Short-term rental rules by commune
Short-term rental rules can vary by Canton and Commune. This page is a compilation of cantonal and communal sources, showing the rules around the short-term letting of whole dwellings to guests.
Scenario mapped: a whole residential dwelling let to guests, with the owner not living in it. Rules for a spare room in your own home are often much lighter and are not shown here.
Last updated — · best-effort compilation from public sources · not legal advice, and not a substitute for asking the Gemeinde
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How far the law goes
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- A day cap is usually a threshold, not a ban.
- In Ticino, 90 days is the point past which you need a change-of-use permit — which is obtainable. In Genève, past 90 days the same activity is a prohibited commercial use. Same number, opposite meaning.
- In Ticino, crossing 90 days can cost you your second-home status.
- Counter-intuitively, letting more does not make a flat more of a holiday home in law. The change-of-use application that makes you a commercial letter takes the dwelling out of the free-use Zweitwohnung class: «Zweitwohnungen gelten dann als Erstwohnungen». In a commune above the 20% second-home share the reclassification is one-way — «wird das Objekt eine Erstwohnung bleiben» — and an altrechtlich second home that could be sold to anyone becomes one that cannot. Check the ZWG map before crossing 90 days. Below 20%, as in Mendrisio, this trap does not spring.
- Most communes inherit their canton's rule.
- Only — communes have a rule of their own. The rest are shaded from the cantonal regime, which is honest but coarse: a commune can adopt one at any assembly.
- Existing objects are usually protected.
- Where a commune has banned short-term letting, a Besitzstandsgarantie normally shields dwellings already lawfully in that use at a stated cut-off date. Wilderswil's is 2 November 2023; Unterseen's is 17 January 2019.
- Hatched communes are unsettled.
- Diagonal hatching marks a rule under appeal, awaiting cantonal approval, or held as a temporary planning-zone moratorium. Bern's Old Town ban has been carried by voters since 2022 and is still not enforceable.
- Green is not permission.
- The lightest band means no short-term-rental rule was identified — not that anything goes. A lasting change from residential to lodging use can require a permit anywhere under Art. 22 RPG, and tenancy, fire-safety, guest-registration and tourist-tax duties apply throughout.
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