Maui Vacation Rentals After Bill 9: What Visitors Can Still Book

Maui’s short term rental ban does not end vacation rentals across the island. Bill 9 targets one category: condominiums in apartment-zoned districts that have rented to visitors for decades under a 1992 county legal opinion known as the Minatoya list. Those units must stop taking stays shorter than 180 days. West Maui goes first, on July 1, 2028.

For travelers booking in 2026 and 2027, almost nothing has changed yet. Apartment-zoned condos in Kihei, Napili, Kahana and Honokowai can still take reservations legally. Hotel-zoned resorts in Kaanapali and Wailea are outside the law entirely, and so are permitted short-term rental homes. The change matters most for trips planned for mid-2028 and later, and for anyone watching how prices may move as supply shrinks.

This guide covers what the ordinance does, how the phase-out dates line up with booking windows, how to confirm that a specific condo is legal, and what the research projects for nightly rates. Owners and prospective buyers will find the wind-down mechanics in the site’s separate Bill 9 phase-out timeline for apartment-zoned owners.

What Bill 9 actually changes

Bill 9 amends Maui County’s zoning code so that transient vacation rental use, meaning stays of less than 180 days, is no longer allowed in the county’s apartment districts. Mayor Richard Bissen proposed the measure in May 2024, nine months after the August 8, 2023 wildfire destroyed most of Lahaina and displaced thousands of residents.

The case for the law rests on housing. County officials and housing advocates argued that roughly 6,000 to 7,000 apartment-zoned units now used as vacation rentals could house displaced families and local workers if they returned to long-term use. Opponents, including many owners and visitor-industry groups, countered that these condos are small and expensive to carry, so few would become affordable rentals.

Honolulu Civil Beat and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser followed the measure through months of committee hearings. Council members spent those hearings arguing over the deadlines, the economic cost and the county’s legal exposure.

The Minatoya list in plain terms

Under Maui’s zoning rules, apartment districts were meant for residential use. In 1992, deputy corporation counsel Richard Minatoya issued an opinion that apartment-zoned buildings with established transient use could keep renting to visitors. The county has kept a list of qualifying properties ever since, and it is informally called the Minatoya list.

That list is the core of Bill 9. It covers dozens of condominium complexes, most of them along South Kihei Road in South Maui and along Lower Honoapiilani Road between Kaanapali and Kapalua in West Maui. Many of these buildings date from the 1970s and early 1980s and were built for vacation use from the start.

Why the county gained the power to act

Until 2024, a phase-out like this stood on uncertain legal ground. State law protected established nonconforming uses, which made it hard for counties to shut down long-running rentals. In May 2024, Governor Josh Green signed legislation (Senate Bill 2919) that explicitly lets counties phase out nonconforming transient vacation rental uses through zoning.

Bill 9 is Maui’s use of that authority. It does not ban all short-term rentals, change hotel zoning or affect timeshares. It takes away one zoning permission from one category of building and gives owners a multi-year runway to stop.

Phase-out dates and what they mean for bookings

The original proposal would have ended Minatoya-list rentals in West Maui on July 1, 2025 and everywhere else on January 1, 2026. Council amendments pushed both deadlines back by about three to four years. Under the adopted ordinance, West Maui condos must stop transient rentals by July 1, 2028. Apartment-zoned units elsewhere, including Kihei, must stop by January 1, 2030.

For a visitor, the stay dates matter, not the date the booking was made. A West Maui Minatoya condo stay that ends before July 1, 2028 is lawful under the ordinance as written. A stay that runs past that date or starts after it is not, unless the deadline changes.

Vacation rental calendars typically open 12 to 18 months ahead, so West Maui listings may start showing blocked dates for summer 2028 by mid-2027. Owners weighing a sale, a switch to long-term leases or a wait for litigation could close their calendars well before the legal deadline.

Status check: amendments, lawsuits and what could still move

The deadlines above reflect the ordinance as enacted. Two things could change them before 2028. The council can amend the dates, add exemptions or offer conversion incentives in later bills. Owners can also sue, arguing that ending an established use without compensation is an unconstitutional taking of property.

