![\"Hobart](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/85cc3e20-4283-11f1-af1f-081c6ba45b4d.jpeg\")
The Tasmanian capital has been facing a growing AirBnB problem. (Source: Getty) <\/p>\n The Tasmanian capital has been facing a growing AirBnB problem. (Source: Getty) <\/p>\n
Landlords wanting to use their property to provide short stay accomodation<\/a> in one Aussie city will have to pay a lot more to do so in the months ahead. The Hobart City Council in Tasmania is the latest jurisdiction to take aim at the rise of AirBnBs shrinking the rental pool.<\/p>\n Overnight, the council voted to hike the application fee for property owners<\/a> to provide short-stay accomodation by more than 1,800 per cent. It means owners will go from paying $435 to $5,000 to turn their property into an AirBnB<\/a>.<\/p>\n The much steeper fee will come into effect in the new financial year, on July 1.<\/p>\n RELATED<\/p>\n The rule change was approved overnight in a vote supported by six councillors with five voting against the fee hike.<\/p>\n According to acting lord mayor Zelinda Sherlock, the councillors were motivated by addressing a problem that is “causing great detriment to our city”.<\/p>\n “I don’t think we’re actually singling out something in a negative way,” she said during the council debate, the ABC<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n Ahead of the vote on Monday night, Tasmanians on social media seemed broadly in support of the higher charge, with some worrying about its impact on pushing up prices for tourist accomodation.<\/p>\n “If they want to start a accommodation business they should buy a hotel,” one person wrote.<\/p>\n “Short term accommodation is a business to make profit. Needs to be treated as such,” another agreed.<\/p>\n Council and state government battle the rise of short stay properties <\/p>\n The city council has for years tried to push back against the growing number of houses being offered through online platforms for short-term stays.<\/p>\n In 2023, the Hobart City Council lost a bid to cap the number of AirBnBs in the region in a failed push to the state’s Planning Minister to allow councils the ability to approve or refuse visitor accomodation.<\/p>\n The council says on average it currently receives more than 80 applications a year to change residential properties into short-stay accommodation.<\/p>\n Speaking in state parliament in September, independent Hobart MP Kristie Johnston said the latest government figures showed a 23 per cent increase in the number of homes in the city that otherwise might be available for rent \u2026 that are now being used for short-stay accommodation.<\/p>\n “That\u2019s an increase of 117 homes in the 12-month period,” she said.<\/p>\n She described it as a “worrying continuation” of the AirBnB problem facing the city.<\/p>\n Despite the mayor’s assertion the council wasn’t singling out “something in a negative way”, the huge fee hike came as part of the council’s annual review of more than 1,100 fees and charges across its various services, with a vast majority rising in line with inflation.<\/p>\n $11 million push to slug short-stay tourists <\/p>\n The Liberal state government in Tasmania has also promised to crack down on short-term stays. It announced an election campaign promise in 2024 to introduce a 5 per cent levy on short stay accommodation in a move it says will deliver around $11 million a year to the state. It said more than 80 per cent of the levy would be paid by overseas and interstate travellers and would be used to provide stamp duty relief for young first home buyers.<\/p>\n The short stay levy will be paid by the tourists using the short stay accommodation, not the actual property owners.<\/p>\n The state government recently announced it was seeking public consultation<\/a> on its bill to introduce the 5 per cent levy on accommodation stays of fewer than 28 consecutive nights.<\/p>\n In a submission in February from the City of Hobart, councillors said the levy plan “closely aligns with short stay levies introduced in other Australian jurisdictions, particularly Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory”.<\/p>\n It threw its support behind the proposal, lamenting that “in the absence of comprehensive State\u2011level controls on the scale, location and intensity of short stay accommodation, local governments have been required to take increasingly complex planning, strategic and compliance measures to manage the loss of long\u2011term rental stock.”<\/p>\n Get the latest Yahoo Finance news – follow us on Facebook<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n More than 80 homes a year are being converted to short term accomodation in Hobart. (Source: Getty) \u00b7 Getty Images <\/p>\n