Short-term rentals in Colfax, explained properly.

Section 17.123.050.B says to renew a permit the permittee files an application with the planning director or designee that meets the same application requirements, and the application must be submitted no later than thirty calendar days before the expiration date. Under Sec. 17.123.030 each permit runs twelve months from issuance.

Section 17.123.050.A lists the applicant's name, address and telephone number; the name, address and 24-hour telephone numbers of the applicant and a secondary point of contact if the applicant is not onsite; a floor plan, parking location(s), a copy of the business license and proof of insurance; and any supplemental information the planning director or designee finds reasonably necessary. Knowingly making a false statement or omitting required information is grounds for denial (Sec. 17.123.050.C).

Section 17.123.070 requires every permittee to retain, for eighteen months, a register containing the booking information for each group that stays at the short-term rental and to make it available to the City of Colfax on request.

Section 17.123.080.B lets the planning director or designee limit a permit on issuance by any condition reasonably necessary to preserve the health, safety and welfare of lodgers and Colfax residents. Subsection C lists examples that are not exhaustive: requiring the permittee to remain at the rental during certain hours while guests are present, reducing the number of guests, reducing the number of days a year the permittee may provide short-term lodging, and reducing the number of vehicles that may park on the property. Section 17.123.140 lets the city manager develop operational rules, which go to the City Council for approval by resolution before they take effect. No such rules were fetched.

Section 17.123.100 lists grounds for denial, including an incomplete application, a false or misleading statement, a current violation or investigation, delinquent fees or taxes (including transient occupancy tax), a past revocation or suspension of a permit for the dwelling, a threat to public health, safety or welfare, and unpaid application or renewal fees. Section 17.123.080.A allows suspension or revocation if the permittee violated the chapter or it is necessary to protect the health, safety and welfare of lodgers and citizens. Under Sec. 17.123.110 a permittee may appeal by written notice to the planning director within fourteen calendar days of service of the notice of decision; the hearing is scheduled within 45 calendar days or as soon after as practicable, with at least 15 calendar days of written notice, before the city council or its designee under Chapter 17.56.

Section 17.123.130 allows a violation to be charged as an administrative citation under Chapter 1.25, or as a misdemeanor or infraction under Chapter 1.24, at the planning director's discretion; each day is a separate offense. Violations are declared a public nuisance, and a nuisance may also be found where operation results in more than one law-enforcement response during the permit term, disruption to free passage of persons or vehicles, or other disruptive neighborhood impacts. Guests must comply with the General Plan noise standards. Administrative fines are assessed under subsection 1.25.030.B.2 for commercial, industrial and other properties; Chapters 1.24 and 1.25 were not fetched, so no fine amounts are given. Remedies are cumulative.

California Revenue and Taxation Code section 7280 lets the legislative body of any city, county, or city and county levy a tax on the privilege of occupying a room or other living space in a hotel, inn, tourist home or house, motel or other lodging, unless the stay is longer than 30 days. A county's tax applies only in its unincorporated areas. The rate, registration and filing rules are set by each city or county, so the local tax is shown in the city's own section of this page.

Government Code sections 50990 to 50996 (Senate Bill 346, 2025) apply only in a city or county that adopts an ordinance making them apply. Where they apply, a booking platform must, on the local agency's request, report the physical address with nine-digit ZIP code of each short-term rental it facilitated (no more often than every 3 months, or monthly if the local tax is remitted monthly), and must include in each listing any applicable local license number and any transient occupancy tax certification issued by the local agency. The local agency may fine a platform that does not report. The act does not stop a city or county from regulating short-term rentals, platforms or tax collection in other ways.

Government Code section 66333(g) requires a city's junior accessory dwelling unit ordinance to require that a rental of a junior ADU be for a term longer than 30 days (as amended by Assembly Bill 1154, in force January 1, 2026). Section 66323(e) requires a city to require that a rental of an ADU created under that section (the ministerial, by-right approvals) be for a term longer than 30 days. For other ADUs on a lot with a single-family home, section 66315 bars standards beyond section 66314, including owner occupancy, except that a city may require that the property be used for rentals of terms 30 days or longer. Cities can be stricter in their own codes; see the city section.

Civil Code section 4741 says an owner in a common interest development is not subject to a governing-document provision that prohibits, has the effect of prohibiting, or unreasonably restricts renting or leasing a separate interest, ADU or junior ADU, and an association may not cap rentals below 25 percent of the separate interests. The same section says it does not prohibit an association from adopting and enforcing a provision that prohibits transient or short-term rental of a separate property interest for 30 days or less. Check your association's governing documents.

Civil Code section 1940 applies the chapter on hiring of real property (Civil Code sections 1940 to 1954.071) to tenants, lessees, boarders, lodgers and others who hire dwelling units, but excludes a person in transient occupancy in a hotel, motel, residence club or other facility when the stay is or would be subject to a transient occupancy tax under Revenue and Taxation Code section 7280 (stays of 30 days or less). Stays longer than that are not covered by this exclusion.

In a December 6, 2016 letter to coastal cities and counties, the California Coastal Commission said that regulating short-term or vacation rentals in the coastal zone must happen within the local coastal program or under a coastal development permit, because it changes the intensity of use and access to the shoreline and so counts as development under the Coastal Act. The Commission said it does not believe outright bans adopted outside that process are legally enforceable in the coastal zone, that it has not historically supported blanket bans, and that it has supported limits such as caps on numbers by area, limits on days, occupancy limits, 24-hour response, parking, noise and signage rules and payment of transient occupancy tax. This applies only to places inside the coastal zone.