Buying a Maui Rental Property Amid Bill 9: What's Confirmed, What's Not

Start Here: This Is Not a Settled Rulebook

Most of the STR-regulation fights this site has documented on other islands are recurring local votes over whether to add restrictions. Maui's is different in kind: Bill 9 is an enacted county ordinance that phases out short-term rentals on thousands of existing, currently-operating units, it is already law, it is already being sued over, and the county has since moved -- twice, in opposite directions -- on whether to carve out exemptions. As of this research (July 2026), Bill 9 is law, is under active litigation, and a partial exemption path has just opened through a separate zoning bill. That is a genuinely live legal and legislative situation, not a historical fight you can read about and move on from. Anyone underwriting a Maui STR purchase needs to treat today's rules as a snapshot, not a promise.

This matters more here than it did on Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard because of scale: those fights are about whether to restrict a market that, either way, keeps functioning. Bill 9 is reported to affect commonly-cited figures in the range of roughly 6,000 to 6,200 units -- a meaningful share of Maui's entire short-term-rental inventory. If you're buying specifically for STR income, find out first whether the exact unit you're considering sits on the "Minatoya list" this bill targets, because that answer determines whether Bill 9 applies to it at all.

What Bill 9 Actually Does: The Minatoya List Phase-Out

The "Minatoya list" is the informal name -- after a past state land-use attorney general opinion -- for a specific set of condominium and apartment-zoned Maui properties that have, for decades, been allowed to legally operate as short-term or transient vacation rentals despite sitting in "Apartment" zoning districts that otherwise do not permit STR use. It is a Maui-specific legal quirk with no exact equivalent on this site's other island markets. Bill 9, championed by Mayor Richard Bissen, phases out short-term rental use specifically within these Minatoya-list, apartment-zoned buildings, with the stated goal of converting that inventory into long-term housing for Maui residents, including wildfire survivors still displaced from the August 2023 Lahaina fire.

Multiple outlets covering the bill -- StaySTRA, Avalara/MyLodgeTax, and Honolulu Civil Beat among them -- describe it as the largest short-term-rental phase-out in US history by unit count. That framing is about scale and precedent, not hyperbole: this is a full legal phase-out of an existing, currently-legal use category, enacted by ordinance, not a cap on future permits or a tax increase on existing operators.

The Timeline: Passage, Lawsuits, a Rejected Exemption, Then a Reprieve

The Maui Council passed Bill 9 on first reading by a 5-3 vote on December 2, 2025 (Maui Now). It passed second and final reading, again 5-3, on December 15, 2025, and Mayor Bissen signed it into law that same day (Maui Now: "Mayor Bissen signs Bill 9 into law, shortly after 5-3 final passage by Maui Council"; Honolulu Star-Advertiser independently confirmed the signing).

Litigation followed almost immediately. Maui Now reported on January 2, 2026 that Bill 9 had been challenged in court, with lawsuits seeking to block the phase-out -- filed within roughly two weeks of the bill becoming law. Then, in February 2026, the Maui Planning Commission rejected a separate bill that would have carved out exemptions to save thousands of the affected rentals (Honolulu Civil Beat: "Maui Planning Commission Rejects Bill To Save Thousands Of Vacation Rentals") -- a setback for owners hoping for a carve-out.

The story then reversed again. By June 2026, Civil Beat reported "Maui Vacation Rentals Get A Reprieve With New Zoning Bill's Approval," and on July 5, 2026, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported an "exemption path opens for Maui vacation rental phaseout." Read plainly, in order: passed into law, sued, an exemption attempt rejected, and then a different exemption path opened through separate zoning legislation -- all within about seven months. That is the definition of a moving target, and it is very likely not finished moving. Confirm the current status directly with the Maui Planning Department before assuming any single headline above still describes today's rule.

The Unit Count and Deadline Nobody Can Pin Down -- On Purpose, We Won't Guess

Two numbers matter enormously to anyone underwriting a Maui STR purchase, and neither has a single, source-agreed answer. First, the number of units Bill 9 affects: commonly cited figures include "roughly 6,200" (Hawaii's Best Travel: "Maui Just Banned 6,200 Vacation Rentals") and "more than 6,000" (Avalara), with other coverage simply rounding to "thousands." Treat the exact count as a widely-cited range, roughly 6,000 to 6,200, rather than a settled figure -- the Maui Planning Department's own Bill 9 fact sheet is the correct place to confirm a specific number for a specific building.

Second, the phase-out's actual compliance deadline: Avalara's coverage references a phase-out schedule extending to 2031 for at least some portion of affected units, but the exact deadline structure -- whether every affected unit faces the same date, or whether deadlines are staggered by some other factor -- was not confirmed against the bill's actual text in this site's research. If you are underwriting a purchase against a specific "we can rent this short-term until year X" assumption, get that date confirmed in writing, for the specific unit, from a Hawaii real estate attorney who has read the current ordinance and any exemption amendments -- not from a secondhand summary, including this one.

The Tax Stack on Top of Bill 9: GET, TAT, and the Green Fee

Even setting Bill 9 aside, a Maui short-term rental carries a heavier, more layered tax stack than most mainland markets. Hawaii's General Excise Tax (GET) is a tax on business gross receipts -- structurally different from a conventional sales tax, though it's typically passed through to guests. On top of GET, the separate Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT) applies specifically to hotel and vacation-rental stays. In 2025-2026, Hawaii enacted a first-in-the-nation "Green Fee" -- effectively an increase to the TAT -- to fund climate-resilience and environmental projects (Governor Josh Green's office; Kiplinger; HAWAI'I Magazine).

