Mobile, AL Short-Term Rentals: Occupancy Limits (2026)

Mobile's Unified Development Code allows short-term rentals only as a conditional use, meaning an operator needs city council approval under Sec. 64-5-6 before renting, and the use table marks short-term rentals 'C' in R-A, R-1, R-2, R-3, R-B, T-B, LB-2, B-2, B-3, B-4, and ML districts. ' No more than eight guest rooms are allowed in any one establishment, and the operation cannot have any on-site employees, so staffing is limited to the operator and any household members. The property cannot serve meals, and guest rooms cannot contain cooking facilities, keeping the use closer to a boarding arrangement than a hotel or bed-and-breakfast with room service.

Perhaps the sharpest occupancy control is subsection (13): a short-term rental 'shall only be rented to one (1) group or person at a time,' with the code's own example clarifying that renting out multiple individual rooms to multiple separate groups or persons at once is not permitted, even if the property has several bedrooms. Subsection (12) reinforces that the rental cannot spread into an accessory structure, an accessory dwelling unit, outdoor space, or a recreational vehicle on the site, keeping the entire footprint of the rental inside the principal dwelling. Subsection (6) requires that none of this alter the residential character of the neighborhood or the dwelling itself.