Londonderry Ordinance: Clerks, Not Occupancy Ranking

Thomas Garner
Aug 2
16 min read

Updated: 17 hours ago

If you own — or are thinking about buying — a vacation rental near Magic Mountain, the single most important document you'll read this year isn't a listing description. It's a nine-page civil ordinance out of the Londonderry Town Office. The Town of Londonderry's short-term rental ordinance has been amended three times since it first took effect, and the version that matters today only became fully binding on July 1, 2025. A lot of hosts in this corner of Windham County are still operating on secondhand summaries of an earlier draft. This is a full walk-through of what's actually in the ordinance, sourced directly from the town's own text, so you know exactly what you're registering for before you list a property — or before you buy one expecting to.

This is the deepest regulatory dive in our Londonderry/Magic Mountain series. If you haven't already, it's worth reading alongside our companion market report on Londonderry's short-term rental economics for the demand-side context, and our piece on whether hiring an outside marketing agency is worth it once you're compliant and ready to book. This is the section that matters most if you're evaluating a Londonderry or Magic Mountain-area purchase with STR income in mind — and it's the part of the April 2025 amendment that generated the most local pushback.

A Quick History: How Londonderry's STR Ordinance Got Here

Londonderry didn't regulate short-term rentals overnight, and the timeline matters because it explains why so much conflicting information is floating around town. The Town of Londonderry's short-term rental ordinance has been amended three times since it first took effect, and the version that matters today only became fully binding on July 1, 2025. A 2023 town housing assessment found short-term rentals in Londonderry had grown by roughly 62% over the prior three years, against a backdrop of median home prices already up sharply since 2016 — the kind of trend line that turns a zoning debate into a housing-affordability debate.

Adopted December 19, 2023— effectiveFebruary 17, 2024. This was the original ordinance, establishing annual registration as a requirement for the first time.
Amended three times since, most recently onApril 21, 2025, with that amendment taking effectJuly 1, 2025.

That last amendment is the one that matters most for hosts today. It's the version that introduced the one-year ownership wait, the 50-night cap on new unhosted registrations, and the one-STR-per-property structure — the mechanics covered in detail below. Registration applications under the current rules opened May 1, 2025, ahead of the July 1 effective date, giving existing hosts a runway to get their paperwork in order before enforcement began.

What Actually Counts as a "Short-Term Rental" Here

Londonderry's ordinance defines a short-term rental narrowly and specifically: a dwelling unit rented to the "transient, traveling, or vacationing public" forfewer than 30 consecutive days and for more than 14 days per calendar year. Rental arbitrage is banned outright.A tenant leasing an unit long-term can't turn around and sublet it as a short-term rental — the ordinance defines this specifically as "rental arbitrage" and prohibits it.

Both halves of that test matter. A property rented for 30 days or longer at a stretch is a long-term rental, not an STR, regardless of how it's marketed. And a property that's occasionally rented out — say, a handful of weekends a year, totaling 14 days or fewer — technically falls outside the ordinance's registration trigger altogether, since it doesn't clear the "more than 14 days per calendar year" threshold. In practice, almost every host running an active listing on Airbnb or Vrbo near Magic Mountain or Bromley will clear that bar easily, but it's an useful data point if you're weighing whether an occasional-use property needs to register at all.

The ordinance also splits STRs into two categories that carry different obligations throughout the rest of the document:. Londonderry's ordinance defines a short-term rental narrowly and specifically: a dwelling unit rented to the "transient, traveling, or vacationing public" forfewer than 30 consecutive days and for more than 14 days per calendar year. Treat the figures above as directional — verify the current amount directly with the Town of Londonderry at the time you actually register, since the ordinance was written to let that number move.

Hosted— a room, or group of rooms, inside the owner's primary residence (their Homestead), or an accessory dwelling/cabin on that same property.
Unhosted— a furnished house, condo, apartment, or accessory dwelling that isnotthe owner's primary residence.

