Chelan County, WA Short-Term Rentals: Night Caps (2026)

290(2)(A)(i) offers three paths to Tier 1 status for a short-term rental in unincorporated Chelan County, and the third path is a strict day cap rather than continuous host presence. Under clause (c), an owner may rent the entire dwelling short-term for no more than fifteen total days in a calendar year and still qualify as Tier 1, so long as a qualified on-site person, the same contact required elsewhere in the section for complaint response, is present during the owner's own absence. The section specifies that portions of a calendar day count as full days toward the fifteen-day limit, so a rental spanning parts of three separate calendar days consumes three full days against the annual cap.

Staying within the fifteen-day cap keeps a rental out of the tiered housing-stock percentage caps in subsection (2)(B) that apply to Tier 2 and Tier 3 rentals in each zip code, subarea, or urban growth area, several of which are set at 6% of housing stock or, in the Peshastin urban growth area, 0%. Exceeding fifteen days of whole-dwelling rental in a year without meeting the host-presence tests in clauses (a) or (b) pushes the rental into Tier 2 or Tier 3, triggering the housing-stock cap, larger minimum lot sizes under subsection (2)(D), and higher occupancy and permitting requirements. Community Development tracks rental days through the permit application and property management plan required under subsection (3)(K).