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Thank you for considering operating a long term rental in Seward!

A long term rental is renting a room or a portion of your property on a monthly (more than 30 consecutive days) or annual basis. To operate a long term rental within City limits, you will need to apply for a business license on the City of Seward's OpenGov portal. For more information on business licenses, please see the City Clerk's webpage. 

If you are renting out your property as a long term rental for half of the year and a short term rental for the other half of the year, you will need to apply for a short term rental permit in order to conduct both types of businesses at your rental property. When both long term rentals and short term rentals are conducted at the same location, the City Clerk issues one business license, but it is the short-term rental business license application that must be applied for as it has the most requirements that need to be met.

For more information on short term rentals and applying for a short term rental permit, please see the webpage, Short Term Rentals, under Community Development. 

If you own multiple rental properties and decide to have one property specifically for long term rental and the other property specifically for short term rental, you will need to apply for two separate business licenses since the businesses are at different physical locations and are two different business types. You can have the same name for the business on both business licenses, but the business type should be different (i.e. "monthly rental" or "short term rental"). 

Please contact the City Clerk's office if you have any questions concerning business licenses, or contact Community Development if you have any questions on obtaining a short term rental permit. Both departments are located on the second floor of City Hall. 

Note: The City of Seward only deals with the process of issuing a business license to conduct business within the city limits of Seward. If you need more information on agreements between landlords and tenants within the State of Alaska, please visit the State of Alaska's website on Alaska Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (AS 34.03.010 - 34.03.360).