Kennebunkport STR Rules: 2026 Freeze vs Goose Rocks

Kennebunkport is three clerks, not one Southern Maine slogan. Inside the incorporated town, a short-term rental is a stay under 30 days and it needs a Chapter 129 license to advertise, rent, or operate. The 2026 portal is closed to new applications and to renewals. West of the river, Kennebunk registers a stay of fewer than 15 days with the clerk and Fire Rescue. Ogunquit is a seven-day TA-1 plus a Town Clerk business registration. The extract still prints 158 listings, a $48,101 clear year, a $4,906 month, $708 ADR, and 36.4 percent occupancy. Those numbers are not a license.

Peak revenue month is August. The three strongest months are August, July, and September. The hole is January, February, and March, and september is a peak. March is a low, and january is the lowest revenue month. Occupancy is highest in August and lowest in January. Leftover July-only beach language, and leftover $100,000 years from other aggregators, are wrong on this file. None of that calendar opens the 2026 portal or writes a Kennebunk listings. A mailing address that says Kennebunkport is not the test. Dock Square is town. Goose Rocks is still licensed and off the cap. The license number is the test.

This page is the clerk file, and it will not coach an unlicensed Kennebunkport nightly. It will not file Chapter 129, sit the GovOS waitlist, or Keep a Kennebunk registration. We do not manage Kennebunkport, and planning is. If you need the marketplace path first, use the.market report. If you are buying, open theinvestment fileafter you survive this map. Thestartup stackprices paper without guessing furniture. This is not legal advice.

Three clerks, not one Southern Maine rule

The Town of Kennebunkport, the Town of Kennebunk, and the Town of Ogunquit share a coast and split a legal product. Kennebunkport Planning and Development publishes the Chapter 129 page. Planning there is, and the complaint line is. Use the license number, not the Dock Square brochure. Dock Square, Cape Porpoise, and Goose Rocks Beach sit inside Kennebunkport. Kennebunk is the next town west. Ogunquit is a separate arts-and-beach town. Cape Neddick and Nubble sit in York, not on this published market year.

Kennebunk's city desk registration registers stays of fewer than 15 days. Fire Rescue inspects before the listings issues, and clerk is. Ogunquit's Codes and Planning desk is, and the product this week is a Transient Accommodation Type 1 week plus a Town Clerk business registration. Maine Office of Tourism is a marketing desk, not a license desk. AirROI Moderate is a vendor label, and none of those objects replace the three-town answer. Three clerks, and three phones. One map question before anyone writes a listing.

Do not blend the desks into a Southern Maine rule. A Kennebunkport house cannot borrow a Kennebunk $250 listings. A Kennebunk house cannot borrow a Chapter 129 freeze story. An Ogunquit house cannot borrow a leftover 1 percent cap this packet will not lock. Confirm the parcel map before you quote Chapter 129 on a lot that may sit in Kennebunk, and before you quote a TA-1 week on a Dock Square block. Three towns. Three products. One leftover blend will fail the first clerk call.

Kennebunkport Chapter 129 and the 2026 freeze

The town defines a short-term rental as a dwelling unit offered for less than 30 consecutive days. A license is required to advertise, rent, or operate. The license is a calendar-year listings and it expires December 31. The 2026 portal sentence is plain: no new applications or renewals submitted will be accepted for the 2026 calendar year. A GovOS account can still be managed, and hedge whether an already-issued 2026 listings stays live. Print the town sentence, and Leave out unverified a reading. This shop will not Keep listing copy that treats an unlicensed house as a legal Dock Square stay.

The Select Board sets the annual count from a formula based on a percentage of residential dwellings, in effect January 1, 2023, under section 129-9. Occupancy is two tenants per bedroom plus two for the house. The CEO inspects once every five years, and ads must print the license number. Accessory apartments after November 3, 2009, RVs and tents, and affordable-housing units after July 1, 2024, cannot list. Hedge the current fee. The Select Board sets Tier I for zero-to-three bedrooms and Tier II for four-plus. Leave out unverified the dollar.

$48,101 is a host year on the extract. It is not income you may model on a lot the 2026 portal will not listings.finance filewill not dress an unlicensed lot as a DSCR story. If the parcel already holds a live 2026 listings, confirm it with Planning at before you advertise. A live Airbnb published market year is not that paper. AirROI Moderate does not reopen the portal.