Nearly every rule that limits new supply — the one-year wait, the 50-night cap, the one-per-property structure — applies specifically to unhosted properties. Hosted rentals face a lighter registration bar and a lower fee, discussed below. The 50-night cap on first-time unhosted registrations.Once your one-year wait is up and you register an unhosted property for the first time, the ordinance caps you at 50 rental days in that first calendar year — the ordinance's own text specifies days, not nights, even though the cap gets shortened to the "50-night rule" informally in regional coverage (and in this post's title).

Registering Your Property: What Windham County Hosts Need on File

Registration is annual and expires every June 30, regardless of when in the year you first registered. Renewal isn't automatic — you're required to resubmit each year, and one specific piece of paperwork can sink a renewal outright (more on that in a moment). Then there's the requirement that trips up more hosts than any other:starting with your first renewal, you have to file an annual accounting of the total number of nights the property was actually rented the previous year.Skip it, and the ordinance is explicit — your renewal registration will be denied.

To register an unit with a total occupancy of eight or fewer, an owner has to provide:. This is a full walk-through of what's actually in the ordinance, sourced directly from the town's own text, so you know exactly what you're registering for before you list a property — or before you buy one expecting to. The ordinance is blunt about why this exists: it says outright, "no parties or events." If your marketing leans on group-friendly language, it's worth double-checking your listed capacity matches what's on file with the town, since over-advertising capacity is itself a violation.

Commercial liability insuranceof not less than$1,000,000 per occurrencecovering the unit, with the insurer notified that it's being used as a short-term rental — unless the listing platform itself carries equal or greater coverage.
Proof of registration with three Vermont state agencies: theDivision of Fire Safety, theDepartment of Health, and theDepartment of Taxes. Under Vermont law, a short-term rental is legally treated as a "public building," which is what triggers the Fire Safety Division's jurisdiction.
A secondary means of escape (egress)for every sleeping space, meeting Vermont Fire and Building Safety Code measurements, plusoperational photoelectric smoke detectors and CO detectorsthat are within their expiration dates.
A designated emergency contactif the owner isn't on-site for the entire rental period — and that contact has to belocated in Windsor, Bennington, or Windham County, so they can actually respond if something goes wrong.
A Knox Box, if the property has an automatic fire alarm system. The town notes it'll make one available to Londonderry and South Londonderry Fire Companies for emergency access even where a fire alarm isn't independently required.
Posting of statutorily required contact informationand self-certification health-and-safety materials inside the unit itself, per Vermont's short-term rental statute.

Then there's the requirement that trips up more hosts than any other:starting with your first renewal, you have to file an annual accounting of the total number of nights the property was actually rented the previous year.Skip it, and the ordinance is explicit — your renewal registration will be denied. This isn't a formality. It's how the town enforces the 50-night cap on new unhosted registrations and verifies compliance generally, so it's worth building a habit of pulling your platform's night-count report the moment you start your renewal paperwork each spring.

Properties with a capacity above eight occupants face additional requirements — proof of adequate septic capacity and a satisfactory Fire Safety Division inspection report — that most single-family Magic Mountain-area rentals won't hit, but it's worth knowing if you're looking at a larger group property. In practice, almost every host running an active listing on Airbnb or Vrbo near Magic Mountain or Bromley will clear that bar easily, but it's an useful data point if you're weighing whether an occasional-use property needs to register at all.

Occupancy Caps and Quiet Hours: Built to Stop Party Rentals

The ordinance ties maximum occupancy directly to bedroom count, using the Town Listers' property database as the source of truth:. Between10pm and 7am, the number of people actually present on the property can't exceed that same occupancy figure plustwo additional visitors— a three-bedroom unit, for example, can't have more than 10 people on-site overnight. That's a meaningful constraint on year-one cash flow for a new unhosted purchase, and it's worth modeling explicitly before you underwrite a deal — a property you're expecting to run at a typical ski-season occupancy rate simply can't, in its first registered year.

Maximum overnight capacity = (2 guests × number of bedrooms) + 2. There's a second, separate cap for overnight hours specifically. The ordinance ties maximum occupancy directly to bedroom count, using the Town Listers' property database as the source of truth:. Properties with a capacity above eight occupants face additional requirements — proof of adequate septic capacity and a satisfactory Fire Safety Division inspection report — that most single-family Magic Mountain-area rentals won't hit, but it's worth knowing if you're looking at a larger group property.

