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

Connecticut has no statewide short-term rental occupancy cap, and Fairfield 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 Fairfield 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. Stamford's Code of Ordinances Chapter 146 (Housing Standards) and zoning regulations apply these standards to short-term rentals; whole-house STRs in Stamford are largely restricted to owner-occupied properties. Greenwich's Building Zone Regulations treat whole-dwelling short-term occupancy as a commercial lodging use that triggers special-permit review with case-specific occupancy conditions. Bridgeport, Norwalk, and Danbury rely primarily on the State Building Code minimums plus their own housing-code chapters for habitability. 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 Fairfield County.