Apex, NC Short-Term Rentals: Registration Rules (2026)

Apex does not operate a short-term-rental registration program because doing so would conflict with North Carolina General Statute 160D-1207(c), which broadly preempts NC local governments from requiring an owner or manager of residential rental property to obtain a permit to lease the property or to register the property with the local government. The statutory exceptions are narrow: individual properties may be required to register only if they have more than 4 verified Article 11 (Building Code Enforcement) or Article 12 (Minimum Housing Codes) violations in a rolling 12-month period, or 2 or more verified violations in a rolling 30-day period, or have been identified within the top 10% of properties with crime or disorder problems. For such chronic-violator properties, additional state-law limits apply: the fee for registration may not exceed $500 in any 12-month period; the registration fee may not apply unequally to other property types unless expressly authorized by state law; criminal penalties for registration violations are prohibited; mandatory enrollment in government programs is prohibited; and pre-utility-service inspections cannot be required as a condition of registration. The North Carolina Court of Appeals in Schroeder v. City of Wilmington (2022) applied 160D-1207(c) broadly to strike down Wilmington's whole-house short-term rental registration program as preempted; the court further struck down the cap, separation, and amortization provisions of Wilmington's STR ordinance as 'so intertwined with the invalid registration requirement' as to fall with it. Apex has not enacted any registration program patterned after Wilmington's struck-down framework and has not adopted a chronic-violator registration ordinance for STR properties. The practical registration sequence for an Apex STR operator is therefore entirely state-and-county-level rather than town-level: (1) Wake County Tax Administration registration for the 6% Wake County Room Occupancy Tax (levied December 1991), with monthly filing and remittance; (2) NC Department of Revenue sales-and-use tax registration for the 4.75% state sales tax + 2.0% Wake County local sales tax on accommodations under NC G.S. 105-164.4(a)(3), with monthly or quarterly filing depending on volume; (3) verification of compliance with the Apex Housing Code in Code of Ordinances Chapter 5, Article VII and the NC State Building Code (smoke alarms in each bedroom and on each floor, CO detectors near sleeping areas where required, code-conforming egress); (4) confirmation that any HOA covenants do not independently prohibit short-term rental through a minimum-lease-term provision. Operators do not file anything with the Town of Apex itself; the Apex Planning Department (planninginfo@apexnc.org / 919-249-6627) can confirm zoning status of a property but does not issue an STR registration or permit because none exists.