HB 1654 Virginia House of Delegates · 2025 Regular Session

Short-term rental properties; definitions, human trafficking awareness training.

Summary
Short-term rental properties; human trafficking awareness training. Mandates every accommodations intermediary to require its accommodations providers to complete certain training on recognizing and reporting instances of suspected human trafficking. Current law limits this requirement to every hotel proprietor and its employees and excludes short-term rentals. The bill prohibits an accommodations intermediary from listing a short-term rental property prior to receipt of an up-to-date written certification signed by the accommodations provider of such property that such accommodations provider has complied with the relevant training requirements.
Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared
Introduction
Jan 2025
Committee Review
Floor Vote
Governor
Introduced Jan 3, 2025 Last action Feb 4, 2025
Maddy AI version diff · 2 comparisons

What changed between versions

Counties, Cities and Towns Substitute HCCT Sub: Subcommittee #2 Substitute · 4 edits
MODERATE
The bill was amended to clarify that short-term rental operators are distinct from hotels and to expand mandatory human trafficking training requirements to include both hotel employees and short-term rental accommodation providers. The changes also introduce specific compliance deadlines for existing listings and require intermediaries to notify providers of these new training obligations.
Scope change
The bill's scope was expanded to explicitly include short-term rental accommodation providers and their employees in the mandatory human trafficking training requirement, whereas the original version primarily focused on hotels.
DEFINITION

Clarified that the definition of 'Hotel' explicitly excludes short-term rental properties to prevent confusion between the two distinct lodging types.

REQUIREMENT

Added a new requirement for every short-term rental accommodation provider listing on an intermediary to complete approved human trafficking training.

Required accommodations intermediaries to notify providers of training requirements and allow digital certification of course completion.

TIMELINE

Established a specific grace period allowing preexisting listings on July 1, 2026, until January 1, 2027, to complete the new training.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.
Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions
15
Key actions
1
Committee
4
Jan 30, 2025
Committee
Rereferred to Counties, Cities and Towns
lower
Jan 24, 2025
Lower · Passed
Reported from Counties, Cities and Towns with substitute (16-Y 4-N)
lower
Jan 20, 2025
Committee
Assigned CCT sub: Subcommittee #2
lower
Jan 3, 2025
Committee
Referred to Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns
lower
1 primary · 4 co-sponsors

Sponsors