Short-term rentals need a Clear Creek permit outside town limits

Counting on nightly or weekly rental income from a mountain property? The first thing to pin down is which government actually makes the rules.

Residential property rented for less than 30 consecutive days must obtain a county permit, and there are license types and enforcement rules behind that permit. But that county system covers unincorporated Clear Creek County only. A home inside a town follows the town’s own rules, so it needs a separate, town-specific check.

The map is rarely obvious from a real-estate listing. Idaho Springs, Georgetown, Silver Plume, and Empire each have town limits drawn long ago, and plenty of homes carrying those mailing names actually sit outside the line, on county land. Mistaking a mailing address for a land-use answer is an easy way to budget for income you cannot legally earn yet.

So before you pencil rental dollars into the numbers, settle two things: is the property inside a town, and what permit or license applies there right now? Caps, fees, and forms shift over time, so the official page is where the current answer lives — not last year’s forum post.