A correction first. In March I published a detailed guide to this law written on the assumption it would commence on 1 July 2026. That was a reasonable reading at the time. It was also wrong. That article is still online, clearly marked as superseded, for anyone who wants the history. This piece replaces it.
If you run a short-term rental in Brisbane, the short version is this: nothing happened. There is no permit. There is no register. There is no deadline you missed over winter and no fine waiting for you. You can keep operating exactly as you were.
That will be a relief to some of you and an irritation to others. I know hosts who spent real money on planning advice this autumn, and at least two who shifted a property to long-term letting in April to get ahead of a deadline that never arrived.
"I spent March writing about how to survive this law. I spent May finding out it wasn't coming. That's the honest state of short-stay regulation in this country right now — it moves on political weather, not on a timetable you can plan around."
— David Bennett, The TurnoverWhat actually happened
On 12 May 2026, Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner confirmed that Brisbane City Council's proposed Short Stay Accommodation Local Law 2025 would not proceed at this time.
Council's reasoning, in summary: the rapid growth in platform-based short-stay accommodation that started this debate back in 2023 has slowed considerably; the management of these properties has improved since then; and the broader economic picture — interest rates, plus the phased changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount flagged in the 2026‑27 Federal Budget handed down the same evening — made it the wrong moment to layer new regulation onto residential property.
Whether you find that convincing probably depends on what you thought of the law in the first place. Either way, it is the position.
- →No permit. There is no application, no annual fee, and nothing to renew.
- →No 1 July 2026 deadline. It passed without effect.
- →No forced shutdowns. The ~500 low-density properties expected to be told to cease operating were not.
- →No $140,000 fines. That penalty attached to operating without a permit under a law that does not exist.
- →No mandatory 24/7 contact person, no three-strikes policy, and no permit number required in your listings.
- →No Council night cap and no Council short-stay levy. Brisbane has neither.
What still applies to you
"The permit law isn't happening" is not the same as "there are no rules". Several things continue to bind Brisbane hosts, and a couple of them cost real money every year.
Your rates. This is the expensive one, and it is the rule most hosts underestimate. A Brisbane property used for short-term letting is rated in Council's Transitory Accommodation category rather than the residential one. The rate in the dollar is roughly double the owner-occupied rate, and the minimum general rate is more than twice as high. None of that changed on 12 May. Pull out your latest rates notice and check which category you are actually in — and if you have moved a property back to long-term letting, make sure Council knows, because you will keep paying the higher rate until they do.
Your body corporate by-laws. If your property is a unit or a townhouse in a complex, the by-laws bind you and your guests regardless of what Council decides. Many contemporary Brisbane by-laws restrict or prohibit short-stay use outright, and Council shelving its own law does nothing to override them. For apartment owners this is now comfortably the most common reason a Brisbane property cannot be let short-term.
Smoke alarms. Queensland's interconnected photoelectric smoke alarm standard must be met in all domestic dwellings by 1 January 2027. If your property is not compliant yet, that date is closer than it looks and the tradespeople who do this work get busy towards the end.
The planning scheme. Brisbane City Plan 2014 still governs how land in the city may be used, entirely independently of the local law that was shelved. The shelved law would have sat on top of the planning scheme, not replaced it.
Ordinary local laws. Noise, parking, waste and nuisance provisions apply to your guests the same way they apply to anyone else. A neighbour with a complaint has not lost their avenues — they have lost one specific new avenue that was never actually built.
Why "at this time" is doing a lot of work
Read the wording carefully. Council did not say the law was withdrawn, abandoned or scrapped. It said the law is not proceeding at this time.
That phrasing is doing real work. What sits behind it is a fully drafted regulatory framework that has already been through public consultation — the expensive, slow, politically awkward part of making a local law. It has not been thrown away. It has been put on a shelf, and the cost of taking it back down is far lower than the cost of writing it was.
What would bring it down off that shelf? A bad news cycle about a party house. A shift in the housing debate. A State Government move that changes the politics. A different rates cycle, a different term, a different Lord Mayor. I am not predicting any of those. I am pointing out that the drafting work is done, and that matters.
Which is why your zone is still worth knowing.
Nothing restricts your property today. But zone was the variable the drafted law keyed off, which makes it the best available signal of how exposed you would be if a version of it returns. We check Brisbane City Council's own City Plan data for your exact address.
Check my property →What I'd actually do now
None of this is urgent, which is precisely why it is worth doing. You have a quiet regulatory year in front of you. Use it.
Confirm your zone
Not to comply with anything — there is nothing to comply with. To know your exposure if the framework returns. It takes about ten seconds and you only need to do it once.
Read your by-laws, if you're in a complex
Unlike the permit law, this is a live restriction today. It is also the thing hosts most often get wrong, usually by assuming that because Council allows something the body corporate must too.
Check your rates category
Confirm you are in the category that matches how the property is actually used. If you are paying Transitory Accommodation rates, make sure the income justifies the premium. If you have switched to long-term letting, tell Council.
Don't undo the good habits
House rules, a contact who actually answers, proper insurance, a decent complaints process. Build those because they make you a better operator and keep your neighbours on side — not because a law was about to require them.
Keep the shelved law in peripheral vision
Not with anxiety. Just know a drafted framework exists, that Council chose its words carefully, and that if it comes back it will come back quickly.
The thing worth taking from this
Here is what I keep coming back to. In eighteen months Brisbane hosts have been told they face a permit regime, planned around it, and then been told they don't. Victoria introduced a short-stay levy. New South Wales has night caps in parts of the state. None of that was easy to predict two years ago, and none of it is settled now.
The hosts who came through this particular cycle in the best shape were not the ones with the best planning advice. They were the ones whose business did not depend on any single channel or any single set of rules — who had repeat guests, direct enquiries, and a way of being booked that did not route through one platform or one council decision.
"Platforms can delist you. Councils can regulate you. The one asset nobody can take off you is a guest who books direct because they stayed last year and liked it. A quiet regulatory year is exactly when you build that — and this is a quiet regulatory year."
— David Bennett, The TurnoverThat is what I'll be writing about next: what building direct bookings actually looks like for a single-property Brisbane host, without pretending you need a marketing department to do it.