Short-term rental permit cost in New Orleans, LA

This city requires the owner to live at the property. If you do not, you do not qualify at any price.

Combined lodging tax: 16.75% of revenue. Charged on what you earn, so it is not in the totals above.

1 figure is not yet verified against the city (Inspection). They are left out of the total rather than counted as zero, so the real first-year cost is higher than shown.

Conditions attached

• NSTR: Non-Commercial STR requires lottery selection during application periods. CSTR: Requires conditional use permit approval. NSTR operators must reside at property during guest stays. $5 per night occupied fee for NSTR; $12 per night for CSTR. City Code 26-615 requires both owner and operator licenses. Every unit needs BOTH an owner permit and an operator permit. The $150 shown as the business licence is the operator permit for a single non-commercial unit (an operator permit for a commercial unit is $1,000), valid one year and renewed annually. Each permit also carries its own $50 application fee, which the totals above count only once, so a first year is about $750 ($50 + $500 owner, $50 + $150 operator) and each later year about $700, because the city's 2026 renewal notice applies the $50 to all owner and operator licenses. The commercial permit (CSTR) is the only route to a whole home with nobody living on site, and since 2026-05-07 a new one is a conditional use needing City Council approval: the Transient Lodging Interim Zoning District, adopted by Ordinance No. 30625 MCS, makes every transient lodging use conditional, including commercial short-term rentals, and charges $1,500 to appeal for an exemption. It is the only short-term-rental interim zoning district still in force; the 2023 commercial freeze (Commercial Short-Term Rental Interim Zoning District) expired on 2025-11-05. The city's own CSTR permit page has not caught up and still says new applications cannot be accepted. On owner occupancy: the City Planning Commission's December 9, 2025 staff report on the Transient Lodging Study says the federal court in Hignell-Stark v. City of New Orleans struck down the city's rule requiring an NSTR operator to live at the property, but the city's 2026 NSTR renewal requirements still say the operator must be present at the time of scheduled bookings, so this page shows owner occupancy as required, the way the city still applies it.
• Liability cover of at least $1,000,000.00 required.

Source: https://nola.gov/short-term-rentals/
Checked 2026-10-14 · CCNO Chapter 26, Article XI; Chapter 150, Article XIV; CZO Section 19.4.A.23 (Ordinance No. 30625 MCS)