Owner groups signaled legal challenges throughout the hearings, and takings claims often take years to resolve. A court injunction is the scenario most likely to keep apartment-zoned condos renting past July 2028. Unless a court rules otherwise, the safest planning assumption is that the published dates hold.

Because the status can change between booking and travel, the most reliable sources are the Maui County Department of Planning, which administers the Minatoya list, and current reporting from Hawaii News Now, Civil Beat and the Star-Advertiser. Check any deadline quoted in a listing description against those sources.

• Check whether the council has introduced amendments changing the 2028 or 2030 dates.
• Check whether any court has issued an injunction pausing enforcement.
• Check whether the county has announced incentives that could speed owner exits.
• Confirm the specific complex still appears on the county’s Minatoya list.

Which Maui stays are affected and which are not

For a visitor, the most useful fact is the building’s zoning, not whether it is marketed as a condo, a resort or a villa. Many Kaanapali and Wailea condominiums sit on hotel- or resort-zoned land and can keep renting by the night. Many Kihei and Napili condominiums are in apartment districts and must stop when their deadline arrives.

Hotel-zoned resorts: Kaanapali, Wailea and Kapalua

The planned resort areas were zoned for visitor lodging from the beginning, so Bill 9 does not reach them. The Kaanapali hotels, Wailea’s resort strip and most Kapalua properties will keep offering nightly stays with no minimum. Several resort condominium complexes inside these areas also hold hotel zoning and will keep renting through owners and on-site managers.

These areas also have some of the island’s most reliable swimming beaches. The site’s breakdown of swimming conditions at Kaanapali, Wailea, Makena and Napili shows how much beach access factors into this choice. Families comparing the resort zones can use the Kaanapali vs. Wailea vs. Kihei comparison for traveling with kids.

Apartment-zoned condo corridors

The affected inventory is concentrated in two places. In West Maui, a long run of 1970s and 1980s condo buildings lines the shore from Honokowai through Kahana to Napili. In South Maui, dozens of similar complexes sit along South Kihei Road and the streets just inland.

These condos have long been the budget alternative to resort hotels, with full kitchens, no resort fees and nightly rates that are often about half of Wailea’s. That price gap is exactly why Bill 9 matters for travelers’ wallets after 2028 and 2030.

Permitted homes and bed-and-breakfasts

Houses in residential, rural and agricultural zones can operate legally with a county Short-Term Rental Home (STRH) permit or a Bed and Breakfast permit. Bill 9 leaves these permits alone. The county caps the number of STRH permits in each community plan area, so supply is limited but stable.

Most permitted homes are on the North Shore and Upcountry, in places like Paia, Haiku, Makawao and Kula. The site’s guide to a Haiku vacation stay near Twin Falls covers what these quieter, more rural stays involve.

How to verify a Maui rental is legal before paying

Legal status can be checked before any money changes hands. The steps below take about 10 to 20 minutes. They apply to any booking channel, whether a large platform, a local property manager or a direct-from-owner website.

1. Ask the host or manager for the building’s zoning district and its tax map key (TMK) number.
2. Search the complex name on the Maui County Department of Planning’s Minatoya list.
3. For claimed hotel zoning, check the TMK on the county’s zoning map for a hotel district.
4. For a house, find the STRH or B&B permit number, which must appear in advertising.
5. Confirm the listing shows a state Transient Accommodations Tax registration number.
6. Read the cancellation terms for any stay near July 1, 2028 or January 1, 2030.

The state tax number is required in all transient lodging advertising, according to the Hawaii Department of Taxation. It proves the operator is registered to collect taxes. It does not prove the rental complies with county zoning, which is why the county check still matters.

Red flags in a listing

• No state tax registration number anywhere in the listing.
• A house listed with no STRH or B&B permit number.
• A request to pay by wire or a payment app outside the platform.
• “30-day minimum” wording on a condo in an apartment district.
• A host who cannot name the building’s zoning or TMK.
• Calendar dates open past July 2028 on a West Maui apartment condo.

