Short-term rental permit rules in Franklin, TN — also called Airbnb permits, vacation rental licenses, or STR registration — list the application steps, fees, and operating requirements for hosting.
Operating a short-term vacation rental (STVR) inside the City of Franklin requires a use permit issued under the Franklin Zoning Ordinance administered by the Building and Neighborhood Services Department (109 3rd Avenue South, 615-791-3217). Franklin's current framework allows only owner-occupied STVRs in residential zoning districts for any new permit issued after the Board of Mayor and Aldermen's December 2019 ordinance, which banned non-owner-occupied short-term rentals citywide as a residential-use protection. Only one STVR is permitted per lot. Legacy non-owner-occupied STVRs that were legally permitted and operating before the ordinance's effective date are protected by the Tennessee Short-Term Rental Unit Act (TCA 13-7-602 to 13-7-606), but that grandfathering ends if the property is sold, transferred outside family, ceases STVR use for 30 continuous months, or accumulates three or more violations of generally applicable local laws.
Franklin's short-term vacation rental program is administered by the Building and Neighborhood Services Department's Zoning Administration division at 109 3rd Avenue South, Franklin, TN 37064 (615-791-3217). The substantive rule was adopted by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BOMA) in December 2019 and continues to be carried forward in the current Franklin Zoning Ordinance: new short-term vacation rentals (defined as rental of a residential dwelling for less than 30 continuous days) in residential zoning districts must be owner-occupied - the homeowner must reside at the dwelling - and only one STVR is permitted per lot. Non-owner-occupied 'investor' STVRs in residential zones are no longer eligible for new permits anywhere in the city; this was a categorical policy choice to protect single-family residential neighborhood character from absentee-owner investor conversion. Operators must apply for the city use permit, pass a compliance inspection (life-safety, septic where applicable, parking, insurance verification), pay the $15 business license registration fee, register for Franklin's 4% hotel-motel tax under Title 5 of the Franklin Municipal Code, and obtain a compliance certificate valid for 12 months (annually renewable). The compliance certificate must be in force before the dwelling is advertised or booked. Note that the popular 'Type 1 (owner-occupied) versus Type 2 (non-owner)' nomenclature is the framework used by Nashville Metro under Davidson County's ordinance; Franklin does not formally use the Type 1/Type 2 labels - Franklin's binary framework is owner-occupied (new permits allowed in residential zones) versus non-owner-occupied (prohibited for new permits; legacy operators protected under TCA 13-7-603). The Tennessee Short-Term Rental Unit Act (Public Chapter 972 of 2018, TCA 13-7-601 et seq.) preempts Franklin from retroactively applying the owner-occupancy ban to pre-2019 legally permitted non-owner-occupied STVRs as long as those operators remain in compliance and do not trigger one of the legacy-termination conditions.
Operating an STVR in Franklin without a current use permit and compliance certificate is a zoning violation enforceable by Building and Neighborhood Services and prosecutable in Franklin Municipal Court; Tennessee state law authorizes penalties of up to $50 per day per State Law plus court costs for zoning violations of this type. Operating a non-owner-occupied STVR in a residential zoning district under a permit issued after the December 2019 ordinance is a categorical violation independent of any safety, parking, or noise issue. Three or more violations of generally applicable local laws (noise, parking, occupancy, life-safety) at a legacy non-owner-occupied STVR terminate the TCA 13-7-603 grandfather protection and permanently disqualify the property from continued STVR use. Sale or non-family transfer of the property also extinguishes the legacy protection; the new owner cannot operate as a non-owner-occupied STVR even on the same parcel. Failure to display the city compliance certificate or to remit the city hotel-motel tax monthly to the Finance Department is independently actionable under Title 5 of the Franklin Municipal Code.
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