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Is a short-term rental legal in Joshua Tree, CA?

HEAVILY REGULATED

Joshua Tree is unincorporated, so short-term rentals are governed entirely by San Bernardino County Code Chapter 84.28 (Short-Term Residential Rentals), administered by County Land Use Services/Code Enforcement (str.sbcounty.gov) — there is no separate Joshua Tree town ordinance.

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Verified2026-07-18against official sources

Joshua Tree is an unincorporated community in San Bernardino County — it has no city government and no separate municipal STR ordinance. All STR law applicable to Joshua Tree properties is San Bernardino County Code Chapter 84.28, administered by County Land Use Services Code Enforcement. Chapter 84.28 applies only within the County's designated 'Mountain and Desert Regions' (per §84.28.020 Applicability); Joshua Tree is treated by the County's own STR program materials (str.sbcounty.gov) as squarely within that coverage area. Both hosted and unhosted (whole-home) STRs are permitted subject to obtaining a County STR permit, parcel/person permit caps, and the occupancy/parking/noise operational standards described above; neither is banned outright, but both are conditioned on holding a valid permit.

What you need to operate

Short-Term Residential Rental (STR) Permit $1,144/new application (effective July 1, 2025: $600 application fee + $285 permit fee + $259 surrounding-property-owner notification fee)
San Bernardino County Land Use Services Department, Code Enforcement Division
Renewal: Annual. $550 if no changes; $859-$1,144 if there are physical or management/occupancy changes requiring inspection and/or re-notification.
One permit required per dwelling unit. Max 1 permit per parcel under 2 acres; max 2 permits per parcel of 2+ acres. An owner may not hold more than 2 STR permits county-wide unless the permit predates the July 2022 ordinance update. New applications require a passed exterior inspection, a 20-day surrounding-property-owner comment period, and a 30-day appeal period before issuance. Governed by San Bernardino County Code Chapter 84.28.
official source
Exterior/interior property inspection Cost not verified
San Bernardino County Code Enforcement Division
Renewal: Required for new applications and for renewals involving physical changes to the property; not required for a no-change annual renewal.
Inspection verifies bedroom count (for occupancy calculation), parking capacity, and compliance with fire/building/safety standards in Chapter 84.28 (smoke/CO detectors, fire extinguishers, egress, etc.). Cost is bundled into the permit application/renewal fee, not billed separately.
official source
Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) Certificate/Registration Cost not verified
San Bernardino County Treasurer-Tax Collector
Renewal: Ongoing while operating; TOT return filing is required per County Code §14.0203.
Owners/operators must register with the County Tax Collector and collect/remit the 7% TOT on all rentals of 30 consecutive days or less. No registration fee was identified in county materials reviewed.
official source

The full picture

Joshua Tree is unincorporated, so short-term rentals are governed entirely by San Bernardino County Code Chapter 84.28 (Short-Term Residential Rentals), administered by County Land Use Services/Code Enforcement (str.sbcounty.gov) — there is no separate Joshua Tree town ordinance. Whole-home and hosted rentals of 30 consecutive days or less are allowed in the County's designated Mountain and Desert Regions, which include Joshua Tree, but every dwelling unit needs a County-issued Short-Term Residential Rental (STR) Permit before it can be advertised or rented; no primary-residence requirement applies. As of July 1, 2025, a new permit application costs $1,144 ($600 application + $285 permit + $259 neighbor-notification fee), renewal (no changes) is $550, and permits must be renewed annually. A parcel under 2 acres may hold only 1 STR permit (2 acres or more allows 2), and no owner may hold more than 2 STR permits county-wide unless the permit predates the July 2022 ordinance update. Maximum occupancy is set by bedroom count (2 occupants per bedroom, plus 2) but is hard-capped at 12 occupants for any unit regardless of size, and further limited by on-site parking capacity — on-street and off-site parking are prohibited. Owners/agents must be reachable by phone 24/7 and able to reach the property within 1 hour of a complaint. Quiet hours run 10 p.m.-7 a.m. with a 45-decibel limit (55 dB other times), and all outdoor lighting must be off by 11 p.m. The unincorporated-county Transient Occupancy Tax is 7% (County Code §14.0203); a November 2024 ballot measure (Measure K) that would have raised it to 11% was rejected by voters (56.77% no). Operating without a permit draws an administrative fine of $1,000 per violation per day (or misdemeanor prosecution); for permitted units, confirmed violations escalate to $1,000 (2nd), $2,000 (3rd), and $5,000 (4th and subsequent) administrative citations, with permit suspension after two citations for the same violation type and revocation for repeat or severe violations. A County-commissioned Placeworks housing study (May 2024) specifically flagged Joshua Tree — where STRs are about 29% of the housing stock — as the one community in the Mountain/Desert regions where STR activity appears to be measurably reducing long-term housing supply, but as of this writing (2026-07-18) no STR cap or moratorium specific to Joshua Tree has been adopted as a result.

