Asheville

Operating rules

Primary residence

Yes

Min stay (nights)

—

Max nights / year

—

Max occupancy

Homestay: up to two guest rooms may be rented (UDO Sec. 7-2-5 definition; City guidance: 'You can only rent out one or two bedrooms'). STVR: dwelling unit with up to six guest rooms. No per-guest headcount cap is stated in the UDO homestay/STVR standards.

Zoning-restricted

Yes

Cap on licenses

No citywide numeric cap on the number of permits. Two structural caps apply instead: (a) 'Only one homestay shall be permitted per lot/parcel.' and (b) 'Homestay permits shall be limited to one per person, immediate household, LLC, corporation, trust or other legal entity.' — with immediate household defined as 'a spouse, children, or any other relative residing in the same home' and a 5% ownership stake in an entity sufficient to constitute ownership for this limitation. This one-per-person rule functions as a hard anti-portfolio cap: an operator cannot legally hold multiple Asheville homestay permits.

Grandfathering: Detached accessory structures: 'Homestays may not be located within a detached accessory structure except that homestays permitted prior to December 14, 2021, may continue provided the homestay use and permit is maintained per Sec. 7-17-3.' Continuation is conditioned on maintaining the use and the annual permit — a lapse in renewal can forfeit the right (Sec. 7-5-2(c)(4)). Nonconforming properties: 'Subsection 7-16-1(a)(1) shall not apply to homestays. Legally established, but non-conforming properties are eligible for a homestay use.'

Zoning: Per the Sec. 7-8-1(d) Table of Permitted Uses (legend: 'P = Permitted: A use permitted by right...'; 'S = USSR: A use permitted by right subject to special standards in Sec. 7-16-1'): HOMESTAYS are marked 'S' in essentially all residential and most commercial districts (RS2, RS4, RS8, RM6, RM8, RM16, NB, OFF I, OFF II, OB, CBI, CBII, NCD, HB, RB, CI, CBD, RSRT, INST, RIV, URD, UV, UP and the River Arts/Haywood Road form districts), and 'P' in CBD EXP / COM EXP / EXP RES; they are NOT permitted in LI, IND or ARPT. Cell-to-column mapping was verified by extracting word bounding-box x-coordinates from the official Table of Permitted Uses PDF and matching them to the zone header centers, not by eyeballing text layout. SHORT-TERM VACATION RENTAL appears in only three columns: 'S' in RSRT (Resort) and 'P' in CBD EXP and COM EXP. Since 'Expansion zoning districts are only allowed as conditional zoning districts for Level III projects,' the Resort District is the only district where an STVR is available as-of-right (subject to Sec. 7-16-1(c)(64.1) standards); everywhere else it needs City Council conditional zoning. NOTE a discrepancy worth flagging to users: the City's plain-language page says a homestay requires that 'Your home must be in a residential zone,' but the adopted Table of Permitted Uses allows homestays as 'S' in many non-residential districts as well. The ordinance table controls; the webpage is a simplification.

• The binding distinction is host presence, not nightly rate: rent a room with you living there and present overnight = homestay (broadly permitted with an annual permit); rent the whole unit = STVR (Resort District only). The classic 'entire home on Airbnb' model is effectively unavailable in Asheville's residential districts.
• Homestay operator must be present overnight for the entire guest stay — being away on vacation or traveling during a booking is itself a violation. Temporary absence for 'normal residential activities such as shopping, working, attending class' is allowed.
• A person can only have one primary, full-time residence, and the homestay must be operated from it.
• Detached structures connected by a breezeway or other enclosed but unheated space are expressly NOT deemed one dwelling unit for the accessory-structure prohibition.
• No signage allowed for either homestays or STVRs; no displays/advertising visible from outside the dwelling; no activities other than lodging.
• No additional off-street parking is required for a homestay; STVRs must meet off-street parking per Sec. 7-11-2.
• Renting for periods greater than 30 days is unaffected: 'nothing herein shall prevent the use of a homestay for a residential use for periods greater than 30 days which would not interrupt the validity of the homestay permit.'
• North Carolina occupancy taxes are county-levied. Asheville does NOT impose a separate city occupancy tax; the 6% room occupancy tax is Buncombe County's, administered by the Buncombe County Tax Department.
• Bed & breakfast inns and boardinghouses are separate lodging uses with their own standards (Sec. 7-16-1(c)(10) and (c)(11)) and are not covered by this record.

Enforcement

Active enforcement

yes

Fines

Elevated civil penalty of $500.00 PER DAY for lodging-use violations — five times the $100.00/day general UDO penalty. It reaches both (1) renting or leasing a dwelling unit for less than one month in districts that do not allow lodging facilities (i.e. an unpermitted whole-home STR in a residential district) and (2) unlawful use of property as a homestay. Penalties are recovered by the City in a civil action in the nature of debt. Procedurally, no penalty may be assessed until a written notice of violation has been served (personal delivery, electronic delivery, or certified/registered mail, and it may be posted on the property), and the NOV must include an opportunity to cure within a prescribed period; a single extension of up to 30 days may be granted. Where the violator is not the owner, the City must notice both tenant and owner. Interfering with or obstructing a city employee enforcing Chapter 7 is a misdemeanor under N.C. Gen. Stat. 14-4.

Notes

The City runs a dedicated complaint intake through the Compliance Division via the Asheville App, with a named Code Enforcement Officer for homestay inspections (homestayinspections@ashevillenc.gov). Response posture is business-hours: staff work Mon–Fri 8:30am–5:00pm and 'may investigate after hours, but they are not "on-call."' Enforcement is complaint-driven plus proactive, and every permitted homestay/STVR is subject to annual review and inspection, which is itself a recurring enforcement touchpoint. The $500/day lodging penalty was added by Ord. No. 4445 (8-25-15) and Sec. 7-18-2 was last amended by Ord. No. 4910 (11-9-21). Secondary reporting describes the City funding an additional enforcement officer and roughly doubling notices of violation; that staffing/NOV-volume claim is NOT quote-anchored to a primary source here and is excluded from the load-bearing findings. City guidance page last updated or reviewed April 13, 2026.