Chicago’s house-share ledger runs in two directions at once. On the opt-in side: 3,852 active shared-housing registrations — the registration a host must hold to list an Airbnb-style rental — spread across all 50 wards, from 276 in the 1st Ward to a single registration in the 13th. On the opt-out side: a prohibited-buildings list 2,230 buildings long — 184,978 units in the 2,169 buildings with a recorded size — where owners or associations filed to bar house-sharing entirely — led by the Near North Side with 347 buildings, then Lake View and Lincoln Park. A third file adds 192 precincts designated as restricted residential zones. All three are the city’s own files, each counted in its own unit and never blended.
Active Shared Housing Registrations + House Share Prohibited Buildings List + Restricted Residential Zone Precincts, Chicago data portal · all retrieved August 16, 2026 · registrations file updated dailyThe opt-in side: 3,852 registrations, in every ward
- 1st Ward276
- 44th Ward224
- 27th Ward191
- 32nd Ward181
- 4th Ward(tied with the 35th)166
The registrations file lists 3,852 shared-housing registrations at retrieval, every row carrying APPROVED status in the file, with recorded expiration dates running from June 2026 to September 2027. One quirk reported as the file has it: 161 of those dates were already past at retrieval on rows the file still lists as approved. Every one of the 50 wards has at least one, and the counts range from the 1st Ward’s 276 down to a single registration in the 13th. Two boundaries: a registration is the city’s permission for a host, not proof of an active listing on any platform — and this page counts the file by ward, the only geography the file itself carries, using none of its name or address fields.
The opt-out side: 2,230 buildings
The prohibited-buildings list is the other side of the same ordinance: buildings whose owners, boards, or associations filed to bar house-sharing on the premises. The file holds 2,414 rows describing 2,230 distinct buildings by property index number — 184 rows are additional rows for buildings already in the file, and this page counts buildings, not rows. Where the list records a building’s size, the units sum to 184,978 across 2,169 of the 2,230 buildings, counted once per building. One thing the list cannot say: when. 2,087 of its rows carry no vote date at all, and 56 of the dated rows carry years outside 2010–2026, the screening range this page applied — including one dated 1917. The file records that these buildings opted out, not reliably when they did.
Every community area’s count, in text
Near North Side 347; Lake View 302; Lincoln Park 261; Near West Side 182; Near South Side 135; West Town 113; Uptown 107; Edgewater 70; Rogers Park 69; Logan Square 68; Loop 63; Hyde Park 55; North Center 47; South Shore 47; Lincoln Square 36; West Ridge 35; Albany Park 23; Douglas 22; Kenwood 20; Avondale 19; Irving Park 19; Grand Boulevard 14; Lower West Side 13; North Lawndale 12; Portage Park 10; Chatham 8; Dunning 8; Hermosa 8; Jefferson Park 8; Montclare 8; O’Hare 8; Humboldt Park 6; Armour Square 5; Auburn Gresham 5; Belmont Cragin 5; Bridgeport 5; Greater Grand Crossing 5; Norwood Park 5; South Chicago 5; Woodlawn 5; Washington Heights 4; Clearing 3; Forest Glen 3; Oakland 3; Ashburn 2; Chicago Lawn 2; Edison Park 2; Morgan Park 2; Washington Park 2; West Garfield Park 2; Beverly 1; Brighton Park 1; Mount Greenwood 1; New City 1; North Park 1; South Lawndale 1.
No buildings on the list: Archer Heights, Austin, Avalon Park, Burnside, Calumet Heights, East Garfield Park, East Side, Englewood, Fuller Park, Gage Park, Garfield Ridge, Hegewisch, McKinley Park, Pullman, Riverdale, Roseland, South Deering, West Elsdon, West Englewood, West Lawn, West Pullman.
The list’s counts are led by the Near North Side (347 buildings), Lake View (302), and Lincoln Park (261), with the Near West Side (182) and Near South Side (135) behind them. Where the list records a building’s size, the units sum to nearly 185,000 across those 2,169 of the 2,230 buildings, by the list’s own figures. The count measures buildings on the list, and nothing else: the files carry no total of buildings eligible to opt out, so no share can be computed, and this page computes none.
And 192 restricted precincts
A third file, Restricted Residential Zone Precincts, lists the electoral precincts designated as restricted residential zones for shared housing — 192 rows at retrieval. It is a list of places, not buildings, counted here as the third file of the same ordinance.
If you are checking a building — or thinking about hosting
The counts above describe the city; the records to check for one address are the same three files, and the city’s own shared-housing page is its current official guidance on what they mean. The prohibited-buildings list on the data portal can be searched by address or property index number; the city describes it as “a list of buildings excluded from short-term rental activity under the Shared Housing Ordinance,” and its own page links the form by which an owner or association places a building on the list and the affidavit that removes one. The City Clerk’s restricted residential zones page lists the 192 precincts. And the registrations file shows whether an approved registration exists for an address — which matters because the city’s shared-housing page, as of August 21, 2026, states that all shared housing units “are required to have an approved Registration Number to operate short-term rentals (31 days or fewer)” and to list on a platform. For anyone weighing whether to host, that same page is where the city’s process lives: a registration guide, an eligibility-criteria page with an unofficial eligibility quiz, a registration portal, a $250 annual registration payment on approval, annual renewal, and the taxes the page lists — a 4.5 percent hotel accommodation tax and a 6 percent shared-housing surcharge. Those are the city’s terms as its page states them on that date; the page, not this one, is the current word. Two of our numbers bear on any such check: the prohibited list’s three largest area counts are the Near North Side (347 buildings), Lake View (302), and Lincoln Park (261), and the registrations file reaches every ward, from 276 in the 1st to one in the 13th. What these records cannot tell you is whether any unit is eligible — only the city’s determination does — whether a registered unit is actually listed anywhere, or, for most of the prohibited list, when a building opted out; they can tell you whether an address appears on the city’s list of buildings that have barred house-sharing, whether a precinct is restricted, and whether an approved registration is on file there.
Known limits
Three files, three units of counting: registrations by ward, prohibited buildings as distinct buildings by property index number — with the map a separate placement of 2,214 of them by their coordinates — and precincts as rows; no figure on this page crosses those units. A registration is permission, not an active listing; platforms’ own listing counts are a different record this page does not use. The prohibited list has no denominator in the files, and its vote dates are too sparse and too dirty to support any timeline. Unit counts are the list’s own figures where present (2,169 of 2,230 buildings). These are records of permissions and prohibitions, and this page takes no position on where anyone should live or host.
- Sources Active Shared Housing Registrations (qfyy-956j, 3,852 rows, updated daily), House Share Prohibited Buildings List (7bzs-jsyj, 2,414 rows), and House Share Restricted Residential Zone Precincts (8eww-pamb, 192 rows), all retrieved August 16, 2026.
- Counting Registrations are counted by the ward the file records; the fetch never selects the file’s host-name or street-address columns. Prohibited buildings are counted by distinct property index number (2,230 of 2,414 rows); unit sums take each building’s largest recorded count once. Vote dates are used only to count how many rows lack them and how many carry implausible years; no timeline is built from them.
- Geography Each prohibited building was placed by its recorded coordinates against the community-area boundary polygons (point-in-polygon, even-odd rule); 2,214 of 2,230 place, and 16 without usable coordinates are excluded from area counts. Registrations are never placed on this map — their file carries ward only.
Computed by KCM Desk from records retrieved August 16, 2026. If you spot an error, corrections come first.