Most Austin Airbnbs Still Show No License Number as F1 Weekend Fills Up
Austin can now make Airbnb and other platforms drop rentals without a city license, but a city memo put those orders on hold until months after a new licensing system launches.
At the end of August, 54% of short-stay Airbnb listings inside Austin city limits showed no license number, according to AirROI, a short-term-rental data firm, which tracked about 5,700 listings that take stays of under four weeks. The listings without a number had already booked 66% of their Friday and Saturday nights for the Formula One race weekend, double their 32% for the weekend before, Oct. 16–17. Listings showing a number had booked 76%.
Those shares date from Aug. 31 and climb as race weekend nears. In a sample of 60 listings without a number checked on Oct. 1, 48 still had dates open to book, and nearly nine in ten of their race Friday and Saturday nights were booked or blocked, against about half for the weekend before. The rest were no longer listed or showed no open dates.
Racing runs Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, at Circuit of the Americas, or COTA. By Aug. 31, listings without a number had about 4,000 race Friday and Saturday nights booked, worth about $1.6 million at listed rates before fees. Other governments are pushing enforcement onto platforms too, among them Clark County, with its ban on payments for unlicensed rentals in effect since September.
"We're actually on pace for a record year. We are seeing massive demand and could easily break our prior year record," Bobby Epstein, COTA's founder and the race's promoter, told reporters, Reuters reported Aug. 1.
On the race's Saturday, Texas also hosts Ole Miss at Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium. The Longhorns play at home the Saturday before, too, so football alone can't account for the jump.
A takedown rule and a planned pause
Since July 1, the ordinance has required platforms to demand a city license number in every Austin short-term-rental ad and to pull an ad within 10 days of a city delist notice. A platform also may not take a fee to book a rental that lacks a valid license, but it is presumed to comply with that ban if it requires license numbers and honors delist notices.
The rule covers stays of less than 30 consecutive days. Each offense can bring a fine of up to $500, and each day counts as a separate offense.
Airbnb's Sept. 14 announcement in Austin, an affordable-housing investment, did not mention the license rule.
Keith Mars, director of Austin Development Services, laid out the timing in an April 30 memo to the mayor and City Council. "To support a smooth transition, delist notices for unlicensed properties will be paused for six months after the new system launches," he wrote. Staff would then "phase delisting requests in manageable groups, beginning with properties that have generated nuisance complaints." The memo also said staff were "partnering with STR platforms to expand outreach to both licensed and unlicensed operators."
The memo said the city's new licensing system was scheduled to launch May 18; on that timetable, the pause runs to mid-November.
The city's short-term-rental page still says that on July 1, the city "will begin requesting removal of unlicensed properties from STR platforms." Of a new license tool, it tells operators: "Stay tuned for details on launch."
In March, the department described the power plainly. "The city will have the ability to request that unlicensed advertisements be what we call 'delisted' from the platform website, until such time they gain a license," Daniel Word, an assistant director of Development Services, told Austin Current.
Over the summer, most listings without a number stayed on Airbnb.
Of nearly 4,000 short-stay listings that showed no license number in June, about three-quarters were still active at the end of August: 63% still without a number and one in nine now showing one.
About a quarter, 26%, were no longer active in AirROI's August data, against 8% of the listings that showed a number in June.
The city's short-term-rental page, still written in the future tense, gives no count of delist notices sent since the rule took effect.
"Cool, they're doing these things, but we still don't even know how effectively they'll — or if they'll even be — implemented," Blake Anthony Carter, owner of the Austin short-term-rental firm Cribs Realty Group, told Austin Current in March.
Who goes without a license
The busiest listings were the likeliest to show a number. Of listings booked between one and 30 nights in the past year, 29% displayed one, against 59% of those booked more than 180 nights. Superhost listings showed one about half the time; other hosts' listings, about a third.
A new license costs $736.60 in fees and lasts two years, according to the city's website. Carter told Austin Current the licensing process was "so cumbersome, so difficult [and] hard to understand."
The licensed side sees the gap differently. "We've been paying taxes, as we are supposed to be doing for years," Sylvie McCracken, a short-term-rental property manager, told Austin Current in March. "Thousands of dollars … and then our counterparts, a lot of times, are paying $0."