A three-bedroom unit tops out at eight people ((3 × 2) + 2). Advertise or allow more than that, and you're in violation regardless of intent. To register an unit with a total occupancy of eight or fewer, an owner has to provide:. Renewal isn't automatic — you're required to resubmit each year, and one specific piece of paperwork can sink a renewal outright (more on that in a moment).

There's a second, separate cap for overnight hours specifically. Between10pm and 7am, the number of people actually present on the property can't exceed that same occupancy figure plustwo additional visitors— a three-bedroom unit, for example, can't have more than 10 people on-site overnight. The ordinance is blunt about why this exists: it says outright, "no parties or events." If your marketing leans on group-friendly language, it's worth double-checking your listed capacity matches what's on file with the town, since over-advertising capacity is itself a violation.

The New-Supply Rules That Actually Shape This Market

This is the section that matters most if you're evaluating a Londonderry or Magic Mountain-area purchase with STR income in mind — and it's the part of the April 2025 amendment that generated the most local pushback. Londonderry backs this ordinance with real teeth, and it's a graduated schedule that gets expensive fast for repeat violations. This is the deepest regulatory dive in our Londonderry/Magic Mountain series.

The one-year ownership wait.An unhosted property cannot be registered as a short-term rental within one calendar year of a change in ownership. If you buy a property that isn't your primary residence, you're looking at roughly a year before you can legally start renting it short-term — unless you move in and register it as hosted, which isn't subject to this waiting period. This single rule is the reason "just bought it, listing next month" isn't a viable plan for unhosted investment purchases here anymore.

The 50-night cap on first-time unhosted registrations.Once your one-year wait is up and you register an unhosted property for the first time, the ordinance caps you at 50 rental days in that first calendar year — the ordinance's own text specifies days, not nights, even though the cap gets shortened to the "50-night rule" informally in regional coverage (and in this post's title). That's a meaningful constraint on year-one cash flow for a new unhosted purchase, and it's worth modeling explicitly before you underwrite a deal — a property you're expecting to run at a typical ski-season occupancy rate simply can't, in its first registered year.

One STR unit per property, generally — with a grandfather exception.The ordinance's default rule is one registered STR per property. But it carves out an exception: an owner who already had more than one unhosted property registered and in good standing with the town at the time this amendment took effect is entitled to keep renewing those pre-existing registrations, for as long as they remain the owner and continue meeting the ordinance's other requirements. That pre-existing status ends automatically the moment the owner fails to renew, or the moment the property changes hands.

Here's the honest caveat: the ordinance's language on the mechanics of that grandfather clause is clear on the broad strokes — good standing, continuous ownership, automatic lapse on failure-to-renew or sale — but it doesn't spell out edge cases that matter in practice, like exactly how "currently registered" multi-property portfolios were counted at the moment the amendment took effect, or how the town would treat an LLC or trust restructuring that doesn't technically change the "record Owner" on paper. If you're buying into (or already sitting on) a multi-property unhosted portfolio and planning around this exception, confirm your specific situation directly with the town's STR Administrator before you rely on it. Don't assume grandfathered status transfers or stacks in ways the plain text doesn't actually promise.

Rental arbitrage is banned outright.A tenant leasing an unit long-term can't turn around and sublet it as a short-term rental — the ordinance defines this specifically as "rental arbitrage" and prohibits it. Only the property owner of record can hold an STR registration; a lessee can't apply for one, full stop. If you buy a property that isn't your primary residence, you're looking at roughly a year before you can legally start renting it short-term — unless you move in and register it as hosted, which isn't subject to this waiting period.

What Registration Costs (And Why the Number Isn't Fixed)

As of this writing, the town's published fee schedule runs$150 per year for hosted rentals(a flat fee) and$250 per bedroom for unhosted rentals. A three-bedroom unhosted unit, in other words, would run $750 a year in registration fees alone. This single rule is the reason "just bought it, listing next month" isn't a viable plan for unhosted investment purchases here anymore.

