Search for a short-term rental cap in Boyne City and you'll find the number in seconds: 130. It shows up in investor guides and market roundups as shorthand for scarcity, the kind of hard ceiling that should make an existing license something worth paying up for. Then pull up a live count of active listings in the city and keep counting past 130. You won't stop there.
That gap isn't a story about the city failing to enforce its own rule. It's a story about what the cap was actually written to measure, and why a buyer comparing Boyne City to other Lake Charlevoix towns needs to ask a more specific question than "is there a cap here."
Where the Number 130 Came From
Boyne City didn't back into this ordinance. City officials began working on it in July 2021, holding a string of special meetings to study what a fast run-up in nightly rentals was doing to the housing stock. The city commission approved the dedicated Short-Term Rental Ordinance on December 13, 2022, following that period of public input, according to reporting in the Petoskey News-Review. The trigger was a roughly 39 percent jump in short-term rental listings across the spring and summer of 2022 alone.
The ordinance didn't ban the activity. It licensed it, and it capped it, but only in one zoning category. Chapter 15 of the city code applies its numeric ceiling to what the ordinance calls the traditional residential district, the single-family zoning that holds an estimated 54 percent of the city's total housing units. In November 2023, the city commission set that ceiling at 130 licensed units, or about 10 percent of the homes inside that specific district, per the Petoskey News-Review's coverage of the vote.
That's a real limit. It just isn't a limit on every rental in Boyne City.
The Number That Doesn't Match
As of April 2026, one national short-term rental data provider counted 161 active Airbnb listings across the city, already well past the 130-unit figure the city commission set for its residential district two and a half years earlier.
Read those two numbers side by side and the instinct is to assume something broke down between 2023 and 2026. Nothing did. The cap and the listing count were never measuring the same universe. The ordinance's own definitions explain why.
Boyne City's code draws a line between a standard Short-term Rental Unit and something it calls a Short-term Rental Personal Unit, an owner-occupied property with an accessory dwelling unit rented out short-term. The ordinance is direct about how that second category factors into the cap math: rental personal units are not included in the calculation of the cap. An owner living in the main house and renting a guest cottage or converted garage apartment operates entirely outside the 130-unit ceiling.
Layer on the zoning boundary and the picture gets clearer still. The cap governs the traditional residential district. It says nothing numerically about listings inside downtown mixed-use buildings, condo developments, or any other zoning classification in the city. Given that the capped district holds only about 54 percent of Boyne City's housing, nearly half the city's homes were never subject to this specific ceiling in the first place.
What the Cap Actually Controls
Where the cap does bite, it behaves less like a fixed asset and more like a probationary standing. The ordinance lays out an escalating enforcement ladder inside the residential district: a first violation in a calendar year draws a written warning, a second draws a municipal fine, and a third suspends new bookings through year-end. If a license gets revoked and the district has a waiting list running, the ordinance sends that owner to the back of the line rather than letting them reapply at the front.
That detail matters more than it looks like on first read. A license inside the capped district isn't just a number on a spreadsheet. It's a standing that can be lost through enforcement action and replaced by whoever's next on the list, which means the premium on a licensed property inside that district depends partly on how clean that specific rental's compliance history is, not just on whether it holds a license today.
Why the District Line Matters More Than the Headline Number
For a buyer weighing Boyne City against Charlevoix or Petoskey using "there's a cap here, so licenses must be worth chasing" as the whole analysis, the real diligence work is parcel-specific, not citywide. Two questions do most of the work:
- Which zoning district is this address actually in, and does that district carry a numeric cap at all
- Is this specific listing operating as a standalone Short-term Rental Unit subject to the 130-unit ceiling, or as a Personal Unit that sits outside it entirely
Both answers come from Boyne City's planning and zoning office, not from a listing description or a seller's summary of what the property "can do." A written confirmation of a parcel's zoning district and license status, requested before an offer goes in rather than after, is the difference between buying into a capped and finite pool and buying a property that was never part of that pool to begin with.
What a License Inside the Cap Is Actually Worth
Assuming a property does sit inside the capped district with an active license, the revenue swings are steep enough that the size and season of the unit matter as much as the license itself. Rabbu's April 2026 market data put Boyne City's average daily rate at $390, about 11 percent above the Michigan state average, but the calendar does most of the heavy lifting on total revenue.
| Month | Average Monthly Revenue |
|---|---|
| July | $8,464 |
| August | $8,319 |
| January | $3,251 |
| February | $2,861 |
| June / September (shoulder) | $3,500–$3,950 |
| April (low) | $1,170 |
That's roughly a sevenfold swing between the July peak and the April trough, driven by two distinct demand windows: Lake Charlevoix boating and beach season in summer, and proximity to Boyne Mountain Resort's downhill skiing and the Avalanche Bay indoor waterpark in winter. Larger homes capture disproportionately more of that swing. Rabbu's data showed one-bedroom units averaging $26,468 in annual revenue, compared with $97,461 for five-bedroom properties and $143,560 for homes with six or more bedrooms.
A license attached to a small one-bedroom unit and a license attached to a six-bedroom lake house are both technically inside the same 130-unit cap. They are not remotely the same asset.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Call It a Cap
Does a Boyne City short-term rental license automatically transfer to a new owner when a property sells? The ordinance doesn't spell out automatic transfer on resale in the sections available publicly. Confirm current license status in writing with the city's planning and zoning office before assuming a license carries over with the deed.
What exactly counts as a "Personal Unit," and why does it matter? It's an owner-occupied property with an accessory dwelling unit rented short-term. The ordinance excludes this category from the cap calculation entirely, so a property marketed around this kind of setup isn't drawing against the 130-unit pool at all.
Does the 130-unit cap apply across all of Boyne City? No. It applies specifically to the traditional residential district, which holds an estimated 54 percent of the city's housing units. Properties in other zoning categories are not governed by this specific numeric ceiling.
A cap is a real thing in Boyne City. It just describes a narrower slice of the market than the headline number suggests, and the only way to know which slice a given property falls into is to ask before you write the offer, not after you close.
If you're weighing a Boyne City purchase against other Lake Charlevoix towns and want a straight read on what a specific parcel's zoning and licensing status actually looks like, Davis Labelle can help you get the written answers before you're under contract, not after. Schedule a free consultation to start there.