A widely shared post on Reddit's Austin forum in late September put the share without a license at up to seven in ten. It set a count of listings on Airbnb's site against a count of licenses.
The city's open-data list showed 3,006 active licenses on Oct. 1, but a license can cover a rental on any platform, so the two counts don't match one for one.
Where race weekend lands
Citywide, race nights listed at a median of about $305 by the end of August, up from about $265 the weekend before. Every area in the table below was at least two-thirds booked for race Friday and Saturday, but the price premium is a downtown story. COTA sits 11.5 miles from the Capitol, and the few listings near it are filling without raising their median listed rate. The last row counts listings on both sides of the city line.
| Area | Short-stay listings | Race nights booked (weekend before) | Median listed rate, race (weekend before) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Within 3 miles of the Capitol | 3,029 | 73% (44%) | $350 ($300) |
| 5–10 miles from COTA | 634 | 71% (30%) | $285 ($265) |
| Rest of the city | 1,998 | 67% (30%) | $245 ($220) |
| Within 5 miles of COTA, in or outside city limits | 142 | 74% (24%) | $235 ($235) |
Booked shares and median listed nightly rates for Friday and Saturday nights, as of Aug. 31, 2026. Source: AirROI.
Listings without a number are spread across the map: about half of downtown listings show none, and nearly six in ten elsewhere in city limits. Across the city, they list for more than a third less on race nights than listings that show one, at the median.
Downtown's big homes show the premium in dollars. Within three miles of the Capitol, about 360 homes with three or more bedrooms showed no license number, and by the end of August about 250 of them had both race nights booked. Across all 360, the median listed rate was about $725 a race night, or roughly $1,450 for the two nights, up from about $605 a night the weekend before.
Near the track, prices held still. Only about 140 listings sit within five miles of COTA, most of them outside city limits, against about 3,000 within three miles of the Capitol. About three-quarters of their race nights were booked, up from about a quarter the weekend before, at a median listed rate that stayed at about $235.
What last year's race paid
The race-weekend price still circulating comes from Vegas Insider, a sports-betting site, whose estimate KXAN and the Austin American-Statesman relayed last October: an average of $780 a night, up 84% from $423 the weekend before. That earlier weekend was the second weekend of the Austin City Limits Music Festival, or ACL. Vegas Insider averaged nightly prices across listings it described as available each weekend.
Across about 5,800 active Airbnb listings inside city limits that take stays of under four weeks, booked or not, last year's race weekend had nearly the same median listed rate as ACL's second weekend, about $290 against $285, but more bookings: 62% of Friday and Saturday nights, against 55%.
Average earnings per available night, what a listing would have taken in at listed rates spread over every night, booked or not, came to about $270 on race weekend, against about $220 for ACL's second weekend and about $140 for a late-September weekend.
Notices start with nuisance complaints
By the end of August, about 250 big downtown homes showing no license number had both race nights booked.
On the memo's timetable, the city's first delist notices would go out in mid-November, weeks after the race, starting with properties that have generated nuisance complaints.
About the data: AirROI counted active Airbnb listings inside Austin city limits: 5,680 with stays under 28 nights in August and 5,773 last fall. Rates are listed nightly prices before fees; license status is the number a listing shows.
Frequently Asked Questions
By AirROI's count, 54% of short-stay Airbnb listings in Austin city limits displayed no license number at the end of August, while the city's open-data list had 3,006 active licenses on Oct. 1 covering every platform. To check a rental, find the license number on its listing and look it up in the city's public license search, Austin Build + Connect.
The ordinance ties removal to the city: a platform must take down an ad within 10 days of a city delist notice. An April 30 city memo said those notices would be paused for six months after a new licensing system launches, which it scheduled for May 18. On that timetable, notices would begin in mid-November, starting with properties that have generated nuisance complaints.
As of Aug. 31, the median listed rate for race Friday and Saturday nights was about $305 across short-stay listings in Austin city limits and about $350 within three miles of the Capitol. Those are nightly prices before fees. Racing runs from Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25.
Few. At the end of August, only about 140 short-stay listings sat within five miles of Circuit of the Americas, most of them outside Austin city limits. Their median listed rate for race Friday and Saturday was about $235 a night, the same as the weekend before.
