TL;DR
Before sharing a home, many older homeowners ask one quiet question: is it allowed? The answer comes from your state's laws and your city or county's zoning code. This page looks at the whole country. Choose your state on the map or from the drop-down menu to open its own page, with what its laws say in plain words, a sample of its cities and counties, what the law asks of you and the person who shares your home, and what to ask your planning office.
You own your house and live in it. Can you share one or two spare rooms with people who are not family, for a month or longer? That is the question this research answers, state by state. We call this a typical home share, and the people who share your home are home sharers.
State Policy and Zoning Toward Home Sharing
Click a state on the map, or select it from the drop-down menu, to open its own page. Coral dots are the cities and counties we have researched in depth.
What the colors mean
5 states
Leading
State law stops cities and counties from limiting who lives together because they are not related, and the state has committed to home sharing in a plan, a strategy, or funding.
12 states
Supportive
The state does one of those two things: its law protects home sharing, or it has committed to home sharing.
30 states
Open
Neither of those yet, but the state's landlord and tenant law gives home sharing clear ground rules.
4 states
Getting started
None of these yet: no protection in law, no commitment to home sharing, and no clear ground rules in landlord and tenant law.
A lighter shade marks a state that has committed to home sharing, but whose laws do not yet protect it statewide or do not yet say clearly which ground rules apply. Seven states are in this group. How we group states.
See which states are in each groupHide the list
Leading (5)
Supportive (12)
Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington.
Open (30)
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
Lighter shade: committed, laws not yet clear (7)
Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah.
Committed to home sharing in a plan, a strategy, or funding (11)
Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont.
Where the answercomes from
The rules come in layers, like boxes inside boxes. A state law can settle a question for every town in the state. Where it does not, the answer is in your local code. Your own home has its own rules on top of both.
State law
Can set rules for every city and county, and decides whether its landlord and tenant law covers home sharing.
Your city or county's zoning code
Says who counts as a family, when sharing rooms turns a home into a boarding house, and where short-term rental rules begin.
Your own home
Your HOA or condo rules, your mortgage, your insurance, and the home sharing agreement you and your home sharer sign.
What we found,across the country
Home sharing has support in many states. Five are Leading, and 11 have named, planned for, or funded home sharing. In seven of those, the commitment is ahead of the law, which makes them the clearest opportunities for change. In cities and counties, the answer is often yes but often not yet clear. Of the 153 we read, more than half allow a typical home share, and only four do not. Many of the rest use an old definition of a boarding or rooming house that does not say whether one or two people count.1
Based on the state laws of all 50 states and the District of Columbia and the codes of 153 cities and counties, checked October 2026. Codes change, so each location shows the date we read it.
What state law saysabout home sharing
Before your city or county's code, state law can settle part of the question. This is what the laws of the 50 states and the District say, counted across the country. It is not advice on how any law applies to your home; your state's page shows what its own law says.
- Who can live together. In six states, cities and counties cannot limit who lives together based on whether the people are related. Another five set narrower rules, such as a lowest number any household limit must allow. Everywhere else, each city and county decides, and courts have gone both ways: some state courts have struck down limits on unrelated people, while others have upheld caps as low as three.
- Ground rules for both people. In 36 of the 51, the landlord and tenant law plainly covers home sharing, so both people know the rules on notice, deposits, and moving out. Another six have rules written for sharing your own home. In the other nine, the law does not yet say.
See which states are in each countHide the list
Bar local limits based on whether people are related (6)
Set narrower rules on those limits (5)
Leave the question to each city and county (40)
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
Landlord and tenant law plainly covers home sharing (36)
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
Rules written for sharing your own home (6)
California, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington.
Landlord and tenant law does not yet say (9)
Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah.
Choosing who shares your homeand fair housing law
Zoning decides whether you can share your home. Fair housing laws decide how you choose the person and what you can say when you look for them.
