Lee's Summit, MO Short-Term Rentals: Occupancy Limits (2026)

505 sets the conditions under which a short-term rental is a permitted use in Lee's Summit. Subsection C limits any single property to renting a maximum of two rooms; Subsection D limits occupancy to four unrelated guests or one family in those rooms at a time. These are hard caps rather than a per-bedroom or per-square-foot formula, and they sit alongside Subsection A's location rules, which confine short-term rentals to parcels larger than one acre or property inside the Old Town Master Development Plan area, permit them only in single-family or two-family (duplex) dwellings, and bar them from any accessory dwelling unit or accessory structure entirely.

Subsection B additionally requires an owner or local representative to occupy a dwelling unit on the same parcel or an adjacent parcel, which keeps a responsible party near the rented rooms while guests are present. Because the cap is fixed at two rooms and four unrelated guests regardless of house size, a large home cannot rent more bedrooms or host a larger unrelated group by right; exceeding either number takes the property outside the permitted-use conditions altogether. The City requires a business license before renting (Subsection E) and requires the owner or representative to keep contact information on file with the City (Subsection G), which gives Code Enforcement a direct line for occupancy complaints.

These conditions were adopted together by Ordinance No. 9812 in December 2023 and apply citywide to every property seeking to operate as a short-term rental.