Short-term rental rules · Grand Haven, Michigan
Short-term rentals in Grand Haven, explained properly.
The City of Grand Haven requires the owner of every rental dwelling, including short-term rentals (stays of less than one month, more than three times a year), to register it with the City each year and to hold a certificate of compliance, issued after inspection and valid for 3 years, before anyone occupies it. A certificate can't be transferred without written City consent, and an owner who lives more than 60 miles away must name a responsible local agent. The certificate and key City ordinances must be posted inside the rental, occupant records are kept for at least 2 years, and fines run up to $250, $500 and $1,000 for a first, second and third violation within 36 months. We haven't reviewed the zoning chapter, the fee schedule or any city lodging tax yet, so confirm those with the City before you buy.
At a glance
What you need to know before you buy or list
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Are short-term rentals allowed? | Conditional: a short-term rental dwelling in Grand Haven must be registered and hold a certificate of compliance, and the City's inspection checks it against the zoning ordinance. We haven't reviewed the zoning chapter (Chapter 40) yet, so confirm zoning with the City before you buy. [1] ClauseConfirming |
| Must a short-term rental be registered with the City? | Yes: the owner of every rental dwelling, which includes a short-term rental, must register it with the City on the City's application and pay the registration fee set by City Council resolution. Excluded from the definition of a rental dwelling: hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts and dwellings occupied only by the owner's immediate family. [1] Clause |
| Is a certificate of compliance required to occupy a short-term rental? | Yes: a rental dwelling, which includes a short-term rental, may not be occupied without a certificate of compliance or a temporary certificate of compliance. The City issues the certificate after inspection by the building inspector, zoning administrator and fire inspector, and it is valid for 3 years. [1] Clause |
| Must the owner live at the property? | No: an owner who does not live within 60 miles of the city may operate a rental dwelling by designating a responsible local agent, who is legally responsible for operating it in compliance with the law. The owner's name, residence address and phone numbers, and those of any property manager, go on the registration. [1] Clause |
| Can a certificate of compliance be transferred to a new owner? | Conditional: no certificate may be transferred without the written consent of the building inspector, zoning administrator and fire inspector, and a new owner of a registered dwelling must re-register it within 60 days of assuming ownership. [1] ClauseConfirming |
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Detailed rules
The full picture, section by section
Registration and fees
| What counts as a short-term rental? | A dwelling unit providing transient accommodations for periods of less than one month, more than three times per year. [1] Clause Sec. 9-201(8)(c). A dwelling occupied on a temporary basis that doesn't meet this definition is still a rental dwelling that must be registered. An occupant of a short-term rental is any person other than a legal or equitable title holder who occupies or possesses all or part of it (Sec. 9-201(8)(a)). |
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| What are the annual dates and update deadlines? | The annual registration date is January 1 and all fees are due on or before February 15. A new rental dwelling, or a dwelling newly converted to a rental, must be registered before occupancy is allowed. An existing registration must be updated within 60 days after any change in registration information. [1] Clause Sec. 9-201(1) to (3). A new owner of a registered dwelling must re-register within 60 days of assuming ownership. If the fee resolution says so, the fee for a registration of less than one year may be prorated; otherwise the established fee is due in full. |
| What is the registration fee? | Set by City Council resolution; the amount isn't shown here. The fee must be paid in full when the application is filed. [1] ClauseConfirming Sec. 9-201 ties the registration fee to a resolution of City Council, and Sec. 9-221 says Council sets a fee schedule for permits under Chapter 9 by resolution from time to time. The fee schedule hasn't been reviewed yet, so the amount and its effective date aren't shown. |
| What does the application include? | The rental dwelling's address; the number of rental dwelling units (and any rooming or hotel/motel units in the same premises); the owner's and any property manager's names, addresses and phone numbers; the address where the owner and any local agent or manager will accept City notices; and verification that state and city taxes on the dwelling due at filing have been paid. [1] Clause Sec. 9-201(4). Delinquent taxes may result in denial of the application. Where more than one person owns the dwelling, the information is required for each owner, and where the owner is an organization, for the organization and its president, general manager or other chief executive officer (Sec. 9-201(7)). |