One important structural note: the ordinance itself doesn't lock these numbers in. Article 5 explicitly leaves the fee amount to the Selectboard's discretion, and authorizes them to adjust it "from time to time" and to adopt a broader fee schedule covering enforcement and administration costs. Treat the figures above as directional — verify the current amount directly with the Town of Londonderry at the time you actually register, since the ordinance was written to let that number move.

Enforcement: What Happens If You Don't Comply

Londonderry backs this ordinance with real teeth, and it's a graduated schedule that gets expensive fast for repeat violations. The town tracks two categories of violation separately — unpermitted advertising, and everything else — with penalties that escalate over four offenses within a twelve-month enforcement period:. And if a civil judgment against an owner goes unpaid, the ordinance authorizes an automatic suspension of all of that owner's Londonderry STR registrations — not just the one tied to the violation — until it's resolved.

1st offense:$200/day for unpermitted advertising; $250/day for other violations.
2nd offense:$400/day and $500/day, respectively.
3rd offense:$650/day and $750/day.
4th offense:$800/day for unpermitted advertising, plus a12-month revocationof the STR registration before a new application can even be submitted (appealable). Other violations top out at $750/day on the third offense tier, with the town's broader enforcement authority — including civil action in Vermont Superior Court for injunctive relief — available on top of the fine schedule.

Each day a violation continues counts as a separate offense, so these aren't one-time fines — they compound. The town also has authority to issue a written warning in lieu of a fine for a first offense, which still counts toward the annual tally. And if a civil judgment against an owner goes unpaid, the ordinance authorizes an automatic suspension of all of that owner's Londonderry STR registrations — not just the one tied to the violation — until it's resolved.

The Ordinance Survived a Referendum — And Vermont Isn't Preempting It

If you're wondering whether this ordinance is durable enough to plan around, or likely to get watered down under pressure, the record so far says it's holding. If you're buying into (or already sitting on) a multi-property unhosted portfolio and planning around this exception, confirm your specific situation directly with the town's STR Administrator before you rely on it.

Opponents used the ordinance's own built-in check: Article 15 gives Londonderry voters the right to force a townwide referendum if a petition gathers signatures from at least 5% of qualified voters within 44 days of adoption. That petition was filed after the April 2025 amendment passed, forcing a special town meeting. OnJuly 19, 2025, Londonderry voters upheld the amended rules by a decisive 66–25 floor vote— meaning the ordinance's toughest new provisions, including the 50-night cap and the one-year wait, went into effect as written on schedule.

The vote followed years of documented pressure on local housing stock. A 2023 town housing assessment found short-term rentals in Londonderry had grown by roughly 62% over the prior three years, against a backdrop of median home prices already up sharply since 2016 — the kind of trend line that turns a zoning debate into a housing-affordability debate. Andy Dahlstrom, the town's STR Administrator, framed the intent behind the rules directly to Vermont's WCAX: Londonderry "did not try to eliminate short-term rentals — it tried to nudge in a positive direction.".

There's also no statewide override on the horizon. Vermont's H.242, a bill that would have added a host-occupancy requirement and capped STRs at one per parcel statewide, died in committee in 2025 with no further action taken. For now, Londonderry's own ordinance — not a future state law — is the rulebook that governs a listing here, and it's the version that's already survived a direct vote of the people it regulates.

Keep going on Crest & Cove:the Crest & Cove intro·local SEO keywords that actually book·the five elements of a converting hero·how to compare STR marketing agencies·OTA fees without leftover occupancy lifts·Londonderry against AirROI $35,440·Destin against AirROI, not leftover year·Cape Elizabeth against AirROI $32,140. For now, Londonderry's own ordinance — not a future state law — is the rulebook that governs a listing here, and it's the version that's already survived a direct vote of the people it regulates.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

50-night clerk stays. Occupancy ranking is not the year.crestcove.coor(256) 998-7502.