Goose Rocks is licensed and off the cap

Goose Rocks Beach Neighborhood, on the town map and Exhibit A, still needs a Chapter 129 license. Those licenses do not count toward the town-wide cap. Off the cap is not off the clerk, and a beach walk is not a license. A Goose Rocks published market year that is advertising without a listings is the same unlicensed nightly this page will not coach. Confirm the neighborhood line on the town map before you treat the carve-out as yours. The sand does not Keep the listings, and planning does.

TheDock Square versus Goose Rocks filewalks the sidewalk split, and this rules page only needs the cap sentence. If a seller waves a live Airbnb calendar as proof the freeze is optional on the sand, treat that calendar as evidence of risk, not as a grandfather clause. Chapter 129 does not print an exception for years on the platform. Screenshot the Planning page the week you buy, and open the license file. If the parcel is Goose Rocks and the listings is missing, the nightly is not the path.

Cape Porpoise is town, not a third clerk, and colony Beach is town. Walking distance to the sand is not a cap workaround. Occupancy is still two per bedroom plus two, and ads still need the license number. The 2026 freeze language still includes renewals, and off-cap Goose Rocks licenses are still licenses. Do not Keep beach-walk copy that pretends the carve-out skipped Planning. A walk you can photograph is still a walk. It is not a Chapter 129 workaround and it is not a 2026 portal that reopened on the sand.

Licenses do not transfer except a named family file

Chapter 129 listings are nontransferable except a permitted transfer to a current owner, spouse, child, grandchild, sibling, niece or nephew, or a named estate-planning entity for those people. Any other sale needs a new license, and licenses do not move to a different dwelling. In a year when the portal is closed to new applications and to renewals, a sale that is not a named family file is not a $48,101 story.buy fileowns the purchase questions. This rules page only needs the transfer sentence.

A listing that advertises a licensed year as if the listings travels with the deed is writing against the ordinance. Confirm the license with Planning before the offer, and confirm whether the file is a permitted family transfer or a sale that needs a new listings the 2026 portal is not issuing. Hedge whether an already-issued 2026 listings stays live through a closing. Print the town sentence. Leave out unverified a reading that turns a frozen portal into a transferable asset.

Max licenses on a lot are two or 50 percent of dwelling units, whichever is greater. Holders above that limit as of the 2025 change may renew until transfer. That sentence is not a workaround for a buyer who is not on the named family list. It is a cap on how many listings one lot may hold, and it still dies at a non-permitted sale. Keep the owner name next to the license number before anyone talks about August. The lot limit is not a second freeze waiver.

Kennebunk registers with the clerk and the fire desk

Kennebunk is a different town and a different product. A short-term rental there is a dwelling rented for fewer than 15 days. The ordinance was approved June 11, 2024, and took effect January 1, 2025. Register each unit with the Town Clerk. Fire Rescue inspection is required before the listings issues. Fees on the clerk page are $250 new and $150 renewal, payable to the Town of Kennebunk. Clerk is, and fire inspections are extension 1633, and the office is 1 Summer Street. The packet on the live page is dated November 14, 2024. Hedge later packet changes.

There is no numeric cap on this clerk page. That is not a Kennebunkport freeze waiver. A Kennebunk $250 listings does not travel east into Dock Square. A Kennebunkport Chapter 129 listings does not travel west onto Gooch's or Mother's Beach. Guests may drive both towns in a day, and the clerks do not share a file. AirROI's Kennebunk extract prints $47,644 on 237 listings, and that year stays comparison-only on this page. Print it only when the parcel is Kennebunk.

Hire help that knows which desk it is calling. A photographer who only shoots Dock Square will lie about a Kennebunk arrival. A copywriter who writes Chapter 129 on a Kennebunk title will earn the review you cannot outrun. Confirm the policy map before you quote a Kennebunkport number on a parcel that may sit in Kennebunk. The $47,644 year and the $250 listings belong to that town only. They do not rescue a frozen Kennebunkport lot.