Inspection and certificate of compliance
| How are rental dwellings inspected? | The City inspects every rental dwelling before issuing a certificate of compliance. On written notice from the City the owner must schedule and allow the inspection, and all fees must be paid before it. A renewal inspection must be scheduled before the certificate expires. [1] Clause Sec. 9-204. If an inspection finds deficiencies, the owner gets a written list that must be corrected before a permit is issued, and the City may issue a temporary certificate if the deficiencies don't make the unit uninhabitable. The City may inspect again on reasonable notice, for example when a temporary certificate has been issued, when a complaint is filed, or when it has reasonable cause to believe a rental dwelling violates the Code or other law. Inspections include re-inspections and additional inspections. |
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| How long is a certificate of compliance valid? | 3 years for all rental dwellings, unless suspended. The building inspector may allow one more year when all repairs are completed before the first reinspection date, and up to 8 more months to balance the City's inspection workload. [1] Clause Sec. 9-202(3) and (4). Certificates, including temporary certificates, may not be extended beyond their expiration dates except as those provisions allow. |
| Can a certificate of compliance be revoked? | Yes: the building inspector may revoke a certificate if the rental dwelling fails to comply with multiple sections of the article, or for repeated violations of the property maintenance code, fire code, zoning ordinance, the article or other law. The owner may appeal to the construction board of appeals, and enforcement is stayed during the appeal. An owner may petition for reinstatement no sooner than 12 months after revocation. [1] Clause Sec. 9-202(5). A third violation of the article within 36 months can also bring suspension of a certificate (Sec. 9-203(a)(3)). |
Operating requirements
| What must be posted inside a short-term rental? | A full-size copy of the certificate of compliance (or temporary certificate) and a full-size copy of the applicable City ordinance sections, including trash, noise, occupancy and parking, must be prominently displayed inside the rental property. [1] Clause Sec. 9-206(a) and (b). A sample display can be downloaded from the City's website or obtained from the planning and community development department. |
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| Can a short-term rental be advertised or used above its occupancy limit? | No: the owner or local agent may not advertise or permit an occupancy load greater than the maximum occupancy load limit permitted by City ordinance or other law. [1] Clause Sec. 9-206(c). The occupancy figure itself is set elsewhere in the Code and in other law, which we haven't reviewed. |
| What guest records must a short-term rental keep? | For every short-term rental the owner or local agent must keep each occupant's name, address and other contact information, plus a document signed by the person responsible for renting that acknowledges the occupancy limit, certifies the number of occupants and acknowledges the applicable City regulations. Records must be kept for at least 2 years and updated for each rental to different occupants. [1] Clause Sec. 9-205. The records must be available for City inspection and copying; the City says it intends to inspect and copy them in response to a complaint or a violation. Records pass to any successor owner or local agent. Tenants of other rental dwellings sign an acknowledgement of the occupancy limit and City regulations, which can be part of the lease. |
Penalties
| What are the penalties for violating the rental dwelling article? | A violation is a municipal civil infraction. Within any 36-month period the fine is up to $250 for a first violation, up to $500 for a second and up to $1,000 for a third, and a third violation can also bring suspension of the certificate of compliance. Owners, property managers, local agents, tenants and occupants can all be held responsible. [1] [2] Clause 1 Clause 2Confirming Sec. 9-203(a) as codified through Ordinance 2024-02. City Council adopted Ordinance 2026-003 on June 15, 2026, amending Sec. 9-203, but that ordinance has not been codified and its text wasn't saved, so these amounts may have changed. Sec. 9-203(b) separately allows citation for disruptive behavior that violates the Code or state law. |
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State law that also applies
