Short-Term Rental Accommodation WA: The 2024 Rules Every Investor Needs to Know

The decision to run a Western Australian property as a short-term rental became significantly more complicated on the back of the Short-Term Rental Accommodation Act 2024. If you've been operating — or planning to operate — an Airbnb, Stayz, or similar short-stay property in WA, the regulatory framework has fundamentally changed.

The new rules emerged from a housing crisis that was hard to ignore. Perth's rental vacancy rate had collapsed below 1%. In the South West wine region, the City of Busselton had approximately 1,295 Airbnb listings and 31 long-term rentals. In Margaret River's shire, 700 Airbnbs and 5 long-term rentals. The government's argument was direct: the short-stay market had consumed housing stock that tenants desperately needed, and regulation was the only lever available.

For property investors, the question is what this means for your WA strategy now that the framework is in force.

What the STRA Act 2024 Requires

Registration is mandatory. Every short-term rental accommodation property operating anywhere in Western Australia — metropolitan or regional — must be registered on a centralised state government database. This applies to all platforms: Airbnb, Stayz, Booking.com, direct bookings, and any other arrangement. Operating without registration exposes owners to penalty.

The metropolitan 90-night cap. For unhosted properties — where the owner or host does not live on the premises — within the Perth metropolitan region, a maximum of 90 nights per calendar year is permitted without additional approvals. An "unhosted" property is one where the guest has exclusive use and no resident host is present.

Exceeding 90 nights requires development approval from the local council for a change of use from residential to short-stay accommodation. In most medium-density residential zones, these approvals are extremely difficult to obtain. Community objection to STRA intensification is strong, and councils are under pressure to protect residential amenity and long-term rental supply.

Hosted properties are treated differently. If you live in the property and rent out a room, or remain on-site while guests occupy a separate self-contained dwelling on your land, the 90-night cap does not apply. Hosted arrangements are viewed as a fundamentally different use from a property operating entirely as a commercial short-stay operation.

How Regional Areas Are Regulated

Outside the metropolitan boundary, the state government has delegated authority to local councils to set their own STRA rules. This creates a patchwork regulatory environment rather than a single statewide regional cap.

In practice, this means:

• Busselton and the South West have adopted or are implementing their own planning restrictions, given the severity of the rental crisis in these areas. Operating STRA in Busselton requires understanding the City's specific approval requirements and any caps it has implemented locally.
• Augusta-Margaret River Shire has taken a restrictive approach given the ratio of holiday rentals to residential supply.
• Less tourism-intensive regional areas may have more permissive frameworks, reflecting their different housing dynamics.

Before operating STRA in any regional WA location, the relevant local council is the authoritative source on whether an approval is required and what cap, if any, applies.

The $10,000 Long-Term Rental Incentive

To actively draw STRA stock back into the residential market, the WA Government introduced a $10,000 cash incentive for existing STRA operators who commit to transitioning their property to a standard 12-month residential lease. The payment is conditional on signing a qualifying lease and is designed to bridge the income gap that operators experience when moving from short-stay nightly rates to residential rent.

The number of WA owners who have taken this up reflects the severity of the original problem — many short-stay operators were earning meaningfully more per year from short-stay income than residential rent would deliver, and even a $10,000 one-time payment doesn't fully compensate for that gap in high-performing tourism locations.

How to Calculate Whether STRA Still Makes Sense Under the 90-Night Cap

A 90-night annual cap is not as restrictive as it might initially appear, depending on your location and market. In high-demand areas with strong seasonal peaks — Margaret River during the wine and surf seasons, Busselton in summer — 90 nights of peak-rate bookings can deliver income comparable to a full year of residential rent.

For Busselton, Airbnb operators were generating average monthly revenue of approximately $3,554 at a 42% occupancy rate. Over 90 nights at the peak-demand rate, the gross short-stay income may still outperform residential rent. The trade-off is the management intensity of active short-stay hosting versus a single residential tenancy.

The 90-night cap also complicates portfolio-level planning. If you own two STRA properties in metropolitan Perth, each is capped independently at 90 nights. You cannot shift nights between properties or carry forward unused capacity from one year to the next.

Long-Term Residential Rental as the Alternative Strategy

The STRA regulations have made the case for long-term residential leasing stronger in high-demand regional markets than it has been in years. In markets like Busselton, where residential tenants are actively competing for a tiny supply of available rentals, long-term rent for a well-positioned property can be $650 to $800 per week or more — rates that would have been unusual in the pre-crisis period.

The Busselton market illustrates the structural opportunity: a severe supply shortage pushes long-term residential rents upward while the regulatory environment constrains short-stay supply. An investor holding a well-located property in Busselton can capture premium residential rents without the operational overhead of cleaning turnover, guest communication, dynamic pricing, and platform management that comes with active Airbnb hosting.

Perth's outer growth corridors — Baldivis, Alkimos, Ellenbrook — are less relevant for STRA in any case, as these are not tourist destinations. The STRA reforms have minimal impact on the investment thesis for these areas, which is driven entirely by residential rental demand from working families.

What This Means for Your WA Investment Decision

If you're considering a WA property and planning to run it as short-stay:

• In metropolitan Perth: 90 nights per year without development approval. Know this before you buy. Do your income modelling on 90 nights, not 200.
• In regional tourist areas: research the local council's specific STRA framework before purchase. Some councils have implemented caps below the state framework.
• For hosted arrangements: the cap does not apply. If the property model supports co-living or a hosted arrangement, you retain flexibility.

If you're considering a South West or coastal WA property for the yield arbitrage between short-stay and residential rental: run the numbers on both scenarios honestly, including management costs, peak vs. off-peak rates, and occupancy variability.

The Western Australia Investment Property Guide covers both the STRA regulatory framework and the long-term residential tenancy obligations investors need to navigate in WA.

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