The draft Short-Term Letting By-law is eleven pages and eighteen sections, and almost everything written about it so far, our own coverage included, has worked from summaries: the City's email to ratepayers, the legal briefings, the FAQ. So we sat down with the actual text and read all of it. The close read rewards you: the sharpest details in this law are in clauses nobody is quoting.
The machine, in one paragraph
Sections 4, 7 and 8 are the engine; everything else is bodywork. Section 4: every property let short-term must be registered, and no listing may exist without a City-issued registration number displayed on it. Section 7: platforms and owners must hand the City data, expressly including each listing's availability and occupancy. Section 8: cross 50 percent of your total annual room nights and the property is rated commercial. Register everyone, see everything, reclassify the ones over the line. That is the whole design.
Part A: the definitions decide who is caught
Three definitions deserve more attention than they are getting. Operator covers anyone who "offers, manages, administers, or facilitates" short-stay use of a property: if you use a management agency, your agent is an operator with obligations of their own, and so are you. Short-term letting means a furnished property let to transient guests for a fee, with no minimum or maximum night count anywhere in the definition: the by-law does not care whether your guests stay two nights or two months, only that they are transient. And total annual room nights is defined only as the property's maximum annual capacity: the actual arithmetic (bedrooms times 365, and what counts toward the fraction) lives in the City's Rates Policy and FAQ, not in the by-law itself. Hold that thought; it matters more than it looks.
Part B: registration will probably happen inside Airbnb
Read section 4 as a flow and a practical picture emerges that the summaries miss. Registration happens "in a manner determined by the City, which may include through a system made available by a booking platform": the platform captures your registration data (address, erf number, municipal account number, supporting evidence), passes it to the City, the City verifies it against its own records, and issues the number to both you and the platform, which must then display it on the listing. In practice, expect this to look like a new required field in your listing settings rather than a queue at a municipal office. Convenient, and also the point: when the compliance gate lives inside the platform, skipping it is not an option the software offers you.
Section 5's de-registration rules hide two traps worth diarising. When a property is sold, the City may cancel its registration and the number dies with it: a buyer does not inherit a registration, and a cancelled number can never appear on a listing again. And any cancellation, including one you requested, puts you back through the full section 4 process before you can list again, with the platform obliged to pull a cancelled listing within 10 working days. If you are buying a short-stay property for its track record, that track record's paperwork does not transfer with the title deed.
Section 7 is the data clause, and it is broader than the email suggested: address, municipal account number, availability data, occupancy data, and "any other data relevant to the implementation" of the by-law, in a format and at a frequency the City may prescribe. Two readings follow. The uncomfortable one: this is a wide pipe, and the by-law's own confidentiality clause (section 16) limits use to administering and enforcing this law, which is the boundary to watch. The useful one: the City will hold per-listing occupancy data from day one. Which makes it stranger than ever that the classification test in section 8 reads the calendar instead. The evidence for an occupancy-based test will be sitting in the City's own database; we have been arguing since our position piece that they should look at it.
Section 8: a "may", a "will", and a number that is not in the law
The classification section is three subsections long, and its drafting is quietly asymmetric. At or under 50 percent of total annual room nights, a property "may be regarded" as residential, provided it meets the Rates Policy's requirements. Over the line, it "will be regarded" as commercial. Discretion on the way down, automation on the way up. If the final text keeps that wording, staying under the threshold earns you a maybe while crossing it earns you a certainty, and the criteria behind that maybe live entirely in the Rates Policy.
Which is the second, larger point: the 50 percent test, its arithmetic, and its exemptions are all in the Rates Policy, not the by-law. The by-law just points at it. Rates policies are revised annually with the City's budget, a far easier amendment path than a by-law. The threshold that decides whether your flat pays double rates is, structurally, a policy setting. That cuts both ways: it is easier to fix, and easier to move.
Part C: the teeth, and the clause nobody mentions
The offence clause (section 11) is a blanket: advertising unregistered, listing without a displayed number, using a cancelled number, or failing to comply with any obligation under the by-law is a criminal offence, with a fine, up to six months' imprisonment, or both. Alongside it sit compliance notices (section 10), civil interdicts (section 12), and section 13, easy to skim past: the City may contract with booking platforms to implement the by-law. The platforms are not merely regulated here; they are the anticipated delivery mechanism.
Then the clause that has appeared in none of the coverage we have read: section 14 gives you an appeal. Any decision taken under delegated power in this by-law can be appealed under section 62 of the Municipal Systems Act, with written notice within 21 working days of learning of the decision. A cancelled registration, a categorisation you dispute: that is the procedural route, and the clock is short. Note it now, because you will not be in the mood to research remedies on the day you need one. Section 15, for completeness, indemnifies the City against losses arising from short-term letting, and section 17 leaves the two dates that matter most, the compliance grace period and the start of data sharing, to future public notices from the City Manager. The real calendar for this law does not exist yet; it will arrive as notices.
What is not in it
Just as telling: no registration fee appears anywhere in the text. No cap on nights, no zoning changes, no inspection powers beyond compliance notices, and no calculation method for the threshold. Some of that will live in the Rates Policy and future notices; some of it may appear in a revised draft after public comment. Anything you have heard that is not in this list of eighteen sections is, for now, somebody's guess.
What we asked for before 5 October
- Measure occupancy, not availability. Section 7 already collects nights sold per listing; section 8 should read that column. This remains the single amendment that fixes the law's biggest unfairness, as worked through in the 182-night calendar.
- Turn section 8's "may" into criteria. If under-threshold properties are residential, say must, or publish the conditions. Discretion this consequential should not be wordless.
- Put the calculation in the by-law. A threshold that halves or doubles your rates bill should sit in legislation with a public amendment process, not in an annually revised policy.
- Comments closed on Monday 5 October 2026. Submissions went in through the public participation page (archived copy) or to STL@capetown.gov.za. The next step is a revised draft before Council, and these three points are what we will read it for.
Let us keep the record
Read the eighteen sections together and one pattern runs through them: section 7 hands the City your data, section 11 makes any missed obligation an offence, and section 14 gives you 21 working days to answer with evidence. Whatever the final text says, the host who comes out well is the one whose own numbers were already kept, per property and per month, and whose open nights were priced on purpose rather than left at last year's rate. Rebuilding that history by hand from booking emails, inside the appeal window, is the scenario to avoid.
RateVeld members carry their availability, occupancy and rate history as a matter of course, and every night on the calendar is priced from local comps, hotel rates and a curated events calendar. See the plans and we will walk you through it on your own property.