Getting compliant with Londonderry's ordinance is the town's job to police and yours to handle.Crest & Cove Creative doesn't file your paperwork — what we do is make sure that once your listing is legally live, it actually converts: direct-booking sites, listing optimization, and content built specifically for corridors like Londonderry and Magic Mountain, so the guests searching for a Windham County stay find your property instead of a nameless OTA listing. Learn more atcrestcove.co, orcall (256) 998-7502to talk through your registration. Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to register my Londonderry rental if I only rent it out a few weekends a year?

Only if you clear the ordinance's threshold — a dwelling rented for more than 14 days per calendar year and for stretches under 30 consecutive days. If your total nights rented stay at 14 or under for the year, it technically falls outside the registration trigger, though you should confirm your specific pattern with the STR Administrator before assuming you're exempt.

How much liability insurance do I need to register a short-term rental in Londonderry?

At least $1,000,000 per occurrence covering the unit, with your insurer notified the property is being used as an STR — unless your booking platform itself carries equal or greater coverage. If you buy a property that isn't your primary residence, you're looking at roughly a year before you can legally start renting it short-term — unless you move in and register it as hosted, which isn't subject to this waiting period.

What is the 50-night rule for Londonderry short-term rentals?

It's a cap written into the April 2025 amendment: an unhosted property being registered for the first time is limited to 50 STR rental days in that calendar year. It only applies to first-time unhosted registrations, not to hosted rentals or to unhosted properties already registered before the amendment. The 50-night cap on first-time unhosted registrations.Once your one-year wait is up and you register an unhosted property for the first time, the ordinance caps you at 50 rental days in that first calendar year — the ordinance's own text specifies days, not nights, even though the cap gets shortened to the "50-night rule" informally in regional coverage (and in this.

Why does my property need to sit vacant for a year after I buy it before I can list it as an STR?

Because the ordinance bars any unhosted property from being registered as a short-term rental within one calendar year of a change in ownership. The wait doesn't apply if you move in and register the unit as hosted — occupying it as your primary residence removes the trigger. The one-year ownership wait.An unhosted property cannot be registered as a short-term rental within one calendar year of a change in ownership.

Can I register more than one short-term rental if I own multiple properties in Londonderry?

Generally, registrations run one STR unit per property. There's a grandfather exception for owners who already had more than one unhosted property registered and in good standing before the April 2025 amendment, but that status lapses if it isn't continuously renewed or if the property changes hands — and the exact scope of who qualifies isn't fully detailed in the ordinance text, so confirm your situation directly with the town's STR Administrator.

What happens if I don't file my annual rental-nights accounting with the town?

Your renewal gets denied outright. The ordinance requires an annual accounting of total nights rented starting with your first renewal, and it's explicit that failure to submit it blocks the renewal — it isn't a discretionary call. Then there's the requirement that trips up more hosts than any other:starting with your first renewal, you have to file an annual accounting of the total number of nights the property was actually rented the previous year.Skip it, and the ordinance is explicit — your renewal registration will be denied.

What are the fines for operating a short-term rental in Londonderry without registering?

They escalate by offense within a twelve-month period: $200–250/day for a first offense, rising to $650–800/day by a fourth offense, at which point the town can also revoke the registration for 12 months. Each day a violation continues counts as a separate offense. Each day a violation continues counts as a separate offense, so these aren't one-time fines — they compound.

Is Vermont about to pass a statewide law that overrides Londonderry's rules?

H.242, a 2025 bill that would have added a statewide host-occupancy requirement and an one-STR-per-parcel cap, died in committee with no further action. Londonderry's own ordinance — recently upheld by a 66–25 townwide vote — remains the governing rulebook for now. Vermont's H.242, a bill that would have added a host-occupancy requirement and capped STRs at one per parcel statewide, died in committee in 2025 with no further action taken.

About the Authors

Crest & Cove Creative is a short-term rental marketing agency founded by Thomas Garner and Jacob Mishalanie. We build direct-booking brands, listing optimization systems, and market-specific content strategies for independent STR operators nationwide, including emerging corridors like Vermont. If you haven't already, it's worth reading alongside our companion market report on Londonderry's short-term rental economics for the demand-side context, and our piece on whether hiring an outside marketing agency is worth it once you're compliant and ready to book.