The Texas Supreme Court will decide whether Dallas can enforce rules that would bar short-term rentals from its single-family neighborhoods, a fight that cities and property-rights groups from around the state have weighed in on.
The court granted Dallas' petition for review on Friday, Oct. 23, and scheduled oral argument for 9 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 3, according to the court's orders list and case docket. Each side will get 20 minutes.
The ordinances
The Dallas City Council adopted two ordinances in 2023. One, a zoning change, allows short-term rentals only in multifamily and commercial districts, which keeps them out of areas zoned single-family. The other sets up registration and operating standards for rentals elsewhere in the city.
The Dallas Short-Term Rental Alliance and several property owners sued. A Dallas County district judge issued a temporary injunction in December 2023 that stopped the city from enforcing both ordinances. The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas left that order in place in a July 2025 opinion, except as to one owner.
The case before the Supreme Court is about that temporary injunction, not a final trial.
What each side argues
In its latest brief, filed Oct. 14, the city says rentals in single-family areas are changing neighborhoods and bringing disruptions that have prompted residents across Texas to press their local governments for rules. Dallas says its ordinances strike a balance between residents and operators, and that every court to rule on the merits of the owners' constitutional claims has rejected them.
The owners say the right to lease a home, for any term, was treated as a vested property right when the Texas Constitution was ratified in 1876. Their brief argues the rules would eliminate 95% of Dallas' short-term rentals and the jobs tied to them, based on what it calls shifting justifications and biased data.