| Michigan use tax on rooms and lodging | Michigan's Use Tax Act taxes rooms or lodging furnished by hotelkeepers, motel operators and other persons furnishing accommodations that are available to the public on the basis of a commercial and business enterprise, at a combined 6% rate; rooms and lodging rented for a continuous period of more than 1 month are excepted. Whether a privately owned home rented to guests is covered is not settled by the statute text we saved. [3] [4] [5] Clause 1 Clause 2 Clause 3Confirming MCL 205.93a(1)(b) lists "rooms or lodging" among the services taxed under the Use Tax Act, and defines "hotel" or "motel" to include inns, tourist homes, lodging houses, resort lodges and cabins, and "any other building or group of buildings in which accommodations are available to the public," except accommodations rented for a continuous period of more than 1 month. MCL 205.93(1) sets the combined tax at 6% of the price of the services specified in section 3a. The saved text of both sections is complete. Whether an individual who rents out a home, directly or through a booking platform, is a person furnishing accommodations "available to the public on the basis of a commercial and business enterprise" isn't answered by that text; the Department of Treasury's guidance on short-term rentals wasn't available to us, so confirm with the Department of Treasury. The General Sales Tax Act section we saved (MCL 205.52) is a 6% tax on retail sales of tangible personal property. This page does not total state and local taxes. |
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| Do booking platforms collect Michigan taxes? | Not settled: MCL 205.95b requires a seller of tangible personal property or services subject to the Use Tax Act to register and collect the tax once it has more than $100,000 in sales into Michigan or 200 or more transactions in the previous calendar year, and counts a marketplace facilitator's own sales together with its marketplace sellers' sales. Whether a booking platform collects tax on lodging stays isn't answered by the text we saved. [6] ClauseConfirming The saved section refers to the definition of a marketplace facilitator in section 5c, which wasn't saved. It applies to transactions on or after October 1, 2018. Confirm with the Michigan Department of Treasury and the platform whether tax is collected on a given booking. |
| Can Michigan counties and cities add their own lodging taxes? | Michigan's Accommodations Tax Act (Act 263 of 1974) lets counties and local units of government impose an excise tax on persons engaged in the business of providing rooms for dwelling, lodging or sleeping purposes to transient guests, and the Community Convention or Tourism Marketing Act (Act 395 of 1980) provides for assessments on the owners of transient facilities to support tourism marketing programs. [7] [8] Clause 1 Clause 2 These statements come from the titles and section lists of the two acts; the section text (rates, exemptions, the definition of a transient-guest business and any voter approval) wasn't saved, and whether any local tax or assessment applies at a given address hasn't been reviewed. Act 263 was amended in 2024 (Act 35, effective April 2, 2024). |
| Is there a statewide short-term rental law? | Not settled: the Michigan sources saved for this page are tax statutes and the title and article list of the Zoning Enabling Act (Act 110 of 2006); no state short-term rental law and no section of the Zoning Enabling Act has been reviewed yet. [9] ClauseConfirming The Zoning Enabling Act is described in its title as codifying the laws on local units of government regulating the development and use of land and providing for the adoption of zoning ordinances, with articles on zoning authorization, adoption and enforcement, special zoning provisions and the zoning board of appeals. Its section text, any pending state bills, and Michigan court rulings on short-term rentals and zoning haven't been reviewed. |
Changes
Recent and pending changes
We read Chapter 9, Article X (Dwelling Unit Registration, Secs. 9-201 to 9-207) and Article XI (Fees) of the City of Grand Haven Code of Ordinances as saved on October 18, 2026, from a Code codified through Ordinance 2024-02 (online content updated January 21, 2026). We haven't reviewed the zoning chapter, the City Council fee resolutions, Ordinance 2026-003 or the City's council agendas yet, so we will watch the Code and the City's list of adopted, not yet codified ordinances for changes.
City Council adopted Ordinance 2026-003 on June 15, 2026, amending Sec. 9-203 on violations under Chapter 9. It is listed as adopted but not yet codified, and its text wasn't saved, so the fines shown on this page are the codified amounts and may have changed.
Sources
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This page is general information compiled from public sources, not legal or tax advice. HOA rules, deed restrictions and zoning for a specific property can be stricter. Confirm with the local permitting office and a qualified professional before buying or listing a property.