New Haven County, CT Short-Term Rentals: Occupancy Limits (2026)

Connecticut has no statewide short-term rental occupancy cap, and New Haven County has had no operational government since 1960 to impose one. STR overnight occupancy is therefore a town-by-town matter under home rule and the zoning enabling act, Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 8-2. The default ceiling in most New Haven County towns is the Connecticut State Building Code (Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 29-252), which adopts the IRC/IBC and IPMC minimums of 70 square feet of habitable floor area for a sleeping room with one occupant and 50 additional square feet for each additional occupant, with a 7-foot minimum ceiling height. The City of New Haven's Code of Ordinances Title V (Housing Code) and zoning regulations apply these standards to short-term rentals and require Residential Rental Licensing through the Livable City Initiative. Hamden, West Haven, Waterbury, Meriden, and Milford rely primarily on the State Building Code minimums plus their own housing-code chapters for habitability. Branford, Madison, and shoreline towns may layer special-permit conditions on whole-house STRs that include case-specific occupancy caps. Confirm any STR-specific cap with the host town's planning, zoning, or building department before listing on Airbnb or Vrbo, because numeric caps such as 'two adults per bedroom plus two' are not uniform across New Haven County.