Tybee Island’s Short-Term Rental Battle: What the Ongoing Legal Fight Means for Owners
Tybee Island’s Short-Term Rental Battle: What the Ongoing Legal Fight Means for Owners
This winter, while Denver’s short-term rental community keeps a close eye on regulation trends, a courtroom nearly 1,500 miles away is shaping what property investors from Colorado to the South might face down the line. On Tybee Island, Georgia, after four years of legal back-and-forth, stakeholders sat in a packed local courthouse to hear arguments on whether the island’s short-term vacation rental (STVR) rules overreach state law.
The outcome won’t just ripple across Tybee’s beachside neighborhoods—it raises questions every Airbnb owner in a tightly regulated market has wondered. If Tybee’s restrictions can stand, where does it stop? And if courts take the plaintiff’s side, what could it mean for communities from Denver’s Sunnyside to mountain getaways in the Rockies?
How Tybee Island’s Rental Regulations Became a Legal Hotspot
Since May 2016, Tybee Island, a compact barrier island off the Georgia coast, has enforced rules around short-term rentals designed to manage the growth of vacation lodgings. Over the last decade, city leaders have updated the ordinance 17 times. The strictest change came in October 2022, when city council passed a ban against new vacation rentals in residential zones—a rule impacting about 80% of Tybee’s total land area.
For rental property owners and local managers, these amendments brought more than just extra paperwork. Permits in certain residential neighborhoods are now tied to ownership, dissolving automatically when a property changes hands. To continue renting, property owners have to register in eligible zones, renew each year, and maintain an occupational tax certificate. The city even reserves the right to revoke a license if the unit isn’t leased for at least 60 days at “full market value” within a year.
The Lawsuits: Property Owners Versus City Authority
After the controversial 2022 changes, Tybee Alliance—a coalition representing rental property owners and management companies—pushed back. By August 2025, they filed a legal motion urging the court to rule Tybee’s entire STVR ordinance unenforceable, arguing that the rules break state laws that put limits on what cities can do.
On the other side, the City of Tybee filed a competing motion, insisting that its requirements for registration, licensing, and information collection are necessary for responsible zoning and collecting the city’s lodging taxes. Essentially, the stage was set for a head-on showdown over local versus state oversight.
Where the Two Sides Stand: State Law vs. Local Ordinances
During the recent courtroom arguments, attorneys for Tybee Alliance drew attention to two specific sections of Georgia law. O.C.G.A.