It's been almost five years since the counties began getting serious about passing new laws to make the regulation of vacation rentals easier.
The Conversation spoke to the state tax office about a recent legal notice listing the names of 18 people or entities that were in violation of the law by not disclosing their tax information in their advertising on platforms like Airbnb and VRBO.
“What you saw was the legal notice with regard to the aspect of the transit accommodation law that basically requires people to display their tax registration numbers,” said Gordon Zane with the special enforcement division for the Hawaiʻi Department of Taxation.
“The reason for that is, the Legislature, I believe in their wisdom, decided that one of the ways that we can control the transient accommodation activities and the filing of taxes for those activities is by requiring people to list their tax registration numbers in their advertisements for their vacation rentals.”
Since 2020, Zane said their office has been sending warnings to people or entities to display their tax registration numbers. He said he has seen an influx of short-term and other vacation rental ads, though he told HPR that most comply with the law.
“A lot of people, instead of putting in their tax registration numbers, they put in the numbers for their planning and permitting number, or their county tax number, as opposed to the state tax registration number,” Zane said. “So there’s a lot of those that are in there. We also have people that put in a tax registration number, but an expired tax registration number, so we have some of those within that 15% [that aren’t in compliance], so it's a process of having to filter out those.”
Zane said that the end goal is to ensure everybody pays their fair share, but that the first step starts with compliance, so the office can track registrations and verify tax filings.
Meanwhile, the city said that since a new ordinance went into effect to make it easier for inspectors to crack down on illegal short-term rentals advertising, it has issued more than 2,000 notices of violations, but to date has only levied fines on a few scofflaws.
The Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting is in the throes of working out the bugs on a new online system. While it believes the numbers are up since it began enforcing the ordinance, it is currently in the process of verifying the figures.
This story aired on The Conversation on Oct. 27, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this story for the web.