The 30-day minimum is a known workaround from Oahu, where rules differ. On Maui, any stay under 180 days counts as transient, so a 30-day stay in a non-permitted unit is still a short-term rental under county code.

How the ban changes prices and supply

Research from the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization (UHERO) in 2024 projected that removing Minatoya-list rentals would cut visitor spending on Maui by roughly $900 million a year. It also projected sharp declines in the value of affected condos. Visitor counts would fall because thousands of mid-priced rooms would disappear from the market.

For travelers who still come, basic supply and demand points to higher prices. Apartment-zoned condos are the island’s largest pool of mid-range lodging. When that pool shrinks, demand moves toward hotel-zoned condos and hotels that already charge more, and those properties gain pricing power.

The ranges above are approximate and shift with season. Peak periods run from mid-December through March and from June through August. Shoulder months such as April, May, September and October usually bring the lowest rates across every category.

Price pressure is not limited to lodging. Consumer prices across Hawaii already run well above the national average, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics Honolulu index shows. Condo kitchens have helped many families offset restaurant costs. Losing that option makes the site’s data on grocery prices by island more relevant to the total trip budget.

Taxes on every Maui lodging bill

Every legal Maui stay carries the same stack of taxes, whatever its zoning. Listings that leave these out of the headline rate can understate the total by nearly a fifth.

• State Transient Accommodations Tax: 11% from January 1, 2026, up from 10.25%.
• Maui County Transient Accommodations Tax: 3% on top of the state rate.
• General Excise Tax on Maui: about 4.712% when passed through to guests.
• Combined: roughly 18.7% of the room rate and most mandatory fees.

On a $300 nightly rate, that comes to about $56 a night in taxes, or roughly $392 over a seven-night stay. Hotel resort fees are generally taxed too, which adds to the gap between resort and condo totals.

Booking strategy by travel date

The right approach depends almost entirely on when the trip happens. The phase-out creates three distinct booking windows, each with different risks and options.

Trips through June 2028

Every lodging category remains open. Minatoya-list condos in both West and South Maui can be booked normally, and their rate advantage over resorts still applies. The main caution is to confirm the specific listing is legal now, using the verification steps above.

West Maui also deserves its own research. Lahaina town is still rebuilding after the 2023 fire. The site’s guide on visiting Maui after the Lahaina fire covers which areas are open and how visitors are asked to behave near the burn zone.

July 2028 through December 2029

West Maui apartment condos drop out of the short-stay market, while Kihei condos remain available. Travelers who want West Maui will be choosing among Kaanapali and Kapalua resort properties. Travelers who want condo pricing and a kitchen will likely shift toward Kihei, where higher demand may push rates up.

January 2030 and later

Once the second deadline passes, Maui’s legal short-stay options narrow to hotels, hotel-zoned condos, timeshares and permitted homes. Visitors comparing these trade-offs can use the site’s analysis of vacation rental vs. hotel costs and amenities. First-time visitors can match regions to priorities in the Maui region comparison for first-time visitors.

Cancellation risk and protecting a deposit

The biggest risk is a reservation that becomes illegal before the trip. A booking made in 2027 for an apartment-zoned West Maui condo in August 2028 would fall on the wrong side of the deadline. If the platform or owner cancels, a refund of lodging payments is likely, but airfare and other prepaid costs are not covered.

Standard travel insurance usually covers illness, weather and carrier disruptions. Most policies do not cover cancellation caused by a change in law or a host’s decision to stop renting. Travelers should read the policy wording on “supplier default” and “host cancellation” before relying on it.

• Book refundable airfare or airline credit for trips near either deadline.
• Prefer platforms that rebook guests if a host cancels.
• Avoid paying 100% upfront more than 60 to 90 days before arrival.
• Keep written confirmation of the property’s zoning and tax number.

A rental car is needed wherever you stay

Bill 9 does not change one constant: Maui is hard to get around without a car. Public bus service covers main corridors but runs infrequently for visitor schedules. Rideshare and taxi fares from Kahului Airport to Kaanapali often reach $90 to $130 one way, and to Wailea $60 to $90.

