Williamson County

Operating rules

Primary residence

—

Min stay (nights)

—

Max nights / year

—

Max occupancy

No general STR occupancy cap exists because whole-home STRs are not a permitted use. For the only permitted resident-operated transient lodging — Bed and Breakfast Establishments — 'the number of rooms available to rent on a nightly basis shall be limited to five' (Sec. 11.03(D)(18)(c)).

Zoning-restricted

Yes

Cap on licenses

No

Grandfathering: yes

Zoning: Governed by the Williamson County Zoning Ordinance (adopted May 14, 2012; effective January 1, 2013), current through amendments dated January 12, 2026. 'Vacation Rental Home' was added as a Visitor Accommodations use type on November 13, 2012, then deleted from the ordinance entirely — use-specific standards (Sec. 11.03(D)(19), now 'Deleted'), definition (Sec. 23.04), and both allowed-use tables (11.01-1 and 11.01-2) — effective September 11, 2017. Under Sec. 11.01(B), a blank cell in a use table means the use is prohibited in that district. The Visitor Accommodations use category 'is characterized by use types that provide lodging units or space for short-term stays of less than 30 days for rent, lease, or interval occupancy'; its only example/listed use types are hotels and bed and breakfast establishments. NOTE (not quote-anchored): press reporting (Williamson Source) and the pre-2017 table structure indicate that while it existed the Vacation Rental Home use was effectively confined to the Leiper's Fork Village District, but this cannot be confirmed from the current ordinance because the tables that carried it were deleted; it is not material to current status since the use is now prohibited countywide.

• primary_residence_required set to null (not 'true' as in the draft): unincorporated Williamson County has no STR permit program, and a whole-home short-term rental is prohibited regardless of owner occupancy — even owner-occupied whole-home short-term renting is not a listed use. The only permitted resident-occupied transient lodging is a Bed & Breakfast, which 'must be conducted by the resident of the establishment' (Sec. 11.03(D)(18)(b)) and is capped at five rentable rooms; that is a stricter, different concept than an STR primary-residence allowance, so 'true' would misleadingly imply an owner-occupied whole-home STR pathway exists.
• Grandfathering (local): pre-existing lawful vacation rentals may continue as legal nonconforming uses under Article 21. Sec. 21.02(C)(3): 'Except nonconforming industrial or commercial uses, all other nonconforming uses that have ceased for three years or greater shall be assumed to be abandoned, regardless of any intent to resume or not to abandon the use, and the use shall be completely terminated.'
• Grandfathering (state, NEEDS REVIEW — not independently statute-verified in this pass): Tennessee's Short-Term Rental Unit Act (T.C.A. Title 13, Ch. 7, Part 6) provides a state 'legacy' protection for units lawfully operating before a local prohibition, with legacy status generally ending on sale/transfer, cessation of STR use, or repeated violations. Its interaction with the county's 2017 deletion is not quote-anchored here and should be confirmed against the statute before relying on it.
• cap_on_licenses recorded as false because no STR license/registration program exists at all (there is nothing to cap), not because unlimited licenses are issued.
• This record is for the UNINCORPORATED county only. Incorporated municipalities (Franklin, Brentwood, Spring Hill, Nolensville, Thompson's Station, Fairview) have their own STR ordinances not covered here.

Enforcement

Active enforcement

unknown

Fines

—

Notes

No dedicated STR enforcement program (dedicated fines schedule, registration audit) was identified in the reviewed official sources; prohibited-use enforcement would proceed under the general zoning ordinance / nonconforming-use provisions (Article 21). Enforcement specifics beyond the occupancy-tax delinquency terms are unverified.