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A short-term rental, or STR, is a furnished property rented out for less than 30 consecutive days, usually booked through platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com. Most US cities draw the legal line at that 30-day mark too, which is exactly why the term shows up so often in local ordinances: cross it, and you’re a long-term lease instead of an STR.

The booking length is the whole distinction. A short-term rental turns over in days or weeks and usually comes fully furnished with utilities included, while a long-term rental runs on a lease measured in months or years, typically unfurnished. That difference is also what triggers separate rules: STRs face licensing, occupancy taxes, and zoning restrictions that long-term leases generally don’t.

A channel manager is software that syncs your listings, rates, and availability across every platform you sell on, Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and dozens more, from one dashboard. Without one, you’re updating each channel by hand, which is how double bookings happen. If you manage more than a handful of listings across more than one platform, a channel manager isn’t optional, it’s the only way to scale without the calendar managing you instead.

Regulations and platform policies shift monthly, sometimes faster, so a single evergreen guide won’t stay accurate for long. Rentals United publishes an ongoing short-term rental news and regulations roundup covering court rulings, city ordinances, and platform changes as they happen, which is the fastest way to catch a rule change before it catches your portfolio.