Ogunquit is a seven-day TA-1, not a leftover 1 percent

Ogunquit's product this week is Transient Accommodation Type 1: a weekly private home rental with a minimum stay of seven days, usual owners not present, one family exclusive use. Town Clerk business registration is required on the City Grows TA-1 portal. The 2026 through 2027 period runs July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027. Table 702.1 lists TA-1 as allowed without a zoning permit in most districts. That is the zoning table, not a license listings. Codes and Planning is. Hedge fees.

Hedge the leftover 1 percent non-hosted cap and the leftover 5-unit or 50-percent-of-building operator limits. Secondary Keep-ups repeat them. This week's primary clerk and zoning table confirm the seven-day TA-1 definition and the business registration. Do not print 1 percent or 5-unit as a locked file. AirROI Low and a zero licensed share on the Ogunquit extract are vendor labels, not the TA-1 week.southern-coast how-towrites the week after that registration exists.

Ogunquit's extract prints a $33,812 year on 246 listings. That year does not become a Kennebunkport weekend because you typed beach. A seven-day floor is a stay-length rule, not a slogan you drop into a Dock Square title. Do not Keep an Ogunquit weekend this packet will not lock. Keep the week on the Ogunquit published market year, and keep the licensed walk on the Kennebunkport published market year. Hedge fees when you call Codes, and Leave out unverified a Saturday product.

Maine’s 9 percent lodging tax sits on every town

State of Maine lodging tax is 9 percent on rentals of lodging. Maine Revenue Services still prints that rate on the table effective January 2016. Register with MRS unless a platform remits, and casual-rental hedges live on MRS IB32. Leave out unverified a 14-day exemption as a host strategy. The 9 percent line sits on Kennebunkport, Kennebunk, and Ogunquit alike. It does not replace Chapter 129, and it does not replace a Kennebunk $250 listings. It does not replace an Ogunquit TA-1 registration.

Platforms may remit some of this when the stay books on that platform. Owner-direct stays still need the finance relationship. A platform remittance is not a Chapter 129 license. A platform remittance is not a Kennebunk registration. A platform remittance is not an Ogunquit business registration. Do not add a guessed town lodging percent to the state 9 percent and call the result a fourth ordinance. Hedge town-level fees, and confirm the desks the week you open.

Thehow-to filewrites the published market year after the paper exists. Thevisitor guidecan name Dock Square as a walk, and neither page remits the 9 percent. Neither page is Planning, and print the state rate. Leave the town fee as a live call, and casual-rental hedges stay on MRS IB32. They are not a listing strategy and they are not a fourth ordinance.

What we will not Keep

We will not Keep an unlicensed Kennebunkport nightly. We will not coach a frozen 2026 portal as a Saturday-night workaround. We will not treat AirROI Moderate as Chapter 129 or as a Goose Rocks waiver. We will not file the license, sit the GovOS waitlist, or guess a Kennebunkport fee the Select Board has not quoted this week. We will not make the DSCR loan, and we do not manage Kennebunkport. Bring the license number. Print the freeze as the town printed it: no new applications or renewals for the 2026 calendar year.

We will not divide Maine Office of Tourism's $2.5 billion by 158. Visitor spend is not $48,101 and not $4,906. Thetourism filekeeps that regional desk off the rent roll. We will not steal Kennebunk's $47,644 or Ogunquit's $33,812 into this published market year. We will not treat KPort's $409,819 or Coastline's $264,690 as your year. We will not guess weekly or remote discounts. We will not print Ogunquit's leftover 1 percent or 5-unit line as a locked file. September is a peak, and march is a low. August, July, and September carry the town figure.

What remains after those refusals is a house with a real Chapter 129 listings, a real Kennebunk registration, or a real Ogunquit TA-1 week, a drive you can time, and a calendar the extract actually printed. This rules page only had to keep the three clerks apart. Kennebunkport needs a license the 2026 portal is not issuing. Goose Rocks is still licensed and off the cap. A sale is not a license except a named family file. a published market year is not that paper and never was. Keep the license number next to that sentence.

Related Reading

More Kennebunkport and Southern Maine Coast reading already live on Crest & Cove.