You can usually choose
4 or fewer
If you live in the home and it has room for four or fewer households, the main federal fair housing rules do not apply to renting rooms in it.2
Be careful what you say
Ads count
A listing, an ad, or a conversation still cannot say you prefer, or will not accept, someone because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, national origin, or having children.3
Race is never a reason
No exception
A separate federal law bars turning someone away because of race, even in your own home.4
Your state may be stricter
Check yours
Some state laws give a homeowner fewer choices than federal law, and some cities and counties add rules of their own.5 Your state's page explains what its law says.
See how each state's law comparesHide the list
An exception much like the federal one (33)
Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
Covers only one room (4)
Covers only some protected traits (5)
No exception found for a home the owner lives in (4)
Alaska, Idaho, Massachusetts, Ohio.
Not clear whether the exception reaches rooms in your home (2)
No state fair housing law found (1)
For tips on writing a listing that describes your home and how you live, see our guide Choosing Who Lives With You, Fairly.
For policymakers: zoning and Housing Capacity Parity
Housing Capacity Parity holds that affordable housing policy should recognize and appropriately incentivize verified housing capacity whether it is newly constructed or newly activated. On the evidence so far, zoning does not block Bedroom Activation at the scale of one or two rooms in an owner-occupied home. It becomes a barrier at the margins that matter for growth: limits on unrelated people in states that have not set them aside, boarding-house definitions that start at two or three paying occupants, and the absence of any recognized category for an activated room. The larger gap is legal clarity. Where a state's landlord and tenant law is silent on home sharing, neither the homeowner nor a future verifier knows what standard applies. Already, six states have shown that the first barrier can be removed by statute. See Housing Capacity Parity.
How these rulescame to be
Zoning divides a city into areas and says how land can be used in each one. The U.S. Supreme Court said cities could do this in 1926.6 Areas set aside for single-family houses became the most common kind of neighborhood zoning, and each one needed a way to say who counts as a family. Many codes also say a family must live as a single housekeeping unit, a phrase most of them do not define.
Many cities said a family is people related by blood, marriage, or adoption, plus a small number of people who are not related. In 1974 the Supreme Court said a town could limit a household of unrelated people to two.7 In 1977 it said a city could not stop a grandmother from living with her grandson.8 That is why many codes still have few limits on relatives, and a number for everyone else.
Cities also wrote rules for boarding and rooming houses. Taking in a boarder was common for most of American history (see A Tradition Remembered), and many of those rules are still on the books. They were written for real worries, such as crowding, parking, noise, and fire safety, and some were also written to keep certain people out of certain neighborhoods. Today, safety rules do much of that work instead, such as how many people a bedroom can hold and whether it has a safe way out.
In recent years, some states have moved the line from family ties to safety, so that cities and counties cannot limit who lives in a home based on whether the people are related.9, 10 Most states still leave the question to each city and county.
This page is here to help you learn and to give you context. It does not interpret any zoning code and is not legal advice. Rules vary and change, and only your city or county planning office can say what applies to your home.
Citations, Definitions & SourcesOpen the fine printClose the fine printThe national citations, definitions, and method are available by clicking Open the Fine Print. Terms with a dotted underline on this page are defined there. Each state's page lists its own sources.
Numbered Citations
- State policy: 5 Leading, 12 Supportive, 30 Open and 4 Getting started; 11 states have named, planned for, funded, or made room for home sharing, and 2 more funded only a pilot, which does not count as a statewide commitment. Cities and counties (153): 77 allow a typical home share (63 with a limit it stays within), 14 allow it after a permit or a rental sign-up, 4 do not allow it, 41 are not clear or could not yet be read, and in 17 rural counties we found no county zoning code. Where a code sets a number of unrelated people, the most common number is 5. Each state's page lists its locations, and flags the unclear ones for local leaders.
- 42 U.S.C. 3603(b)(2), the federal Fair Housing Act's exemption for an owner who lives in a home of up to four households. Read the statute. In the nine western states it covers, the federal appeals court has gone further, saying the Act does not cover choosing who shares your living space: Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate.com, LLC, 666 F.3d 1216 (9th Cir. 2012). Read the opinion.
- 42 U.S.C. 3603(b), which keeps section 3604(c), the rule on statements and advertising, in force for the exempt home; 42 U.S.C. 3604(c). Read the statute.
- 42 U.S.C. 1982. Read the statute.
