Purpose
Turn a jurisdiction name into a decision-ready regulatory brief — mapping the rules that govern home-sharing or platform-economy activity, the obligations they impose on hosts and the platform, and the concrete compliance actions operations must take. Replaces days of scattered legal-and-policy digging with a structured, comparable summary.
When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Summarize home-sharing, short-term rental, or platform-economy rules for a specific city, state, or country
- Assess regulatory risk before launching or expanding into a new market
- Brief leadership or legal on a jurisdiction's compliance requirements
- Compare regulatory burden across candidate markets
- Understand host registration, tax collection, or platform liability rules in a location
- Track pending or recently changed legislation affecting operations in a jurisdiction
Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- Jurisdiction: City, state/province, or country to analyze (be as specific as possible — regulation is often municipal)
- Platform model: What the platform does (e.g., short-term rental marketplace, gig labor, delivery, peer-to-peer rental)
- Operational role: Whether the platform facilitates transactions, holds funds, or acts as marketplace/employer
- Current status in market: Not yet operating / planning launch / already live
- Specific concern: Optional focus area (tax remittance, registration, data sharing, enforcement)
- As-of context: Any known recent changes or dates the user is aware of
If the platform model or operational role is missing, assume a short-term rental / home-sharing marketplace that facilitates bookings and holds funds, and state that assumption explicitly. Flag clearly that regulatory summaries reflect general knowledge and are not legal advice, and that a licensed local advisor should confirm before operational decisions.
Instructions
Step 1: Confirm Jurisdiction Scope and Governing Layers
Regulation is layered. Identify which levels apply and note where they conflict:
- National/federal: Broad platform, tax, data, and consumer-protection law
- State/provincial/regional: Licensing regimes, tax frameworks, tenant law
- Municipal/local: The most restrictive and most common layer for home-sharing — registration, caps, zoning State clearly which layer imposes the binding rule for each requirement below. If the jurisdiction given is a country, note that municipal rules likely dominate and flag the major cities.
Step 2: Registration and Licensing Requirements
Document what hosts and/or the platform must register for:
- Host registration/permit: Required? Registration number displayed on listings? Cost and renewal cadence
- Platform obligation: Must the platform verify registration numbers or remove non-compliant listings?
- Zoning/property-type limits: Primary-residence-only rules, multi-unit restrictions, HOA/lease constraints
- Occupancy or safety requirements: Fire safety, insurance minimums, guest limits
Step 3: Operational Limits and Caps
Summarize hard limits on activity:
- Night caps: Annual/monthly limits on rentable nights (e.g., 90/180-day caps)
- Whole-home vs. shared-space rules: Different treatment for entire-unit listings
- Density or building-level restrictions: Per-building or per-neighborhood limits
- Prohibited zones: Areas where the activity is banned outright
Step 4: Tax Obligations
Map who owes what and who remits:
- Applicable taxes: Occupancy/tourist/lodging tax, VAT/GST, income tax
- Collection responsibility: Does the platform collect and remit, or does the host?
- Registration for tax: Voluntary Collection Agreements or mandatory platform registration
- Reporting: Host income reporting or data-sharing to tax authorities
Step 5: Host and Platform Liability
Clarify legal exposure:
- Platform classification: Marketplace facilitator, publisher, or intermediary — and its liability implications
- Data-sharing mandates: Requirements to disclose host/listing data to authorities
- Fines and penalties: Who is penalized, magnitude, and per-listing vs. per-violation structure
- Safe-harbor conditions: What compliance steps limit platform liability
Step 6: Enforcement Posture
Assess how actively rules are enforced — this often matters more than the rule itself:
- Enforcement intensity: Active / moderate / dormant, with observable signals
- Enforcement mechanism: Proactive audits, complaint-driven, data-driven de-listing
- Recent actions: Known fines, lawsuits, or platform crackdowns
- Trajectory: Tightening / stable / loosening
Step 7: Pending and Recent Legislation
Note the regulatory direction of travel:
- Bills under consideration, proposed changes, referendums, or court cases
- Effective dates for recently enacted rules
- Explicitly date-stamp the summary's knowledge horizon and note verification is required
Step 8: Prioritized Compliance Implications Checklist
Translate the above into ranked operational actions, each tagged Blocking / High / Medium:
- Actions required before operating legally (Blocking)
- Actions that materially reduce liability or fines (High)
- Monitoring and process actions (Medium) Each item states the requirement, the responsible party (platform vs. host), and the consequence of non-compliance.
Step 9: Overall Risk Rating
Assign a single rating — Low / Moderate / High / Prohibitive — with a 2–3 sentence rationale synthesizing burden, enforcement, and trajectory.
Output Format
- Structure: Titled sections in order, with a header line stating jurisdiction, platform model, and knowledge as-of date; compliance checklist as a ranked, tagged list
- Length: 900–1,300 words
- Format: Structured brief — labeled sections with tight bullets, not long prose; a table for tax obligations if multiple taxes apply
- Sections: Jurisdiction & governing layers → Registration/licensing → Operational limits → Tax obligations → Liability → Enforcement posture → Pending legislation → Prioritized compliance checklist → Overall risk rating
- Tone: Regulatory operations analyst — precise, non-alarmist, decision-oriented; explicitly flags uncertainty rather than guessing
Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] Every requirement names the governing layer (national / state / municipal)
- [ ] Each stated obligation identifies the responsible party (platform vs. host)
- [ ] The compliance checklist is ranked and every item is tagged Blocking / High / Medium
- [ ] Tax section specifies collection-and-remittance responsibility, not just applicable taxes
- [ ] Enforcement posture is characterized with observable signals, not just "enforced" or "not enforced"
- [ ] The brief includes a knowledge as-of date and an explicit not-legal-advice / verify-locally caveat
- [ ] An overall risk rating with rationale is stated (no hedging)
Notes
- Municipal rules almost always dominate for home-sharing — if only a country is given, prioritize its largest cities and say so.
- Enforcement intensity frequently diverges from what the statute says; a strict rule that is unenforced and a lenient rule that is aggressively audited demand very different operational responses — surface this gap explicitly.
- Where credible information is unavailable, state "not confirmed" rather than inferring; a known gap is more useful to a compliance team than a confident guess.
- For multi-market comparisons, run this skill per jurisdiction and hold section structure constant so outputs are directly comparable.
How to use this skill
This file is a Claude Code skill in Anthropic's standard format — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.
Installing in Claude Code:
~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)<your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)
Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.
Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:
- Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
- Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits
For Claude Code skill details: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills