Confirm the current position with Auckland Council before relying on this. Rating policy is reviewed and changes between years. The structure below is the shape of it; the specific bands and charges are set by Council and should be checked for the current rating year.

Why short-stay is rated differently

Rates are charged according to how a property is used, not only what it is. A house lived in by its owner is residential. A hotel is business. A house let to visitors for much of the year sits somewhere in between, and Auckland Council rates it accordingly.

The mechanism is a differential: part of your property is rated at the business rate rather than the residential rate, in proportion to how much it is used for short-stay accommodation.

The night thresholds

The proportion turns on how many nights a year the property is let for short stays. Broadly:

  • Up to 28 nights — treated as residential. Occasional letting does not change your rating position.
  • 29 to 135 nights — a partial business differential applies.
  • 136 to 180 nights — a larger proportion is rated as business.
  • More than 180 nights — rated substantially as business use.

The exact percentages and the resulting charge are set by Council each year. The point for planning is that these are steps, not a smooth slope. Crossing one has a real cost.

Why this matters for pricing

Here is the part that is easy to miss. If your property is tracking toward the top of a band late in the year, the marginal value of additional nights changes. Filling a handful more nights in March can push you into the next band and cost more in rates than those nights earned.

That is not an argument for leaving the property empty. It is an argument for knowing where you sit before deciding how aggressively to price the shoulder season.

Worth tracking: nights let per rating year, not per calendar year. If you manage the property yourself, keep a running count. If we manage it, the count is on your monthly statement.

Other things Council may care about

Rating is not the only angle. Depending on the property and how it is used, resource consent questions can arise — particularly for apartments, properties in certain zones, or where a body corporate has its own rules about short-stay letting.

If your property is a unit in a body corporate, read the rules before you list. Some prohibit short-stay letting outright, and that is a contractual matter between you and the body corporate that no manager can resolve for you.

What we do

We track nights let across the rating year, alongside every other cost line, and flag it when a property is approaching a band boundary, so the decision about whether to take those extra bookings is yours, and is made with the number in front of you.

We are not planning consultants. For consent questions or a body corporate dispute you need appropriate professional advice — but we will tell you when we think you need it.