Minnehaha County, SD Short-Term Rentals: Permit Requirements (2026)

Minnehaha County operates a Planning & Zoning Department that administers a county zoning ordinance over unincorporated land under SDCL Chapter 11-2, but the ordinance has no separate 'short-term rental,' 'vacation rental,' 'transient lodging,' or 'bed and breakfast' permit category. The county Code of Ordinances does not contain a residential-rental-permit chapter parallel to Sioux Falls §159.303. As a result, county-level STR permitting authority does not exist for unincorporated parcels — Minnehaha County will not issue, deny, or revoke an STR permit. South Dakota has likewise not enacted a statewide STR registration regime: SDCL Chapter 10-45 (state sales tax) and SDCL Chapter 10-45D (1.5% statewide tourism tax) reach STR gross receipts as a taxable activity, but neither creates a substantive permit. Within incorporated municipalities the calculus is entirely different: Sioux Falls requires a residential rental permit for STRs under city code §159.303 ($50 fee, 14-day-per-year threshold, contact-posting and state-registration conditions), administered by Planning and Development Services; Brandon, Hartford, and Dell Rapids each administer their own municipal codes adopted under SDCL §9-29-1 general police-power authority. Hosts whose dwelling falls inside one of those city limits must follow that city's rule rather than any county process. For unincorporated parcels (rural acreages, lake-area cabins, and parcels in unincorporated CDPs such as Renner), the rental use is governed by the Minnehaha County Zoning Ordinance's underlying use designation for the parcel's zoning district (typically A-1 Agricultural or RR Rural Residential) — short-term rental of a single-family dwelling is generally not separately listed and is therefore treated as an accessory use of the dwelling, subject to general nuisance principles under SDCL §21-10-1.