Sunshine Coast Council Reshapes Short-Term Rental Rules Across Region

Sunshine Coast Council is preparing to finalise its short-term rental accommodation policy by the end of 2026, a process that will determine whether thousands of properties listed on platforms such as Airbnb and Stayz face new caps, registration requirements, or neighbourhood-specific restrictions across the region.

The timing matters. Queensland's population growth has not slowed, the Sunshine Coast added roughly 12,000 new residents in the 2024-25 financial year alone, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, pushing the region's total past 390,000. Long-term rental vacancy rates in suburbs like Mooloolaba and Buderim have sat below one per cent for the better part of two years. Meanwhile, more than 4,200 properties on the Sunshine Coast are estimated to operate as short-term rentals on any given week, based on data compiled by the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council in its March 2026 report. That tension, between tourism income for property owners and housing supply for workers and families, is what the council must now resolve.

What the Council Must Decide

Three options are on the table, according to planning documents tabled at the May 2026 Sunshine Coast Council ordinary meeting. The first is a registration-only model, which would require hosts to pay an annual fee, flagged at around $350 per dwelling, and comply with safety and noise standards, but would not restrict how many nights a property can be let. The second is a nights-cap model, similar to schemes operating in Byron Bay and parts of metropolitan Brisbane, which would limit unhosted short-term rentals to 180 nights per year in designated residential zones. The third is a zoning-overlay approach that would draw firm geographic boundaries, potentially reserving precincts like Hastings Street in Noosa Heads and parts of the Maroochydore CBD for unrestricted short-term letting, while applying stricter limits inland and in family-oriented suburbs like Mountain Creek and Bokarina.

Each path carries trade-offs. A registration scheme generates compliance data but does little to free up rental stock. A nights cap is enforceable only if platform data-sharing agreements are in place, Queensland's Residential Tenancies Authority is currently negotiating a voluntary data protocol with major platforms, a process that has dragged on since late 2024. The zoning overlay is the most administratively complex, requiring amendments to the Sunshine Coast Planning Scheme 2014 and a public consultation period of at least 30 days under the Planning Act 2016.

The council's environment and liveability portfolio faces an additional pressure point: the Maroochydore City Centre development, where Stockland and SunCentral are delivering hundreds of new apartments along Cornmeal Creek and First Avenue. Many of those units are being marketed explicitly to investors, and industry observers have flagged that without clear rules, a significant share could funnel straight into the short-term rental pool rather than the long-term market, defeating part of the purpose of the CBD build.

The Road to a Final Policy

Council has committed to releasing a draft policy for public comment by September 2026, with a final decision expected at the November ordinary meeting. That schedule is tight. Sunshine Coast Council's planning team has been managing overlapping workloads including the hospital precinct expansion at Birtinya, vegetation protection reviews in the Hinterland around Maleny, and an updated coastal hazard adaptation strategy.

Advocacy groups are already mobilising. The Sunshine Coast Tenants Collective, based in Nambour, has written to all 12 councillors requesting the nights-cap model be adopted as a minimum standard. Property investor associations have pushed back, arguing that short-term rental income subsidises mortgage repayments that would otherwise be unaffordable at current interest rates.

Residents who want to shape the outcome have a narrow window. The council's Have Your Say portal will open for submissions on the short-term rental discussion paper in late July. Community members, particularly those in high-density coastal suburbs like Alexandra Headland and Maroochydore, should register their interest now. The decisions made before Christmas will set the rules, and the housing conditions, for years to come.