Things were looking up for Airbnb and short-term rental owners trying to get a foothold in the Las Vegas area. Now things are a bit more uncertain. 

The groups were "likely to win" a lawsuit challenging Clark County over its stringent rules on short-term rentals, which set up vast blackout zones for the rentals around resorts and near other short-term rentals. In December, a judge granted a moratorium on fines, penalties and liens related to short-term rental enforcement. The county is appealing that decision. 

In the meantime, the county may have a workaround. On Tuesday, the county commission voted to hear a new ordinance on Aug. 18 that would hold the short-term rental platforms responsible for unlicensed properties being listed on their sites. The platforms would have to pay $500 for the first violation and $1,000 for each additional violation. 

"The ordinance does not address short-term rental owners, rather it prohibits hosting platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO from facilitating a point of sale booking for short-term rentals that are not licensed in unincorporated Clark County," Jennifer Cooper, a spokesperson for Clark County, said in an email summary of the commission meeting this week.

There are more than 16,000 Airbnb listings in the Clark County area, according to Inside Airbnb, a website that scrapes and uploads listings in an effort to lobby against the company. The county has only issued 228 licenses. 

Supporters of short-term rentals had called previous legislation "a ban in disguise." Proponents of the county's regulatory effort have called Airbnb's a nuisance, or a drag on the state's largest revenue source — the gaming industry. 

The issue began in 2021, after the passage of SB363, a bill crafted in an attempt to forge a pathway for Airbnb owners to become licensed. The legislation outlined that Airbnb's properties must be at least 2,500 feet away from a resort hotel and 1,000 feet from other licensed short-term rentals. The county also could not issue more than 3,000 licenses across the county. Fines before the judge's ruling were steep, ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 a day, for not having a license, though many of the regulations went unenforced. 

In June 2025, the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association, later joined by Airbnb, filed a lawsuit against the county, arguing that the rules infringed on the "fundamental rights of property owners." Since then, the future of short-term rentals in the area has played out in the court, until now. 

The number of Airbnb listings has risen by about 2,000 since December, according to Inside Airbnb. In the first four years after SB363 was passed, only 208 licenses had been issued, and only 20 more since October. The application window to acquire a license has closed.

In a statement, Airbnb said the county was losing a potentially taxable revenue source by hindering short-term rental listings. 

"When a community so deeply rooted in tourism continues to face decline, elected officials should work with the industry to find solutions that keep visitor spending flowing and in the hands of locals," Lauren Bouton, an Airbnb spokesperson, said. 

Short-term rental listings in Clark County pay transient lodging taxes, much like hotels, as well as business licensing fees on top of property taxes. 

At the meeting, several homeowners came and spoke out against the proposed legislation. 

"I'm concerned about what will happen if you put this injunction in place. This is where my living has been for the last eight years. You're going to take this away?" Cheryl Woods, a short-term rental owner said. "I pay my taxes, I do the right thing, I maintain the property, I make sure my guests are well-screened." 

Jackie Flores, head of the short-term rental association, said the new ordinance was an attempt to get around the decision by federal Judge Miranda Du in December. 

"They know that they can't go directly after property owners," Flores said to The Nevada Independent after the meeting. "So they're trying to go after the platforms." 

However, some public commenters welcomed the crackdown. Mike Hoffman, who identified himself at the meeting as a "concerned neighbor," said he had dealt with an unlicensed short-term rental in his neighborhood for the past eight months since the moratorium on short-term rental enforcement was imposed.  

"This STR injunction has allowed for an unlicensed short-term rental in my neighborhood to continue to disturb the peace, leave out trash, drive excessively fast at all times of the day, and park numerous cars in the street," Hoffman said. "The county has a right to mitigate this issue for the residents." 

The issue has also caused tension in an area that relies heavily on hotel tax revenue generated by the Las Vegas Strip — something the county acknowledges in their new regulations. 

"The increasing number of short-term rental units in Clark County has diverted a noticeable portion of transient lodging away from traditional transient lodging establishments and has negatively impacted the revenue derived from such rentals to local governments and other agencies and beneficiaries of transient lodging taxes," the proposed regulations said.