Short-Term Rental Rules Around Grand Haven
Last reviewed July 2026
Rental income shows up in a lot of waterfront math around this harbor, and whether that income is legal depends on lines that moved twice in 2025 alone. Six local governments regulate short-term rentals between the state park and the head of Spring Lake, each with its own map, its own paperwork, and its own definition of "short." This page walks all six and links each government's controlling text.
Checked July 2026 against each government's own posted page or ordinance. Two of these six maps were redrawn in 2025. Before you act on anything below, open the linked source and confirm it still reads the way this page says it does.
First Question: Whose Map Are You On?
A mailing address settles nothing here. Postal "Grand Haven" runs well past the city limits into Grand Haven Charter Township, and "Spring Lake" names both a village and a township while the head of the lake sits in Fruitport Township, across the county line. Three governments share one lake, and each keeps a different rental map. The parcel decides which rulebook applies: pull the property on the county parcel record, or ask the assessor which unit of government taxes it, then read that government's rules and nobody else's.
City of Grand Haven: New Certificates Only on the Named List
The city certifies every rental, and for short-term rentals it publishes exactly where new certificates can issue: Southside properties fronting Franklin between 5th and Harbor, key street segments of Old Town with special use approval, the Central Business District, Dune Residential with special use approval, and the Waterfront-2 district, plus three named developments - Grand Landing, The Elliott on Seventh, and Harbourfront Condos. Off that list, the city does not issue new short-term certificates.
Certified rentals that already exist keep operating and can transfer with a sale, which makes an existing certificate part of what a buyer is pricing. Eligibility still requires a legal conforming use and sufficient off-street parking. The controlling text is Chapter 9, Article X of the city code; the registration system, fee schedule, and district details are summarized on the city's rental housing page.
Grand Haven Charter Township: Three Kinds of Rental
South and east of the city, Ordinance 605 sorts every rental by length of stay. Under 28 days is a short-term rental, allowed only inside the township's Short-Term Rental Overlay Zone, a mapped area posted as a PDF; check the specific parcel against it. From 28 days up, it is a long-term rental with an annual registration.
The third lane is the one worth knowing about: the limited short-term rental, or LSTR. A homeowner with a principal residence exemption can rent the house for one or two periods a year of six to fourteen days each, capped at fourteen days total per calendar year, with nothing shorter than six days allowed. That runs on a notice-of-intent filing instead of a full short-term registration - the township's accommodation for the owner who rents out a summer week or two without turning the house into a full-time rotation. Forms, fee amounts, and the overlay map are on the township's rental guidelines page.
Village of Spring Lake: Two Layers and a Shrinking Map
Inside the village, the rules stack. Chapter 271 of the village code requires every rental unit to register and hold a certificate. Whether a short-term rental may operate at all is a zoning question, answered by an overlay district plus a special land use approval that runs through the planning process.
The map has been tightening. In late 2024 the council voted a moratorium on new short-term rental permits and sent the ordinance and overlay district to the planning commission for review. In April 2025 the village noticed a public hearing on removing Rex Avenue, Monarch Avenue, and Dixie Street from the overlay map, and local news reported the council's unanimous vote to do it. Six existing rentals on those streets were grandfathered, and the village manager told reporters that a grandfathered rental can continue even through a sale, as long as the short-term use keeps running. The current overlay map, ordinance text, and application forms are posted on the village's residential rentals page; read the map of record, not a summary.
Spring Lake Township: Strawberry Point, and Little Else
Across the lake's north and east shore, the township allows short-term rentals only inside its overlay district, and after 2025 that district is small. WGVU's reporting describes what remains as the Strawberry Point neighborhood, roughly ten percent of the township, and traced how it got that way: a vote the previous December confined short-term rentals to the R-3 residential cottage zone, then a May 2025 amendment removed four more neighborhoods, leaving about 221 eligible homes out of roughly 4,000 dwellings township-wide.
Registration runs through the township on a three-year cycle, with the fee posted alongside the ordinance, and the township says it will drive past the property to check its condition before approving. The ordinance, overlay map, and application are on the township's short-term rental page.
Ferrysburg: Registered, Monitored, Thin on Posted Detail
Ferrysburg registers rentals - the city posts a rental registration form, updated for 2026, on its forms page - and it plainly watches the short-term side: in July 2025 the city announced compliance-monitoring software and a dedicated short-term rental complaint hotline.
What the city does not post is a plain-language page saying where short-term rentals may operate or how short a stay may run; those answers live in the zoning ordinance. Before buying in Ferrysburg with rental income in mind, put the specific parcel in front of the zoning administrator at city hall and get the answer in writing.
Fruitport Charter Township: One Rulebook for Every Rental
At the head of the lake, in Muskegon County, Fruitport Charter Township regulates rentals without a short-term category. Its rental article - 2017's Ordinance 803, amended by Ordinance 805 - requires registration before a tenant occupies, an annually renewed certificate of compliance, an inspection at least every four years, and an owner or agent available within 24 hours for emergencies.
Nothing in that posted article sets a minimum stay or an overlay map: as of July 2026, a cottage rented by the week registers under the same article as a cottage leased by the year. Check the township's ordinance list for anything newer before you rely on that gap, and note that the Village of Fruitport, at the lake's very head, is a separate government with its own code.
The Ordinance Is Only the First Gate
Clearing the municipal map does not finish the homework. In a condominium, the master deed and bylaws can prohibit weekly rentals inside a building the city itself lists as eligible; the waterfront condos guide walks through reading the documents that control at the building level. Whichever jurisdiction the parcel lands in, treat the certificate status of the specific unit as a closing item: confirmed in writing, from the government, dated.
District lines are also just one entry in the longer paper trail - flood zones, water-level history, special assessments - that neither a listing nor a walkthrough volunteers. The flooding and hidden risks guide collects the whole checklist in one place.
Common Questions
Can you rent out a cottage on Spring Lake by the week?
That depends on which government's map the parcel falls on. Village of Spring Lake parcels need to sit inside the overlay district and clear special land use approval. Spring Lake Township parcels are eligible essentially only in what WGVU's reporting describes as the Strawberry Point neighborhood. On the Fruitport Township end of the lake, the posted rental article requires registration but sets no separate short-term category as of July 2026; check the township's ordinance list for anything newer. Identify the taxing jurisdiction from the county parcel record first; everything else follows from that.
Does a short-term rental certificate survive a sale?
In the City of Grand Haven, yes: the city's rental housing page states that existing certified short-term rentals may continue and transfer to new owners. In the Village of Spring Lake, the rentals grandfathered on the removed streets were described by the village manager, in news coverage of the 2025 vote, as able to continue through ownership changes as long as the use keeps running. Everywhere else, put the question to the clerk or zoning office directly and make the written answer a condition of closing.
Why do buyers get the jurisdiction wrong here?
Because the postal map and the zoning map disagree. A Grand Haven mailing address can sit in Grand Haven Charter Township, and a Spring Lake address can belong to the village, the township, or the Fruitport side of the county line. Rental rules follow the parcel's government, so start from the assessment record, never from the address line on a listing.
How often do these rules change?
Fast enough to burn anyone relying on last season's summary. Between late 2024 and mid-2025 alone, the village passed a moratorium and then removed three streets from its overlay map, while the township next door voted twice and shrank its own district to a single neighborhood. Re-read the current ordinance the week you commit, and again before each rental season.
Keep Reading
The waterfront condos guide covers the building-level rules that sit on top of these ordinances, the flooding and hidden risks guide covers the rest of the pre-purchase paper trail, and the Spring Lake guide covers the water these overlay maps surround.