LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Clark County is considering a proposal to stop short-term rental host companies like Airbnb from collecting payments for stays with unlicensed short-term rental hosts.
WATCH | Senior reporter Mary Kielar breaks down what this means and hears from Airbnb owners on the proposal:
It’ll be discussed on Tuesday, Aug. 4 during a Clark County Board of Commissioners meeting.
The county provided the following statement:
“The County was required by the Nevada Legislature to create a process for the licensing and enforcement of short-term rentals. Through this, we have worked to create a process that is reflective of this requirement, while meeting the needs of those who are lawfully operating and addressing concerns from residents when short-term rentals are unlawfully or disruptively operating. The proposed ordinance prohibits a hosting platform from processing a rental transaction for an unlicensed short-term rental, and the County anticipates that this will substantially decrease the number of unlicensed short-term rentals.”
Channel 13 spoke with the president of the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association, Jacqueline Flores.
“Short-term rentals bring more tourists to the city, and those tourists don’t just stay at short-term rentals," Flores said. "They go to the local neighborhoods and they go to the restaurants."
She’s a licensed Airbnb host, but said not everyone who’s a member of her 1,500-person association has one.
Flores and others said the process of getting a short-term rental license in Clark County has been slow and difficult.
So much so that in December 2025, a federal judge put an injunction in place that prevents Clark County from penalizing hosts with hefty fines and implores leaders to speed up their short-term rental permit process.
Flores told Channel 13 she believes this latest proposal is the county’s way of trying to get around the injunction, which they’ve appealed.
“The timing is difficult to understand. Las Vegas is a tourism-dependent economy, and when our visitor economy is under pressure, the answer should not be to reduce the number of accommodations and choices available to travelers," one Airbnb owner, Michael Watson, told Channel 13. "Short-term rental guests spend money throughout our community—in restaurants, attractions, retail, transportation and entertainment. Clark County should be asking how it can encourage tourism and economic activity, not how it can further limit private property owners and visitors.”
As for the licensee side of things, Airbnb provided a statement to Channel 13, echoing that host’s thoughts:
"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. Instead, the county continues attempts to eliminate a large portion of accommodation options for visitors, risking millions in tax revenue and tourism dollars that trickle down to the county's casinos, restaurants, shops, and small businesses."
A spokesperson for Clark County provided a bit more context on that part of the proposal:
The change is only focused on the section of the County’s code dealing with short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, not those who operate a short-term rental property.
The first change addresses the problem of hosting platforms facilitating the rental of unlicensed short-term rentals. Through this change, the County won’t prohibit unlicensed short-term rentals from being advertised on the hosting platform but would prohibit the platform from completing a transaction for the rental of an unlicensed short-term rental.
The second change relates to the payment of transient lodging taxes and the record keeping of those tax payments. Through this change, the County would require the platforms to store that data for three years in the event of an audit or discrepancy.
The third change is to align the language in several sections of the Accommodations Facilitator ordinance with similar ordinances in our Code, especially in Section 10 of the new ordinance.
