Baltimore Ord. 19-0270 restricts short-term rentals to a host's verified primary residence, blocking investor-owned whole-home STRs unless the operator can demonstrate a hardship-permit exception approved by DHCD.
Ordinance 19-0270 defines primary residence as the dwelling where the host lives at least 180 days per calendar year and which appears on Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT) records as the homestead-tax-credit address. Hosts may rent the residence while absent (un-hosted nights) or rent rooms while present (hosted nights). Non-primary-residence operators may apply for a limited hardship-exception permit, but DHCD caps the number of these permits and weighs neighborhood saturation. Investor LLCs holding multiple Baltimore properties cannot stack STR licenses across non-primary units, ending the prior whole-home rental model that thrived around the Inner Harbor.
Operating a non-primary-residence STR without a hardship permit results in license revocation, $1,000-per-day civil penalties, and referral to the City Solicitor for injunctive relief in Circuit Court.
Other ordinances people look up for this city. Green dot = verified primary-source excerpt.
Baltimore, MD
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