Does your permit number have to be on your own website?

Licensing · US Published June 25, 2026 3 min read

Two different questions get mixed together. First: may you legally rent this property short-term? Second: where does the permit number have to appear? Owners usually get the first one right and are surprised by the second.

Permission first

Cities that regulate short-term rentals almost always require a permit before you list, not after your first booking. A sample of what that looks like right now:

Nashville / Davidson County — a Short Term Rental Property permit from Metro Codes before you may list at all.
New Orleans — two annual permits, one for the owner and one for the operator, and platforms may not take bookings for unpermitted units.
Austin — a city licence, with platform enforcement tightening: from 1 July 2026 platforms must delist a property without a verified licence within ten days of a city request.
San Diego — a Short-Term Residential Occupancy (STRO) licence for any stay under 31 nights, in tiers, with a cap in some tiers.
Panama City Beach — a Vacation Rental Certificate; renting without one is an offence in itself.
Gulf Shores — a city business licence plus a rental licence.

The pattern repeats across the country in different words: register, pay a fee, pass an inspection in some cities, renew annually.

Then the number, and where it has to show

This is the part that catches people. Ordinances are typically written as “the permit number shall appear in any advertisement or listing” — not “in any Airbnb listing”. San Diego requires the STRO number on all advertising. Panama City Beach requires the certificate number in all advertisements. Austin requires the licence number in listings.

Your own booking website is an advertisement. It advertises a specific property for paid short-term occupancy, which is exactly what the ordinance is describing. A site that omits the number is not more discreet; it is the one piece of advertising you fully control and the easiest one for a code officer to screenshot.

Where to put it so it counts

On the property page, near the details, in text — not baked into an image.
In the footer, for sites with a single property.
In the booking confirmation, which is where a guest looks when a neighbour or an HOA asks.
In the structured data, so it is machine-readable along with the rest of the listing.

If you manage several properties with separate certificates, each page carries its own number. One number in the footer of a nine-property site is wrong eight times.

The cases where there is no number

Plenty of US counties issue nothing at all. Unlike Spain, where a registry number is mandatory statewide and the listing is illegal without it, in most of the US the licence comes from the city or the county and many owners genuinely have none to display. An empty permit field is not a compliance gap in those places, and software that refuses to publish without one is software written for a different market.

What this means for your website

Permit number is a field on each property. Fill it and it appears on the listing, in the footer and in the structured data; leave it empty and nothing renders and nothing blocks — because in half of our target markets there is nothing to enter. When the number changes at renewal, you change it in the dashboard and republish.

The lodging tax side of the same conversation is worth reading next: the permit and the tax registration are separate and neither implies the other.

Not legal advice, and this list is a snapshot. Ordinances change every season and the details — caps, primary-residence tests, inspection requirements — are local. Confirm with your city or county before you list.