- Our reading of each state's fair housing law beside federal law, from the statute each state's page quotes: in 33 of the 51, the state's exception for renting rooms in your own home is much like the federal one; in 2 it comes with conditions, such as renting without a real estate agent; in 4 it covers only one room; in 5 it covers only some protected traits; in 4 we found no exception for a home the owner lives in; in 2 it is not clear whether it reaches rooms in your home; and for 1 we found no state fair housing law. Local fair housing rules were not read.
- Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926).
- Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U.S. 1 (1974). Read the opinion.
- Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977). Read the opinion.
- ORS 90.112, enacted by Oregon House Bill 2583 (2021). Read the statute.
- Washington Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5235 (2021), final bill report; Colorado House Bill 24-1007, Department of Local Affairs guidance.
Definitions
A typical home share. You own your house and live in it, and you share one or two spare rooms with people who are not family, for a month or longer. Each location's answer describes what its rules say for that situation.
The six answers. Yes: the rules we found allow a typical home share with no extra step. Yes, with limits: they allow it but set a limit, such as a number of people or rooms. Yes, after a permit or sign-up: they allow it once a step is done. Not clear: the rules do not answer it either way, or we could not read them. No county zoning found: the county and state sources we read show no county zoning code, though none says so in words. No: the rules do not allow it.
State policy and zoning toward home sharing. The map groups states by what their laws and plans do for home sharing today. A state is Leading when two things are true. First, its law stops cities and counties from limiting who lives together based on family ties, in all cases or in some. Second, the state has committed to home sharing: it names home sharing in its State Plan on Aging, an aging strategy, or an affordable housing plan, funds an ongoing home sharing program, or has a law that allows such funding. A one-time pilot is a welcome first step, but it does not count as a statewide commitment. A state is Supportive when one of the two is true, Open when neither is but its landlord and tenant law clearly covers home sharing, and Getting started when none of these is true yet. A state is marked as an opportunity, in a lighter shade on the map, when it has committed to home sharing but its laws do not yet protect home sharing statewide or do not yet say clearly which ground rules apply. Every check traces to a cited source on the state's page. The groups describe state law and policy, not how welcoming any community is, and not what any particular home may do.
Single housekeeping unit. Many zoning codes say a family or household must live as a "single housekeeping unit." The phrase describes people who live together as one household, sharing the home, rather than as separate tenants under one roof. Most codes use it without saying more, and each city or county decides what it means. The codes in our sample that spell it out point to the same kinds of things: sharing the kitchen and living areas, sharing chores and expenses, and, as signs of separate households, locks on bedroom doors or separate leases. Where a city or county in our sample defines the phrase, its state's page quotes the definition. If your city or county's code uses the phrase, ask the planning office how it applies to a home share, such as one where the person sharing your home pays rent and has their own room.
Special permit. A permit an official or board can grant or refuse after a review, such as a conditional or special use permit. A sign-up anyone can complete, such as a rental registration, is not a special permit.
Checked. The date we last read the source itself. Codes change. Your planning office has the current version.
Method
We use primary sources only: the state legislature's own text, the city or county's published code, and court opinions. News and advocacy writing can point to a source but is never the source. When a code would not open, we mark the location "Not clear" rather than guess. Where we read a law on a site that copies the official code, the source note says so. The plain-language summaries restate the quoted text; they do not interpret it.
Sources
Each state's page lists every source used for that state, with the date we checked it.
Companion research: The Rooms Already Exist (the spare-bedroom supply) and A Tradition Remembered (the history of taking in a boarder).
Cite This Paper
HomeShare Oregon. (2026). The Rules Behind the Spare Room: Home Sharing, State and Local Zoning, and Policy. https://homeshareoregon.org/research/rules-behind-the-spare-room/
About HomeShare Oregon
HomeShare Oregon publishes this paper as students of aging, housing, and community infrastructure. We operate one of many possible interventions in the missing middle. We believe the most useful contribution we can make to the larger field is to add a frame and a research agenda, rather than to argue for our particular role within it.
If you are working on related questions, we would like to hear from you. Email the executive director at executivedirector@homeshareoregon.org.