Another KC-area city rolls back short-term rental rules for World Cup crowds
Renting your home out in Independence just got a whole lot easier — at least for World Cup season.
The city will temporarily lift the majority of its restrictions on short-term rentals from June 1 to July 30, 2026, removing the blocks that usually limit how many rental properties can operate in an area.
Typically, short-term rentals cannot operate within 500 feet of each other in the city
Under the temporary lift, an unlimited number of short-term rentals may operate within Independence city limits, with no limits on the maximum number of bedrooms listed. Individuals will also be able to operate an unlimited number of short-term rental properties per person.
The Independence City Council unanimously approved the temporary program at its Monday night meeting, leaving homeowners with far fewer hoops to jump through in order to rent out their beds to incoming tourists this summer.
“This is an opportunity for us to kind of think about how our short-term rental rules are working, what goes well, what doesn’t go well,” councilmember Bridget McCandless said Monday night. “I hope that we will do a little bit of introspection afterwards.”
Planning for crowds
Monday’s resolution leaves homeowners with several months to get organized if they plan to dip their toe into the private rental market during the World Cup, even if their properties are not typically set up to be rented out to others.
The World Cup is expected to draw upwards of 600,000 visitors to the Kansas City metro between June 11 and July 17. There are around 55,000 hotel rooms within a two-hour drive of Kansas City, according to city data, with short-term rentals — primarily on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo — expected to play a major role as well.
“I have received a number of questions about potential short-term rentals taking place and being available in Independence during the World Cup event,” councilmember Jared Fears said Monday night.
Applications for the temporary expanded short-term rental program open Dec. 8. Tom Scannell, the city’s community and economic development director, will review and approve some incoming short-term rental requests individually in order to speed up the process.
Typically, prospective STR owners would need to get approval from the city planning commission before applying for a business license.
“When these applications start being submitted to the city next week, we can accept them, walk the applicants through the process, but also keep tabs on them to ensure that come July 30th of 2026, they stop operating,” Scannell said Monday.
Rental solutions ongoing
Independence has been kicking around the idea of temporary short-term rental permissions for months, in the face of a projected influx of World Cup-related tourism in the area. The city’s temporary plan was loosely based on a similar set of lighter World Cup rules recently passed in nearby Liberty, a city spokesperson told The Star earlier this year.
City officials also previously discussed changing the fee structure around short-term rental licenses and preemptively blocking homeowners’ associations from declining proposals for new STRs, the city spokesperson previously told The Star.
The city will continue to require short-term rental owners to post a “good neighbor guide” inside of their properties, alerting tourists and guests to city regulations around topics like noise, trash pickup and pet restrictions.
Though one of the early adopters of an expanded rental program, Independence is not alone in passing legislation to open up more beds for incoming World Cup spectators. This week, Kansas City designated May through July 2026 as a “major event period,” reducing the fee for new short-term rental applicants seeking a one-year operating permit.
Along with Liberty, Parkville was one of the first cities to roll back restrictions around STRs for the summer of 2026, followed by Belton. Similar discussions have also taken place in Kansas City, Kansas, and Roeland Park, among other cities.
This story was originally published December 4, 2025 at 5:59 AM.
