Provo, UT Short-Term Rentals: Insurance Requirements (2026)

Provo's STR licensing framework lives in Title 6 (Business Licenses) at Chapter 6.33, with Sec. 6.33.020 requiring a short-term rental business license for any rental of fewer than 30 consecutive days in a permitted zone (DT1, DT2, SC3, GW, WG, FC1, FC2, PIC). The publicly available text of Chapter 6.33 and Provo's STR license page do not list a specific minimum liability-insurance amount that operators must carry, and Utah Code Sec. 10-8-85.4 does not impose a statewide STR insurance minimum - the statute focuses on protecting the act of listing an STR on a website and does not preempt local insurance rules either way. As a practical matter, most standard Utah HO-3 (single-family) and HO-6 (condo) homeowner policies exclude or sharply limit coverage for short-term rental business activity, so operators commonly obtain one or more of: (1) platform-provided coverage such as Airbnb's Host Liability Insurance (advertised at up to USD 1 million per occurrence) or Vrbo's Liability Insurance, both of which apply only to bookings made on the respective platform and are excess to any other applicable insurance; (2) a commercial general liability policy or short-term rental endorsement added to the homeowner policy; or (3) a stand-alone STR policy. Lenders, condominium associations, and HOAs may impose additional insurance conditions independent of city code. Even without a published city minimum, Chapter 6.33 ties license eligibility to compliance with all applicable building, fire, and life-safety codes (smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, egress, fire extinguishers), and operators should treat insurance as a practical risk-management requirement rather than an optional add-on. Operators should confirm current insurance expectations directly with Provo Customer Service (801-852-6000) before submitting a Chapter 6.33 application, because the license review may include an insurance certificate request even if the published code does not name a dollar figure.