The District issued 1,248 short-term rental licenses during the year ending October 2026, a rise of 55%. All of that growth came from addresses with an earlier license on file. Newly licensed addresses slipped 5%.
Published November 5, 2026 by Cavmir Research · All research
804 licenses were first issued in the 12 months to October 2025. The next 12 months brought 1,248. Over those same two periods the count of addresses licensed for the first time went from 527 to 503, so 745 of the latest licenses, about 60%, are at an address already on file. Of those, 484 came two years or more after the address's previous license, which fits a host taking out a fresh license when the two-year term ends. Another 208 were issued the same day as another license at that address, usually the second class. The register gives no reason, so this is our reading of the dates.
Licensing rushed in early 2022: 2,537 licenses that year, with 433 in March alone. The department notes it moved short-term and vacation rental licenses to a new system on November 15, 2022. Spring 2026 was the next surge, peaking at 227 in May, of which 62 were new addresses.
| Month | First issued | At a new address | Short Term Rental class | Vacation Rental class | 90-night exemption |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2024 | 66 | 49 | 44 | 21 | 1 |
| Dec 2024 | 78 | 55 | 52 | 26 | 0 |
| Jan 2025 | 65 | 50 | 50 | 15 | 0 |
| Feb 2025 | 61 | 43 | 43 | 17 | 1 |
| Mar 2025 | 69 | 50 | 47 | 19 | 3 |
| Apr 2025 | 66 | 51 | 50 | 16 | 0 |
| May 2025 | 77 | 46 | 48 | 28 | 1 |
| Jun 2025 | 79 | 42 | 43 | 31 | 5 |
| Jul 2025 | 55 | 32 | 35 | 16 | 4 |
| Aug 2025 | 62 | 38 | 38 | 22 | 2 |
| Sep 2025 | 54 | 32 | 36 | 17 | 1 |
| Oct 2025 | 72 | 39 | 52 | 19 | 1 |
| Nov 2025 | 62 | 34 | 42 | 19 | 1 |
| Dec 2025 | 67 | 39 | 51 | 16 | 0 |
| Jan 2026 | 74 | 43 | 52 | 20 | 2 |
| Feb 2026 | 90 | 26 | 70 | 19 | 1 |
| Mar 2026 | 89 | 41 | 64 | 23 | 2 |
| Apr 2026 | 129 | 46 | 99 | 28 | 2 |
| May 2026 | 227 | 62 | 166 | 60 | 1 |
| Jun 2026 | 173 | 60 | 131 | 41 | 1 |
| Jul 2026 | 97 | 33 | 64 | 30 | 3 |
| Aug 2026 | 99 | 46 | 70 | 27 | 2 |
| Sep 2026 | 85 | 40 | 55 | 27 | 3 |
| Oct 2026 | 56 | 33 | 37 | 17 | 2 |
DC runs two classes. For a Short Term Rental the host is on site. For a Vacation Rental the owner is away, the guests have the home, and rentals stop at 90 nights a calendar year unless the host wins an exemption for work or health reasons. Either way the department says only a natural person can host, the home must be the host's primary residence with the Homestead Tax Deduction, and investment or company-owned properties don't qualify.
Active licenses split 2,220 and 807, with 16 exemptions. 375 applications read Denied.
That could change. A bill the Mayor announced on March 13, 2026 would let tenants host, remove the two-class split, drop the Homestead reference and allow a license on a second property. A search on November 5, 2026 turned up no record of a Council vote, so this report can serve as a baseline if the bill passes.
Ward 5 has 625 active licenses and Ward 6 has 602. Ward 5 also led on first-time addresses during the year, with 117. Ward 6 fell from 97 to 67.
By cluster, Union Station, Stanton Park, Kingman Park tops the list at 323, followed by Capitol Hill, Lincoln Park at 275 and Edgewood, Bloomingdale, Truxton Circle, Eckington at 273. Licenses are thin downtown: the Downtown, Chinatown and Penn Quarter cluster shows 15, and the cluster with Navy Yard shows 5.
