Short-term rentals in Hermosa Beach, explained properly.

Section 5.84.030(A)(2) lists the local emergency contact among the information to be provided when a Coastal Zone short-term rental is registered. The registration also asks for the property owner's contact information (Sec. 5.84.030(A)(1)).

Section 5.84.030(A)(3) requires the affirmation that all safety equipment identified by the City on the short-term rental registration portal is present in the unit or dwelling and readily available. The portal's equipment list hasn't been reviewed yet.

Section 3.32.060 requires each operator of a hotel or short-term rental renting to transients to register it with the Tax Administrator, within 30 days after commencing business (or after the chapter's effective date, whichever is later), and to obtain a transient occupancy registration certificate to be posted in a conspicuous place on the premises. The certificate text says it evidences registration for transient occupancy tax purposes only and is not a land-use permit or other regulatory authorization.

Section 3.32.070 requires each operator to file a return, and remit the tax collected, on or before the last day of the month following the close of each calendar quarter, or at the close of any shorter reporting period the Tax Administrator sets. Section 3.32.080 adds a penalty of 10 percent of the tax for failing to remit on time, a second 10 percent penalty after 30 more days and a further 10 percent for each 30 days after that, 25 percent more for fraud, and interest at 0.5 percent per month.

Section 5.84.050 makes the Short-Term Rental Facilitator Act of 2025 (Government Code sections 50990 to 50996) apply in the City. A facilitator must, on request, report the physical address, including the nine-digit ZIP code, of each short-term rental in the reporting period. If that is not enough to identify a rental, the City may ask for the assessor parcel number, the listing URL and information identifying an accessory dwelling unit, guest house or single unit of a timeshare or multifamily project. The City may require reporting no more often than every three months within a twelve-month period, or monthly if it requires monthly remittance of the tax. The City may audit a facilitator's records of tax received if the facilitator collects and remits the tax, at the City's cost. Each listing must include any applicable local license number and any transient occupancy tax certification issued by the City.

Section 5.84.040 says any nuisances arising from the operation of a short-term rental are subject to enforcement under Chapter 8.28 of the Hermosa Beach Municipal Code and any other applicable provision of the Code. We haven't reviewed Chapter 8.28 yet.

Section 5.84.060 says violations of Chapter 5.84 are punishable under Chapter 1.10, Administrative Citations, except where it provides otherwise. Section 3.32.150 makes a violation of the transient occupancy tax chapter, including failing to register or file a return, a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $500, imprisonment in the City jail for not more than six months, or both. We haven't reviewed Chapter 1.10 yet, so the citation amounts are not shown.

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.