• 158 Listings and a $48,101 Year: Kennebunkport 2026

• How to Market a Kennebunkport Stay Against Coastline

• Kennebunkport Freeze vs Kennebunk Registration in 2026

• How to Market a Kennebunkport or Ogunquit Week Stay

• DIY vs Hire in Kennebunkport: 23% PM and Coastline

• Kennebunkport Shoulder: August Peaks, January Is the Hole

• Kennebunkport 30-Night Stays: 54% Already Gate Dates

• Who Books Kennebunkport, Kennebunk, and Ogunquit Stays

• Buying a Kennebunkport License: It Does Not Transfer

• Maine Beaches $2.5B Visitor Spend Is Not Host Year

• Complete Visitor's Guide to Kennebunkport: Dock Square

• What It Actually Costs to Start a Kennebunkport STR

• Financing a Kennebunkport House: DSCR on a $4,906 Month

• Dock Square vs Goose Rocks: Which Kennebunkport published market year

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a license to Airbnb in Kennebunkport, Maine?

Yes. A short-term rental is defined as a stay under 30 consecutive days, and Chapter 129 requires a license to advertise, rent, or operate one anywhere inside the incorporated town. A live Airbnb listing with a published market year is not itself proof of that license; the license has to be confirmed separately.

Is the Kennebunkport 2026 short-term rental license portal still open?

No. The town's stated position is that no new applications or renewals submitted will be accepted for the 2026 calendar year. An already-issued license from a prior cycle can still be managed through the GovOS portal, but whether that license stays active through 2026 is a question worth confirming directly with the town rather than assuming.

Does a Goose Rocks Beach property skip Kennebunkport's license cap?

Goose Rocks Beach licenses don't count toward the town-wide numeric cap, but a Goose Rocks property still needs its own Chapter 129 license to legally operate. Sitting off the cap is not the same as being exempt from the licensing requirement itself, and occupancy limits (two tenants per bedroom, plus two) and license-number advertising rules still apply.

Can a Kennebunkport short-term rental license be transferred when the house is sold?

Only as a permitted family transfer, to a current owner's spouse, child, grandchild, sibling, niece, nephew, or a named estate-planning entity established for those people. Any other sale requires a new license, and licenses don't move to a different dwelling. Since the 2026 portal is closed to new applications, a non-family sale can't rely on securing a fresh license this cycle.

How does Kennebunk's short-term rental registration differ from Kennebunkport's?

Kennebunk (a separate town) registers dwellings rented for fewer than 15 days through its Town Clerk, with a Fire Rescue inspection required before the registration issues. Fees are $250 for a new registration and $150 for renewal, and there's no numeric cap listed. A Kennebunk registration doesn't carry over into Kennebunkport, since the two towns run independent processes.

How does Ogunquit's short-term rental process compare to Kennebunkport's?

Ogunquit's current process is a Transient Accommodation Type 1 registration: a seven-day minimum stay for a private-home rental, plus Town Clerk business registration. Some older references to a 1% non-hosted cap and a 5-unit operator limit for Ogunquit appear in older material and aren't confirmed as the current locked rule, so they should be verified directly with Ogunquit's Codes and Planning office before being cited.

What lodging tax does Maine charge on a Kennebunkport short-term rental?

Maine's state lodging tax is 9% on rentals of lodging, a rate Maine Revenue Services has published since a January 2016 table. Hosts generally need to register with MRS unless the booking platform remits the tax on their behalf. That 9% state tax is separate from, and doesn't replace, the Chapter 129 town license requirement.

Does AirROI's 'Moderate' regulatory label mean a Kennebunkport listing is already licensed?

No. AirROI's 'Moderate' tag and a reported 26% licensed share are vendor-assigned data labels, not confirmation of Chapter 129 status, the 2026 application freeze, or a Goose Rocks Beach carve-out. A published market year of $48,101 across 158 listings describes market performance, not whether any individual listing actually holds a valid town license; confirming the license number directly with the town's Planning office is the reliable step.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Southern Maine listings fail when Kennebunkport, Goose Rocks, Kennebunk, and Ogunquit get mashed into one license story. The 2026 freeze is not a coastline-wide rule.

We help hosts keep each Southern Maine clerk path honest before the listing promises a week it cannot legally sell. Share the address if the rules block still could sit in the wrong town. Send the live listing draft and the facts you can actually cite.

Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502.