Oak Park, IL Short-Term Rentals: Host Platform Liability (2026)

Section 8-40-5 of the Oak Park Village Code sets the standards a short-term rental must meet before the Village issues a license under article 40. Subsection A requires that all owners use a hosting platform, defined at section 8-40-1 as a marketplace entity that facilitates short-term rentals through advertising, matchmaking or other means and derives revenue such as booking or advertising fees, to market the rental. The same subsection places the duty of determining the guest's identification information and its accuracy on the hosting platform itself, rather than on the individual host.

This sits alongside the article's other guest-facing standards: subsection B caps stays between 24 hours and 182 days, subsection F requires the owner to keep a written guest register with arrival and departure dates accessible to Village staff, and subsection G requires the license, the owner's name and a 24-hour contact number to be posted inside the rental's front entrance. Because listing without a hosting platform is not a licensable configuration under section 8-40-5(A), an Oak Park host cannot legally advertise a short-term rental only through word of mouth, a personal website, or a printed sign; the listing has to run through a marketplace platform that the Village can hold to the identification-accuracy standard.