Even resort guests who rarely leave Kaanapali or Wailea usually rent a car for the Road to Hana, Haleakala sunrise or Upcountry. The Hana drive alone is about 52 miles from Kahului and takes 2.5 to 3 hours each way. The site’s guide to Hawaii rental car prices by island and season shows when Maui rates peak.

Fuel adds to the cost. Hawaii gasoline prices regularly lead the nation, as tracked by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and Maui pump prices usually run above Honolulu’s. Kahului Airport is run by the Hawaii Department of Transportation, whose site lists airport parking and rental facility details.

How Maui’s approach compares with Oahu and Kauai

Each Hawaii county regulates vacation rentals on its own terms, and the rules are not interchangeable. Oahu tightened its rules through minimum-stay requirements outside designated resort areas. The site’s explainer on Oahu’s Bill 41 and its 30- and 90-day rules covers that system in detail.

Kauai took a different route. It limits most transient rentals to designated Visitor Destination Areas and requires nonconforming use certificates elsewhere, as outlined in the guide to Kauai TVR use permits and resort destination areas. Maui’s Bill 9 is the most direct of the three, because it ends an established category outright on a fixed date.

• Oahu: minimum stays outside resort zones; Waikiki and Ko Olina keep nightly stays.
• Kauai: rentals concentrated in Visitor Destination Areas, with grandfathered permits elsewhere.
• Maui: apartment-zoned condos phased out in 2028 and 2030; resorts and permits unchanged.

Travelers who are still choosing an island can weigh lodging rules alongside cost and pace using the site’s Oahu vs. Maui comparison. Statewide visitor information from the Hawaii Tourism Authority is available at GoHawaii. Population and housing data for the state are published in Census QuickFacts.

Frequently asked questions

Is Maui banning all vacation rentals?

No. Bill 9 removes short-stay permission only from apartment-zoned condominiums on the Minatoya list. Hotels, hotel-zoned resort condos in Kaanapali and Wailea, timeshares, and homes with Short-Term Rental Home or Bed and Breakfast permits can all keep hosting visitors for stays shorter than 180 days.

When does the Maui short term rental ban take effect?

Under the ordinance as adopted, apartment-zoned condos in West Maui must stop stays under 180 days by July 1, 2028. Apartment-zoned condos in the rest of the county, mainly Kihei, must stop by January 1, 2030. Amendments or court rulings could still change those dates.

Can a Kihei condo still be booked for a 2027 trip?

Yes, as long as the condo is on the Minatoya list or holds hotel zoning. Kihei’s apartment-zoned condos can legally host short stays until January 1, 2030. Travelers should still verify the listing’s state tax registration number and the complex’s status on the county list before paying.

How can a traveler tell whether a condo is hotel-zoned?

Ask the manager for the property’s tax map key, then look up that number on Maui County’s zoning map to see whether it falls in a hotel district. Most large Kaanapali and Wailea resort complexes are hotel-zoned. Many Kihei and Napili complexes are apartment-zoned instead.

Will Maui hotel prices rise after the phase-out?

Economists expect upward pressure. Apartment-zoned condos make up the island’s largest pool of mid-priced lodging, so removing thousands of units shifts demand to hotels and hotel-zoned condos. How much rates rise will depend on visitor demand, new hotel supply, and whether deadlines change.

What happens to a booking made for after the deadline?

The owner or platform would be expected to cancel it, usually with a refund of lodging payments. Airfare, car rentals and other prepaid costs are typically not covered. Travelers booking near July 2028 or January 2030 should choose refundable options and avoid large early deposits.

Does a 30-day minimum stay make a Maui condo rental legal?

No. Maui County treats any stay under 180 days as transient. A 30-day rental in an apartment-zoned unit is still a short-term rental and needs Minatoya-list status, hotel zoning or a county permit. The 30-day threshold comes from Oahu’s rules and does not apply on Maui.