Short-Term Rentals in Archuleta County, Colorado

A Vacation Rental Permit is required -- and the county sets no cap on how many it issues

Renting or advertising any dwelling in unincorporated Archuleta County for less than 30 days requires a Vacation Rental Permit, administered by Archuleta County's Planning Department as an Administrative Conditional Use. The permit is valid for one calendar year and must be renewed annually. As of this review, the annual fee is $400 for an owner-occupied property and $700 for a non-owner-occupied one -- a meaningful distinction if you're evaluating a parcel specifically as a pure rental investment versus a part-time residence you'll also rent out.

The county currently sets no limit on the total number of Vacation Rental Permits it will issue and no per-neighborhood cap, which is a real point of difference from the Town of Pagosa Springs, whose own short-term rental rules include a 10% cap on the share of units in certain residential neighborhoods that can operate as short-term rentals. If you're comparing a property inside town limits against one in the surrounding unincorporated county, don't assume the same licensing math applies to both -- confirm which jurisdiction actually governs the specific parcel first.

Building-permit history matters here in a way it might not elsewhere

Archuleta County will not issue a Vacation Rental Permit for a home that lacks proper building permits for its existing electrical and plumbing systems. That makes the property's building-permit history a real gating item for STR eligibility, not just a routine due-diligence checklist item -- an older cabin or a structure with undocumented additions could fail this requirement even if it otherwise looks rentable. Pull the property's permit history from the county before assuming a structure qualifies.

Applications and renewals go through the county's online permitting system (the county migrated to a new online permits-and-licensing platform in recent years), and the county separately runs sales-tax and lodging-tax licensing for short-term rentals through its own tax portal -- a Vacation Rental Permit and tax registration are two different things you'll need to keep current, not one combined step.

What to verify before counting on short-term rental income from a specific parcel

• Whether the parcel is inside the Town of Pagosa Springs or unincorporated Archuleta County -- the STR rules, caps, and fees genuinely differ between the two.
• Whether the existing structure has a documented building permit history sufficient to satisfy the electrical/plumbing requirement for a Vacation Rental Permit.
• The current fee schedule and any recent revisions -- the county's Planning Department fee schedule has been updated as recently as 2026, so confirm you're using the current figure rather than an older cached one.
• Whether the property sits within a homeowners' association (Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association covers a large area) with its own separate short-term rental restrictions on top of the county's permit.