Short-term rentals in Santa Monica, explained properly.

A host may not book or rent to more than two groups of visitors for any given date. Occupancy, counting the host, other residents and all visitors, is limited to the lesser of ten persons, one person per 200 square feet, or two persons (excluding minor children) per bedroom. Visitors are limited to one vehicle per bedroom rented, or, in a preferential parking zone, two vehicles using visitor permits (section 6.20.020(a)(6)-(8)).

The host must keep liability insurance for home-sharing of at least $500,000 or book every stay through a platform that provides equal or greater coverage, and must provide fire extinguishers, smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors (section 6.20.020(a)(5), (9)).

Section 6.20.022 requires each home-share advertisement to include the City business license number, that the host lives on site and is present throughout the stay, the permitted occupancy and number of visitor vehicles, and that no more than two groups can be booked for any date. A host may post no more than two listings for the home-share on each platform, and only two listings may be booked for any date. No signs advertising the home-share may be posted outside the home or on the lot.

For home-sharing, an accessory dwelling unit that received its building permit on or after March 31, 2017 is a separate dwelling unit (section 6.20.010(a)), so the host must live in that unit to home-share it. Otherwise an accessory building on the same parcel is treated as part of the main dwelling unit (section 6.20.010(d)). A 2023 legalization provision (section 6.20.110) lets a newer ADU be treated as part of the main home if the City had issued a home-share permit for it and later denied renewal because the rules changed or the permit was issued in error, and the unit has no outstanding code violation for unpermitted work. State ADU rules also apply (see below).

Section 6.68.025 (added by Measure CS, November 8, 2022) imposes a tax of 17% of the total amount paid for room rental for the use of a home-share; other hotels pay 15% under section 6.68.020. The Finance Department says the 17% home-share rate took effect March 1, 2023. Hosts must collect and remit the tax, in coordination with any booking platform, which is responsible for collecting and remitting it as the host's agent. The Finance page also lists a Tourism Marketing District assessment based on hotel average daily rate; whether it applies to home-shares is not stated, so it is not shown here.

Reports and remittances are due the first business day of each month for tax collected in the preceding month (section 6.68.050). Tax not remitted by the last day of the month in which it is due is delinquent and draws a 10% penalty, with an additional 10% penalty if it remains unpaid for more than 30 days (section 6.68.060). The Finance Department's page gives the same schedule and penalties.

Section 6.20.100 makes a violation by a host, by anyone (other than a platform) who facilitates a violation, or by a platform that breaks its section 6.20.050 duties an infraction punishable by a fine up to $750 or a misdemeanor punishable by a fine up to $1,000, up to six months in county jail, or both. Violators are also subject to administrative fines and penalties, and anyone found in violation must reimburse investigative costs, pay all back occupancy taxes and remit illegally obtained rental revenue to the City. The City suspended enforcement of its short-term rental prohibition after the January 2025 regional fires so displaced people could find housing; its fire resources page says enforcement of the law prohibiting short-term rentals and regulating home-shares resumed April 19, 2025.

Part of Santa Monica is in the California coastal zone; the City says its Coastal Zone takes in much of Downtown, including Third Street Promenade. In May 2026 the City Council authorized a memorandum of understanding with the California Coastal Commission to complete the City's Local Coastal Program (a Land Use Plan and an Implementation Plan, the coastal zoning ordinance), described as the path toward certification of the City's first comprehensive program, with the goal of certifying it by the end of 2027. The Coastal Commission's statewide position on short-term rental rules in the coastal zone is shown below under state law. No official source we read says how the coastal program will treat home-sharing or vacation rentals; check with the City before relying on the vacation rental prohibition for a property in the coastal zone.

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.