Clusters as named by the DC Office of Planning. The register fills this column on about nine records in ten.
| Ward | Licenses, all years | Addresses | Active today | New, latest 12 months | New, earlier 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ward 5 | 1,424 | 976 | 625 | 117 | 118 |
| Ward 6 | 1,279 | 843 | 602 | 67 | 97 |
| Ward 1 | 915 | 602 | 432 | 58 | 63 |
| Ward 4 | 793 | 565 | 384 | 72 | 76 |
| Ward 2 | 700 | 471 | 345 | 56 | 56 |
| Ward 7 | 750 | 501 | 288 | 54 | 54 |
| Ward 3 | 354 | 232 | 170 | 26 | 31 |
| Ward 8 | 356 | 250 | 147 | 31 | 31 |
| Neighborhoods | Licenses, all years | Addresses | Active today | New addresses, Nov 2025 to Oct 2026 | New addresses, Nov 2024 to Oct 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Union Station, Stanton Park, Kingman Park | 752 | 491 | 323 | 32 | 57 |
| Capitol Hill, Lincoln Park | 569 | 380 | 275 | 29 | 51 |
| Edgewood, Bloomingdale, Truxton Circle, Eckington | 583 | 384 | 273 | 37 | 54 |
| Columbia Heights, Mt. Pleasant, Pleasant Plains, Park View | 562 | 374 | 248 | 27 | 48 |
| Brightwood Park, Crestwood, Petworth | 467 | 328 | 213 | 28 | 51 |
| Shaw, Logan Circle | 273 | 180 | 127 | 17 | 22 |
| Ivy City, Arboretum, Trinidad, Carver Langston | 282 | 194 | 113 | 24 | 26 |
| Howard University, Le Droit Park, Cardozo/Shaw | 191 | 122 | 98 | 8 | 15 |
| Dupont Circle, Connecticut Avenue/K Street | 162 | 116 | 82 | 11 | 9 |
| Brookland, Brentwood, Langdon | 190 | 134 | 73 | 11 | 14 |
| Georgetown, Burleith/Hillandale | 128 | 86 | 65 | 10 | 14 |
| Takoma, Brightwood, Manor Park | 135 | 94 | 63 | 9 | 11 |
| Twining, Fairlawn, Randle Highlands, Penn Branch, Fort Davis Park, Fort Dupont | 145 | 95 | 58 | 10 | 8 |
| Capitol View, Marshall Heights, Benning Heights | 155 | 101 | 52 | 6 | 11 |
| Kalorama Heights, Adams Morgan, Lanier Heights | 96 | 69 | 47 | 8 | 6 |
| Lamont Riggs, Queens Chapel, Fort Totten, Pleasant Hill | 110 | 79 | 46 | 7 | 10 |
883 of the 2,089 addresses first licensed in 2022 have an active license today, or 42.3%. Licenses issued in 2025 and 2026 have not reached their two-year mark, so their near-complete figures say little yet.
The Basic Business Licenses dataset from the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection includes inactive records and is licensed CC BY 4.0. Cavmir filtered it to three business activities (Short Term Rental, Vacation Rental, Short Term Vacation Rental Exemption) and counted, which is the only change made. The file was refreshed on November 4 and pulled the next day, without owner, entity or agent names.
INITIALISSUEDATE drives the monthly counts. 386 records have no date, most of them among the 375 that read Denied, so they count in the status totals and stay out of the month tables. The premise address, cut at the city name, defines a first-time address, with the same caution that spelling variants count twice. Wards and clusters are columns on each record. The cluster column is blank on 721 records, and names come from the Office of Planning's Neighborhood Clusters layer.
28 live comparisons against the DC server, all 28 equal: record total, each status, each year, March 2026 and each ward.
Aggregates only. CC BY 4.0, inherited from the source file, so credit both Cavmir and DLCP.
Cavmir Research, Washington DC Short-Term Rental Licenses, November 2026. Aggregated from DC Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection data (CC BY 4.0). https://cavmir.com/resources/research/washington-dc-short-term-rental-licenses/
3,043 licenses were active on November 5, 2026: 2,220 Short Term Rental, 807 Vacation Rental and 16 exemptions to the 90-night limit.
The DC Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection says the host is present for a short-term rental. For a vacation rental the owner is not on the premises, guests have the whole home, and rentals are capped at 90 nights a calendar year.
Ward 5 has 625 active licenses and Ward 6 has 602. Together they hold 40% of the District's active licenses.
License counts did, addresses did not. 1,248 licenses were first issued between last November and this October, 55% more than a year earlier. Only 503 of those were at an address with no earlier license, down 5%.
Cavmir helps short-term rental hosts earn more direct bookings. Read our DC market page.
