm zoning, permit status, and tax treatment with Maui County, a Hawaii attorney, and a CPA before you rely on any of it for a purchase decision.