Taxes on guests & hosts

TaxRateApplies toPlatform collectsOfficial source
Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) Not verified Rent paid for occupancy of 30 consecutive calendar days or less, unincorporated San Bernardino County (including Joshua Tree), per County Code §14.0203 Not verified source

Enforcement

PenaltiesOperating an STR without a valid County permit: administrative fine of $1,000 per violation per day, or misdemeanor prosecution (up to 6 months in county jail), per San Bernardino County Code Ch. 84.28 and the County's STR FAQ. For permitted units with confirmed violations, the County's published enforcement ladder (STR Operational Standard Guide, 2024) is: Notice of Violation (1st confirmed violation, no fine) -> $1,000 administrative citation (2nd violation of any type) -> $2,000 (3rd) -> $5,000 (4th and subsequent). Two citations for the same type of violation trigger permit suspension; a permit stays suspended until violations are abated or substantive management changes are demonstrated. Revocation follows if: a violation is severe enough to require immediate vacation of the property, suspension conditions go unremedied for 60 days, the same condition recurs within 12 months, the permit is suspended twice in 24 months, or the permit was issued in error, fraud, or deceit. No new STR permit application is allowed for 12 months after a revocation is finalized. Operating an STR while suspended or revoked is itself subject to fines of up to $1,000 per day.
Platform liabilitySan Bernardino County Code §84.28.110 (Hosting Platform Requirement) requires hosting platforms, upon County request, to disclose the address of each unincorporated-county STR listing, the name of the person responsible for the listing, length of stay, and price paid. Internet-only hosting platforms that comply with this disclosure duty are presumed to be in compliance with Chapter 84.28, but remain subject to the County's administrative subpoena authority. This is a data-disclosure/subpoena-compliance obligation on platforms, not an automatic platform liability for a host's permit or tax violations.
NotesEnforcement is complaint-driven: Code Enforcement investigates reported violations (weekend complaints may get an in-person check between 7:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.) and a complaint is not itself a confirmed violation. Owners/agents must keep a written log of complaints and resolutions, available to the County on request.

Pending changes

  • A County-commissioned Placeworks technical memorandum (Housing Element Program 4, dated May 2024, delivered to San Bernardino County Land Use Services) found that STR activity is 'distinctly and negatively affecting the long-term ownership and rental housing market' specifically in the Joshua Tree community — STRs there grew from roughly 2-5% of vacation/2nd-home ownership before 2012 to over 21% by 2022, and Joshua Tree's ~1,082 STRs represent about 29% of its total housing stock, the highest share of any studied Mountain/Desert community. The memo does not itself change any law; as of 2026-07-18 no STR cap, quota, or moratorium ordinance specific to Joshua Tree or the wider Morongo Basin has been identified as adopted by the Board of Supervisors as a follow-on to this study. — proposed, 2024-05 [official]

What we could not verify (6)

  • Some third-party STR vendor guides claim San Bernardino County requires $500,000 in liability insurance for STR permits. This could not be verified in the official ordinance text (County Code §84.28.070, Conditions of Operation, checked directly via a Wayback Machine capture of the official code library) or in the County's own Operational Standards Guide or FAQ pages, none of which mention an insurance requirement. Treated as unverified and not included as a requirement.
  • Whether STR platforms (Airbnb, Vrbo, etc.) automatically collect and remit the 7% TOT on behalf of hosts in unincorporated San Bernardino County could not be confirmed via an official county source — the Tax Collector's own TOT info pages (mytaxcollector.com / sbcountyatc.gov) returned blank/unreadable content when fetched this session. `collectedByPlatform` is set to null pending direct confirmation from the Tax Collector's office.
  • County Code §84.28.110 (Hosting Platform Requirement) is summarized from a secondary web-search synthesis of the section, not from a directly fetched and read copy of the primary ordinance text — live amlegal.com bot-walled the request (Cloudflare challenge, HTTP 403) and no Wayback Machine capture of that specific section URL was found/available in the time available. The platform_liability description should be treated as lower-confidence until the primary text is directly verified.
  • The specific on-site parking ratio (e.g., a fixed number of spaces per occupant) was not reconfirmed in the current text of County Code §84.28.060(c) Parking, which requires all STR-related vehicles to be parked on-site without stating a numeric ratio in the version reviewed. An older (2017-dated) county application PDF cites a 1-space-per-4-occupants ratio, but since that document's fee schedule and occupancy formula are demonstrably outdated (superseded by the 2022 ordinance amendment and the July 2025 fee update), that ratio was not carried into this profile as a current, verified figure.
  • No official San Bernardino County source was found stating that a specific STR cap, quota, or moratorium for Joshua Tree has been formally adopted following the May 2024 Placeworks housing study; this is recorded as a proposed/pending item (see pending_changes) rather than an enacted rule, based on the absence of any adoption notice in the county sources reviewed.
  • County TOT rate: commonly reported as 7% for unincorporated San Bernardino County, but no official source stating the rate could be fetched this session (press release announcing the TOT website does not state it; TouristExpress portal 403s non-interactive access; county code host codelibrary.amlegal.com bot-walled and the TOT chapter has no accessible Wayback capture). Rate set to null until verified against County Code §14.0203 or a tax-collector document. Registration/remittance obligation itself is verified (STR Operational Standards Guide: 'Compliance with Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) is required').

Sources

A markdown mirror of this page lives at /joshua-tree-ca.md for AI tools and researchers.

STRWatch publishes educational information about short-term rental regulation, verified against the official sources linked above as of the date shown. It is not legal advice, and rules change — a city can move between our verification passes. For decisions with money at stake, confirm with the authority linked above or a local attorney.