This Midlands town doesn't regulate Airbnbs. Could that soon change?
As other Midlands cities consider and adopt new rules for short-term rental homes, one town is a hold out.
The town of Lexington doesn’t have an ordinance in place that regulates the rentals. After town officials received a number of questions from citizens about whether listings on sites like Airbnb or Vrbo are allowed in the town limits, town staff brought the issue before council, but they’re not likely to be regulated soon.
During its Tuesday night council work session, town council members discussed the process of adopting new regulations, but ultimately declined to take any action. Under the town staff’s interpretation of existing ordinances, short-term rentals are meant to be restricted to commercially-zoned areas, but tracking them can be difficult.
“We’re not actively searching for these [rentals]. There’s not an easy way to look for them because there are so many platforms that offer them,” Jessica Lybrand, the town’s director of planning and building, told town council Tuesday. She said she found around 30 to 65 short-term rentals in the town limits through a rough search.
Lybrand told council that the town staff hadn’t received complaints or had code enforcement issues related to the properties, but had received questions about whether they were allowed within the town.
“If there’s not a real issue right now, maybe we just table it and monitor it and see how it goes,” Councilwoman Jeannie Michaels said. Other council members echoed her sentiment.
“I haven’t received a lot of calls about an ongoing issue, so I don’t know that legislating it right now, until we have an issue, would be wise,” Councilman Gavin Smith said.
Other neighboring cities have adopted or are in the process of adopting rules for short-term rentals. In early January, the Columbia City Council voted to essentially halt all new Airbnbs in the city, following a June shooting that injured three people and killed one at a rental in a residential neighborhood.
A day after Columbia’s city council finalized their rules, the city of West Columbia put a temporary pause on new permits for short-term rentals as it began reviewing its owns rules around Airbnbs.
“Our concern is a potential heavy influx of short-term rentals ... since Columbia has blocked them, we’re worried about demand over here,” Tem Miles, the mayor of West Columbia, said. The city of around 18,000 sits just across the Congaree River from the state’s capital city.
Lexington County adopted new rules for Airbnbs and short-term rentals in the summer of 2024, requiring guests who stay at the spots to be of a certain age and book them for a certain number of days.
This story was originally published January 21, 2026 at 11:03 AM.
