Wake County

Operating rules

Primary residence

No

Min stay (nights)

—

Max nights / year

—

Max occupancy

—

Zoning-restricted

Yes

Cap on licenses

—

Zoning: Wake County UDO Sec. 4-11 Use Table, row "Bed and breakfast - residences, short-term rentals" (Lodging use category, Commercial Use Group). Verbatim legend from the table: "P=Permitted use (as-of-right) S=Special use approval req'd (19-23) S*=Special use approval req'd (in MUD and 19-23) - =Prohibited". Mapping confirmed by structured parse of the ordinance's HTML table against the district header row (R-80W, R-40W, R-80-R-10, R-5, RMH, HD, O&I, GB, HC, I-1, I-2, AD-1, AD-2, RA): SPECIAL USE PERMIT REQUIRED in R-80W, R-40W, R-80—R-10, R-5 (residential), HD (Highway District), O&I (Office and Institutional District), GB (General Business District). PROHIBITED in RMH (Residential Mobile Homes District), HC (Heavy Commercial District), I-1 (Industrial-1), I-2 (Industrial-2), AD-1 and AD-2 (Airport Districts). PERMITTED BY RIGHT only in RA — which is the Research Applications District serving Research Triangle Park (UDO Sec. 3-51-1(A): "The purpose of the RA, Research Applications district is to accommodate new development and redevelopment in the Research Triangle Park (RTP)"), NOT a residential-agricultural district; RA permitted uses are further "subject to the approval procedures in Section 3-51-4(D), Approval Procedures" per table footnote [1]. Net effect: no by-right short-term rental exists in any Wake County residential zoning district.

• JURISDICTIONAL SCOPE IS NARROW: the UDO reaches only unincorporated Wake County. Verbatim: "Wake County regulates land development within areas of the county located outside the planning jurisdictions of its 12 municipalities and the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority." Raleigh, Cary and the other 10 municipalities regulate STRs under their own ordinances; the county rules below do NOT apply inside those planning jurisdictions.
• MAXIMUM (not minimum) stay: Sec. 4-74-2 caps guest stays at 30 consecutive days — "Guest stays are limited to 30 consecutive days". There is no minimum-stay requirement. Modeled as max_stay, so min_stay_nights is null.
• No owner/primary-residence requirement in Sec. 4-74. Contrast Sec. 4-30-5 for Bed and Breakfast Residences: "The operator of the bed and breakfast residence may be the owner of the dwelling or a resident manager, but must occupy the dwelling as a principal residence" — and Sec. 4-30-4 caps B&B guest stays at 14 consecutive days. AMBIGUITY WORTH FLAGGING: the single Use Table row lumps both use types together and its Use Standards column cites "§4-30 §4-74". The natural reading is that Sec. 4-30 governs bed and breakfast residences and Sec. 4-74 governs short-term rentals (each section is titled for its own use type), so the primary-residence rule does not reach STRs — but an operator should confirm with the Planning Director, since a contrary reading would import owner-occupancy and a 14-day cap.
• No cap on the number of STR licenses/permits appears anywhere in the UDO; cap_on_licenses set null rather than false because absence of a provision was verified only across Articles 3, 4, 19, 20 and 21.
• No STR-specific grandfathering clause was located. Article 7 Nonconformities exists in the UDO but was not verified as applied to short-term rentals; set null rather than guess.
• Sec. 4-74 sits in Article 4, Part 7 — Accessory Uses and Structures — while the Use Table classifies the row under the Commercial Use Group / Lodging category. Sec. 4-23-7 defines Lodging: "Lodging uses are characterized by the provision of temporary overnight or short-term accommodations and incidental sales and services for the convenience of guests such as food, drinks and other items."
• Article 21 (Definitions and Measurement) contains NO definition of "short-term rental" — verified by full-text scan of the article. The operative boundary is instead Sec. 4-21-1: "Tenancy is arranged on a month-to-month or longer basis. Uses where tenancy may be arranged for a shorter period are not considered residential uses; they are considered to be a form of lodging."
• Code currency: Municode publication banner for this product reads "UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT CODE / County of / WAKE, NORTH CAROLINA / Codified through Ordinance No. OA-05-25, adopted October 20, 2025. (Supp. No. 9)". Sec. 4-74 and Sec. 4-30 both carry "[Amended on 4/21/2025 by OA-02-25]".

Enforcement

Active enforcement

yes

Fines

UDO violations carry a civil penalty of $100.00 per day, imposed by written citation from the Planning Director and payable within ten days; unpaid penalties are pursued as a civil debt action. The county may also deny or withhold any permit for a property with an uncorrected violation, and may revoke a permit (including a Special Use Permit) for substantial departure from the approved application, failure to comply with the ordinance, or false statements made in securing the permit. Owners, agents, and tenants/occupants with control over the use are jointly and severally liable.

Notes

Enforcement is complaint-initiated rather than proactively swept: Sec. 20-15-1 obligates investigation "Upon receipt of a written complaint". The practical enforcement path for an unpermitted STR in unincorporated Wake County is Sec. 20-13-7 (operating a use requiring a permit without obtaining it) plus Sec. 20-13-9 (violating conditions attached to a Special Use Permit). No STR-specific enforcement program, dedicated STR hotline, or published STR citation statistics was located on Wake County's official site — active_enforcement=true reflects the codified mandatory-investigation duty and available penalties, not evidence of an observed STR enforcement campaign. Tax-side enforcement is separate and runs through Wake County Tax Administration under the Gross Receipts Tax program.