Tempe, AZ Short-Term Rentals: Host Platform Liability (2026)

Article X of the Tempe City Code (Sections 16A-213 through 16A-222) regulates short-term and vacation rentals and reaches beyond the property owner to anyone who profits from an unlawful stay. Section 16A-215(d) states that no person or entity may receive payment or accept a fee, directly or indirectly, for facilitating the rental of a short-term rental that is operating in violation of the Code or other law, language broad enough to cover a booking platform that continues to process payments for a listing it knows lacks a valid City license.

Section 16A-215(e) backs that up by making anyone who causes, allows, facilitates, aides, or abets a violation of the article subject to a civil offense, not just the owner or the owner's designee. S. Department of Justice's national sex offender public website, and keep the record for twelve months. Section 16A-219(c) allows that duty to be satisfied or waived if the online lodging marketplace on which the listing is advertised performs the background check itself. But Section 16A-219(e) is explicit that a marketplace's failure to run that check does not relieve the owner of liability under the section: the legal responsibility for the check stays with the owner even when a platform's own screening process is what the City is relying on to consider the duty met.