Short-term rental rules updates this week: Chicago, Croatia, and Florence each moved on policies affecting operators, spanning neighborhood-level preservation efforts in the US, a country-wide compliance rollout in Europe, and a major expansion of one of Italy’s strictest municipal bans.
Chicago Committee Reviews Renewal of a Geographic Ban
- On June 9, 2026, the Chicago City Council’s Committee on License and Consumer Protection took up the renewal of a location-based ban on short-term rental housing, alongside a separate measure adjusting the lakefront liquor license cap.
- These highly localized rules let individual precincts become “Restricted Residential Zones” through a voter petition, which blocks new short-term rental licenses within that precinct. The current renewal keeps an existing geographic ban in force rather than creating a new one.
- A 2025 proposal by Ald. Anthony Napolitano would go further, letting aldermen impose precinct-level bans directly, with companies and residents able to overturn them by collecting signatures from 10% of the precinct’s voters.
- Separately, housing advocates are raising alarm over the South Side. A WBEZ analysis found short-term rental licenses in the 20th Ward, which covers much of Woodlawn near the Obama Presidential Center, rose 46% between licenses expiring in 2019 and those expiring this year, even as citywide licenses fell 38%.
- The Obama Presidential Center opens June 19. Its leaders had encouraged residents to host visitors on Airbnb, and advocates now warn that investor-owned listings are displacing long-term affordable units in historically affordable parts of the ward.
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Uvika’s Views
- The Mega-Project Squeeze: The 20th Ward is a case study in how a major development reshapes a local market. Investors moved in ahead of the Center’s visitor demand, and licenses climbed in the one part of the city where they were otherwise falling. The geographic-ban tools Chicago already has, from Restricted Residential Zones to the prohibited buildings list, are the mechanism aldermen reach for when a neighborhood wants to slow that conversion. Whether they get applied to the blocks around the Center is now a live political question, not a settled one.
- Precinct-Level Risk: For property managers operating in Chicago, regulatory risk isn’t just a citywide issue. It varies block by block. If a property falls within a newly designated Restricted Residential Zone, the ability to operate or sell it as a turnkey short-term rental can vanish at the precinct level. Operators need to track neighborhood political shifts as closely as City Hall votes, especially as US preemption fights pull other states in the opposite direction.
Croatia Rolls Out National Registration System
- Starting in June 2026, Croatia is rolling out a mandatory national registration number for all short-term rental accommodation.
- Every listing on platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com must display this unique identification number to remain active. Platforms are obliged to remove listings that lack one.
- The system is designed to close regulatory loopholes and move the country’s large shadow inventory of unregistered coastal and urban rentals into the taxed, legal market.
- The framework also introduces real friction for hosts in apartment buildings. Operators must now secure written consent from at least two-thirds of a building’s co-owners by ownership share, plus the owners of adjacent units, before letting short-term.
Read More: The May 20 EU Data Deadline: Should Property Managers Expect Mass Delistings?
Uvika’s Views
- Closing the Shadow Market: Croatia’s tourism economy leans heavily on private accommodation, but without a centralized database, enforcement was nearly impossible. By tying the registration number directly to platform visibility, Croatia is making the OTAs do the enforcement. No number, no booking. It is the same display-and-delist logic now spreading across markets, from Houston’s number rule to the EU’s data-sharing system.
- The Multi-Unit Bottleneck: The co-owner consent threshold is the hidden operational hurdle. For managers running arbitrage models in multi-family buildings in Split or Dubrovnik, securing a two-thirds majority of owners shifts the power to resident neighbors. Operators should anticipate longer lead times to bring new urban inventory online and prepare for pushback from permanent residents.
Florence Court Victory Triggers Massive STR Ban Expansion
- On May 13, 2026, the Tuscany regional administrative court rejected 19 appeals against Florence’s existing regulations, validating the city’s ban on new short-term rentals within the UNESCO historic center.
- Emboldened by the ruling, the Florence municipal council approved extending the ban on new tourist lettings to nine additional residential neighborhoods outside the historic core.
- The expansion adds roughly 67,780 homes to the restricted zone, bringing the total number of properties covered to more than 100,000. The original historic-center freeze, in force since 31 May 2025, applied to 35,593 homes.
- Mayor Sara Funaro said the rate of new permit authorizations in areas like Pignoncino had risen by more than 90% as operators moved outside the original ban zone.
- Existing short-term rental operators in the newly restricted zones can continue under a moratorium on new authorizations that runs until May 31, 2028, after which the council may begin reducing the overall number of tourist lets.
Read More: Barcelona Short-Term Rental Ban: Spain’s Top Court Rules Against Airbnb
Uvika’s Views
- The Spillover Effect: Florence shows why narrow, hyper-local bans rarely work as intended. By freezing new licenses only in the UNESCO center in 2025, the city pushed investor demand into adjacent neighborhoods, driving up local rents and converting residential blocks. The current expansion is the response, and it proves that regulatory perimeters almost always grow once the first line is drawn.
- The New Normal for European Portfolios: The court ruling matters more than the expansion itself. By holding that protection of the urban environment and social-housing goals can supersede free enterprise and private property rights, the court handed other Italian cities a legal blueprint for their own bans. Italy’s broader direction is tightening too, from Milan’s keybox ban to proposed national tax changes. For operators, pure residential-to-tourist arbitrage is now a high-risk strategy in Italy’s major art cities.
Stay on top of short-term rental regulation trends and what they mean for your operating environment.
Uvika Wahi is the Editor at RSU by PriceLabs, where she leads news coverage and analysis for professional short-term rental managers. She writes on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, regulations, and industry trends, helping managers make informed business decisions. Uvika also presents at global industry events such as SCALE, VITUR, and Direct Booking Success Summit.
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