A guide for Denver hosts, where a short-term rental has to be your own primary residence. What the city's license rules mean for cleaning, how to size trash for guests, and how to keep the home guest-ready through snow and moth season.
Short-term rental hosting in Denver looks different from most cities, because the city ties it to the host's own home. You are not cleaning an empty investment unit between strangers; you are getting your own house ready for guests, then living in it again after they leave.
That changes how cleaning works. This guide covers Denver's license rules as the city publishes them, then the practical side of keeping a lived-in home ready for paying guests. It is general information, not legal advice, so confirm current rules with Denver Business Licensing before you list.
Denver requires a short-term rental license for any stay of fewer than 29 nights, and the rental must be the host's primary residence. Hosts must show their business file number in every listing and pay the city's 10.75 percent lodger's tax on stays.
Longer stays fall under a different rule. Renting a home or accessory dwelling unit as a residence for 30 days or more needs a residential rental property license, under an ordinance City Council passed in 2021. If you switch a room or a garden unit from nightly guests to a monthly tenant, the license changes too.
Because the home is yours, guests share space with your things: your kitchen, your closets and often your bathroom products. The cleaning job before each stay is less about resetting a blank unit and more about clearing personal clutter, making beds with guest linens and getting the shared rooms to a standard a stranger will judge.
Many Denver hosts find the simplest setup is a Recurring House Clean on a weekly or bi-weekly plan to keep the home itself in good shape, with their own quick reset between back-to-back stays. Before the first guest, a One-Time Deep Clean catches the details a guest notices and a resident stops seeing: baseboards, blinds, vents, window tracks and shower glass.
Denver trash carts come in 35, 65 and 95 gallon sizes, and the city bills by size. Trash goes out weekly, and recycling and compost are included at no added cost. A full house of guests produces more trash than a household, so check whether your cart size still fits once you start hosting.
Compost carts take food scraps, yard debris and food soiled paper, and any Solid Waste customer can request one. Guests leave behind takeout containers and half-eaten groceries, so a clearly labeled compost bin in the kitchen keeps the trash cart from overflowing. Leave guests a short note on which bin is which.
When a mattress or a worn piece of furniture needs to go, Denver's large item pickup comes every nine weeks on your trash day, up to five large items and ten bags. Plan replacements around that date. Cleaners do not carry furniture out of the home.
Keep a written list at the property so every reset ends the same way, whoever does it.
Winter guests bring snow. Denver's first measurable snow averages October 19 and the last April 28, so for more than half the year your entry needs a boot tray, a sturdy mat and a spot for wet gear. Check the entry and hallway floors before every arrival in those months.
Summer guests meet Colorado's insects. CSU Extension says miller moth flights usually begin in mid May or early June and can last five to six weeks, and elm seed bugs come indoors from mid June through September. Both are best vacuumed, not sprayed, and a guest who finds dead moths on the windowsill will mention it. In fall and on warm winter days, boxelder bugs can appear on sunny windows.
Denver Water's supply is soft to moderately hard and a little harder in winter. Drying shower glass after each stay keeps spots from building between guests.
The questions Denver homeowners ask most often about this topic, answered plainly.
TotalCare Cleaning will service Denver and surrounding areas with background-checked cleaners and is insured up to $1 million. Re-clean guarantee: if we missed something, tell us by the end of the next day and we come back to fix it. Beyond Clean. TotalCare.
