Short-term rentals in Encinitas, explained properly.

This comes from the City's Short Term Rental Fees & Information sheet, dated November 2023. We have not found a newer fee schedule, so check the City's current sheet before you apply. Transient occupancy tax is separate and is paid quarterly.

The Coastal Commission's staff report says approved permits are valid for one year and cannot be transferred to another location or another person. Ordinance 2022-15 would change renewal to every three years and allow revocation for inactivity, but it is not in effect (see Upcoming changes).

The City's application page lists the documents to gather before applying: application form, proof of ownership and/or owner permission, site plan and floor plan of the rental, liability insurance, rental information, advertisement information, and a Title 24 ADA compliance form if four or five bedrooms are rented in an owner-occupied home. The City's page says the application is available only online through the Customer Self Service portal (registration required). The City's Fees & Information sheet (November 2023) says to provide a copy of liability insurance for the property in an amount of $1,000,000, kept in force for the length of the permit.

Section 9.38.050 of the Encinitas Municipal Code sets the guest limit in paragraph E and the parking rule in paragraph F. The vehicle number is written on each permit, so we cannot give one figure for the city. Paragraph X limits guest hours, and paragraph Y requires every ad to show the permit number, the maximum occupants and the maximum vehicles.

The City says the operator must resolve any complaint or issue during a rental period within one hour of receiving the complaint, under Municipal Code Section 9.38.050(D). The City runs a 24-hour hotline at (760) 249-7767, and each permit shows a 24-hour contact person.

Short-term rental operators file the transient occupancy tax report online each quarter: January to March is due April 30, April to June is due July 31, July to September is due October 31, and October to December is due January 31; payments after the due date are delinquent the next day. A report is required even when there were no rentals. The City accepts online payment through its Customer Self Service portal; credit card payments carry an extra 3.95% fee.

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.