Scranton, PA Short-Term Rentals: Short-Term Rental Parking Rules (2026)

Scranton regulates short-term rentals, such as Airbnb or VRBO listings, inside the zoning chapter's specific-use standards at City Code § 445-41, subsection ZZ, most recently amended by Ordinance No. 104-2025 on December 9, 2025. Because short-term rental sits among the uses covered by § 445-41's introductory language, it is authorized only as a conditional use or a use by special exception, meaning the applicable district's Table of Principal Use Regulations in § 445-12 determines whether an applicant goes through City Council for conditional-use approval or the Zoning Hearing Board for a special exception, with the § 445-40/§ 445-41 procedures for that pathway applying on top of the substantive standards below.

Section 445-41ZZ(1) requires the rental dwelling to be the permanent address of its owner or lessee, who must occupy it at least six months of the calendar year, ruling out a purely investment-owned whole-home rental with no resident host. Section 445-41ZZ(4) then sets the parking floor: one off-street space for every bedroom offered for rental, on top of whatever parking the dwelling's base residential use already needs. Section 445-41ZZ(2) folds in the City's noise, nuisance and property-maintenance ordinances, and § 445-41ZZ(3) makes a guest's conviction for disturbing the peace grounds for losing the right to keep operating the unit as a short-term rental at all.