Short-term rentals in Marin County (unincorporated areas), explained properly.

The chapter says short term rentals are a residential use of property.

On a timely renewal application the license stays effective until the renewal is approved or denied. A license that is not timely renewed is not renewed, and an unrenewed license is not reinstated unless licenses are available within the cap; the owner may join the wait list. A renewal is denied if there have been more than three verified substantial violations of the chapter or the license during the previous term. A license for a multi-family dwelling or condominium unit cannot be renewed.

No application is accepted or approved for a multi-family or condominium unit that was not legally operating as of January 1, 2024. For one that was, the license expires two years from issuance and ceases operation then, unless revoked earlier.

These are Sec. 5.41.060(2)(ii) and (iii). State law on short-term rental of ADUs and junior ADUs is in the California state rules on this page.

The same list also bars certain accessory dwelling units and multi-family or condominium units (see those rules).

See the one-license-per-owner rule for the grandfather period.

Wait-listed licenses are issued in the order applications were received, except that a lottery ranks all applications submitted within the first thirty days after the county began accepting first round applications. Only applications for legal rentals in existence on January 1, 2024 were to be accepted before July 1, 2025. The application procedures are published by the Community Development Agency; we haven't reviewed them yet.

Owners with less than a full fee interest must show that everyone with an interest consents. Properties on a local water provider must supply water use bills. The agency's administrative procedures set out the full list of information for a complete application.

This applies to rentals served by a local water provider, which must supply water use bills or other documentation with the application.

Fees are in addition to any other license, permit, certificate or fee required by the Marin County Code or other law. Confirm the current fee schedule with the Community Development Agency.

The owner is responsible for the contact person's or host's compliance with the chapter. The contact's name, phone and email go on the exterior sign and in the neighbor notice.

This applies to any online or printed advertisement.

We haven't reviewed Secs. 24.04.340 and 24.04.380 yet, so the number of required spaces is not shown here.

We haven't reviewed Sec. 6.70.030 yet, so its limits and hours are not shown here.

If the Community Development Agency finds the service level insufficient, the owner must arrange a higher level. The owner is responsible for guests complying with Chapter 7.00 (Solid Waste Collection, Diversion, and Disposal).

Alarms must be installed in accordance with the California Building Code. Evacuation maps come from Fire Safe Marin or the County of Marin.

Suspension and revocation carry the due process and appeal rights of Chapters 1.05, 1.06 and 1.07. Substantial violations are those for which a complaint was received and a code enforcement case verified the violation.

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.