Judge blocks Clark County, Nevada, short-term rental rules

Judge blocks Clark County, Nevada, short-term rental rules

A federal judge has halted enforcement of some contested provisions in Clark County’s short-term rental ordinance, including a requirement that booking platforms verify that each listed property holds a valid county license.

In an order issued Aug. 28, 2025, U.S. District Judge Miranda Du granted a preliminary injunction that prevents Clark County, home to Las Vegas, from enforcing its “platform provisions” against booking sites like Airbnb and Vrbo. The provisions in Chapter 7.110 of the Clark County Code would have required booking platforms to verify that each listed property held a valid county license, monitor listings for license numbers and occupancy limits, and deactivate unlicensed rentals.

Platforms that failed to comply faced escalating fines.

Judge Du wrote that because the rules imposed “a duty to monitor third-party content,” they are likely preempted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields internet platforms from liability for user-generated content.

The ruling came in response to an emergency motion filed by the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association, Airbnb, and several individual property owners. Plaintiffs argued that without court intervention, Airbnb would be forced to take down thousands of listings, many of which belong to owners unable to apply for a license due to what the county describes as a “licensing backlog,” causing irreparable harm to both the platform and hosts.

The dispute stemmed from Clark County’s attempt to regulate short-term rentals after the Nevada Legislature passed Assembly Bill 363 in 2021. State law requires counties to create licensing frameworks instead of imposing outright bans. As a result, Clark County was forced to repeal its STR ban and adopt a licensing system, which it did in 2022.

However, hosts claim that county officials have opened the licensing application portal only once in two years, and the county has issued just 174 licenses in a jurisdiction with 300,000 homes.

Plaintiffs argued this amounted to a “functional equivalent of a ban” and left operators “in limbo,” according to the ruling.

Applying a recent Ninth Circuit decision, the court concluded the ordinance crossed the line by compelling booking platforms to act as “a publisher.” Unlike a similar Santa Monica law that only regulated booking transactions, the Clark County ordinance “requires that postings be verified prior to publication, monitored to ensure they contain certain information, or removed when certain conditions are met,” the plaintiffs noted in the court documents.

The judge agreed, finding that “the duty to verify, monitor, and deactivate unlicensed host listings effectively requires Airbnb to monitor third-party content,” which is prohibited by the Communications Decency Act.

The judge added that forcing booking platforms to shoulder compliance costs, especially while operators remain unable to obtain licenses, would cause “unrecoverable” harm. Preserving the status quo, she wrote, better served the public interest.

The injunction is temporary, pending a final ruling on the merits of the case. The plaintiffs have also challenged other ordinance provisions, including the county’s licensing scheme, a 1% annual cap on STR licenses, and a distance requirement. While Clark County is barred from enforcing the platform requirements, the other provisions of the ordinance remain in effect and will be considered later.