Multiple 2026 sources describe the resulting combined hotel-stay tax burden -- state and county TAT, plus GET, plus the Green Fee -- as reaching roughly 18.5% (TravelTourister: "Hawaii Hotels Now 18.5% Tax"). A separate cruise-specific summary cites an 11% TAT rate effective January 1, 2026 applied to cruise fares under the same law -- a different figure for a different product, not a contradiction. What this page won't do is print an exact Maui-specific line-item breakdown (precise GET rate, precise state TAT rate, precise county TAT surcharge, precise Green Fee increment): that breakdown was not confirmed against a single readable primary source in this site's research. There is also a live legal wrinkle worth naming: at least one component of the Green Fee framework was reported to have faced its own court challenge, meaning the tax structure itself may still be settling. Pull the current, itemized rate sheet directly from Hawaii's Department of Taxation (files.hawaii.gov/tax) before building a specific number into a rental pro forma.

Property tax adds a further layer specific to how a unit is classified. Maui County taxes Short-Term Rental as its own distinct classification, at a materially different rate per $1,000 of assessed value than Owner-Occupied, Non-Owner-Occupied, or Long-Term Rental classes -- and the Maui County Council has, in recent cycles, specifically acted to hold down owner-occupied rates relative to investment and STR classes (Honolulu Civil Beat, 2024: "Maui Council Holds Down Property Tax Rates For Local Homeowners"). The exact current dollar-per-$1,000 rate for the short-term-rental class was not confirmed via a readable primary source in this research; pull it directly from Maui County's own "Real Property Tax Rates" page (mauicounty.gov/755) before budgeting.

Other Layers That Change the Math: Leasehold Land, Insurance, and the Post-Fire Market

Two further factors specific to Maui deserve a place in any rental pro forma. First, leasehold versus fee-simple land ownership is a genuinely common structure here, especially among older condo developments -- the kind of building most likely to sit on the Minatoya list Bill 9 targets. A leasehold unit means you own the structure but not the land beneath it, under a ground lease with its own expiration and lease-rent renegotiation terms; that lease structure interacts with, and is entirely separate from, Bill 9's zoning-based phase-out. No specific current percentage of Maui's condo stock that is leasehold versus fee simple was confirmed in this research -- confirm which structure applies to a specific unit, and read the actual lease terms, before assuming a leasehold unit behaves like a fee-simple one for resale or refinancing purposes.

Second, homeowners and rental-property insurance in Hawaii has been a real, documented story of rate increases and non-renewals following the 2023 Lahaina wildfire (Hawaii News Now, January 2026: "Hawaii home insurance rates spike after Maui wildfires"; KE Team Hawaii's "Hawaii Insurance Crisis: 2025 Outlook"). No specific current rate-increase percentage or carrier non-renewal count was confirmed via a primary source in this research -- get a live quote from a Hawaii-licensed agent who actively writes Maui STR policies before finalizing a purchase budget, since a lapsed or unavailable STR-specific policy can be as disqualifying as a zoning problem.

Finally, remember that Bill 9's stated purpose -- freeing up housing for residents, including Lahaina wildfire survivors -- sits inside a broader, still-unresolved recovery: as of June 2026, Civil Beat reported the $4 billion wildfire settlement "could soon begin flowing" to victims, meaning it had not yet been fully distributed nearly three years after the fire, and Maui County's own "100th completed structure" rebuild milestone sits against a toll of more than 2,200 destroyed structures. That context does not change Bill 9's legal mechanics, but it explains the political will behind it, and it is a reasonable signal that the pressure to convert STR inventory to long-term housing is not going away regardless of how the current litigation resolves.

What This Means for a Buyer: A Framework, Not a Promise

Here's what's sourced and what isn't. Sourced, with real dates and named outlets: Bill 9 passed the Maui Council 5-3 twice and was signed into law by Mayor Bissen on December 15, 2025; lawsuits seeking to block it were filed by January 2, 2026; the Planning Commission rejected a separate exemption bill in February 2026; and a different zoning bill opened a partial exemption path by June-July 2026. Also sourced: Hawaii's layered GET/TAT/Green Fee tax stack, described across multiple 2026 sources as combining to roughly 18.5% for hotel-type stays statewide; Maui County's distinct, higher short-term-rental property-tax classification; and a real, documented post-fire homeowners-insurance hardening market.

Not sourced, and not something this page will guess at: the precise number of units Bill 9 affects (reported inconsistently in a roughly 6,000-to-6,200 range); Bill 9's exact compliance-deadline schedule for a specific unit; the exact current Maui-specific GET/TAT/Green Fee line-item breakdown; the exact current short-term-rental property-tax rate; and, most importantly, what Bill 9 will actually mean for any specific building once the current litigation and exemption process finish playing out. Given how much of this page concerns an actively litigated ordinance that could determine whether a specific unit can legally operate as a short-term rental at all, treat everything here as a snapshot of a moving situation, not a durable rulebook. Before you make an offer on a Maui property for short-term-rental income: confirm the property's current Minatoya-list and zoning status, and Bill 9's current legal posture, directly with the Maui Planning Department; get a property-specific read from a Hawaii real estate attorney on the exemption process and any deadline that would apply to that unit; confirm current tax rates with the Hawaii Department of Taxation, the Maui County Real Property Tax Division, and a licensed Hawaii CPA; and get a current STR-specific insurance quote from a Hawaii-licensed agent. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or investment advice.