STRWATCH.AI 50/50 MARKETS · UPDATED 2026-07-18 · ALL CITIES
STRWATCH.AI / CA / Santa Monica

Is a short-term rental legal in Santa Monica, CA?

BANNED

Santa Monica bans unhosted whole-home short-term rentals (called 'vacation rentals' in the code) outright for stays of 30 consecutive days or less — no path to legalize one exists.

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Verified2026-07-18against official sources

SMMC Chapter 6.20 defines 'vacation rental' (whole-home, no host on-site) as flatly prohibited for stays of 30 consecutive days or less — there is no permit or license that legalizes it. 'Home-sharing' is the only lawful short-term rental: the host must be an owner or long-term (12+ month) resident for whom the unit is their primary residence, must hold a City home-sharing permit and business license, and must physically live on-site throughout every visitor's stay. Occupancy is capped at the LESSER of (1) 10 total persons (host + residents + visitors), (2) 1 person per 200 sq ft of the unit, or (3) 2 persons per bedroom excluding minor children — so max_guests=10 is a ceiling, not a guarantee. A host may not be host for more than one home-share, and may post at most 2 listings per platform with at most 2 groups booked for any given date. Stays of 31+ consecutive days fall outside the ordinance and TOT entirely.

What you need to operate

Home-Sharing Permit and Business License (combined application) $582.25 initial ($75.00 minimum license tax + $44.85 processing fee + $458.40 home-share review fee + $4.00 CASP fee)
City of Santa Monica, Business License Division / Code Enforcement
Renewal: Annual; permit and license year runs July 1–June 30, renewal application due each July 1. Renewal requires a signed declaration of continued compliance for the prior year and (for non-owner hosts) renewed proof of ongoing 12-month residency.
Issued together under SMMC Sections 6.20.020(a)(1), 6.20.021, and 6.04. The City's 2019 'Home-Sharing Ordinance Rules and Regulations' document cites a flat $100 initial / $50 renewal application fee, but SMMC 6.20.021(b)/6.20.090 lets Council set the fee by resolution, and the current process-explainer page (fetched 2026-07-18) shows the $582.25 itemized total superseding that 2019 figure; a distinct renewal-year total was not found separately (see needs_review).
official source
Liability Insurance Cost not verified
City of Santa Monica (SMMC 6.20.020(a)(9))
Renewal: Must be maintained continuously while the permit is active
Minimum $500,000 liability coverage for home-sharing, unless every booking runs through a hosting platform that itself provides equal or greater coverage — the City names Airbnb and HomeAway/VRBO as platforms currently doing so. Verified via a Wayback Machine capture (timestamp 2026-03-11) of this official ecode360.com URL, the City's designated municipal-code hosting platform; the live page returned an HTTP 403 bot-wall on direct fetch.
official source
Basic Health & Safety Equipment Cost not verified
City of Santa Monica (SMMC 6.20.020(a)(5))
Renewal: Ongoing condition of the permit
Fire extinguisher, smoke detector(s), and carbon monoxide detector(s) required in the home-share; hosts in multi-story multifamily buildings must also give visitors emergency-exit-route information. Verified via the same Wayback capture (2026-03-11) noted above.
official source
City Home-Share Registry Listing Cost not verified
City of Santa Monica
Renewal: Automatic upon permit issuance/renewal; hosts must submit each listing's URL to the Code Enforcement Division within 10 days of permit approval or of any listing change
SMMC 6.20.020(b) requires the City to maintain a public registry of authorized home-shares; SMMC 6.20.050(c) bars hosting platforms from completing any booking for a property not on that registry. This registry/platform-gatekeeping mechanism is what the Ninth Circuit upheld in HomeAway.com, Inc. v. City of Santa Monica (2019).
official source

The full picture

Santa Monica bans unhosted whole-home short-term rentals (called 'vacation rentals' in the code) outright for stays of 30 consecutive days or less — no path to legalize one exists. The only legal short-term rental is hosted 'home-sharing': a permitted host renting one or more bedrooms in their primary residence while living on-site for the entire visitor stay. Home-sharing requires an annual City home-sharing permit plus business license (initial cost $582.25 as of 2026: $75 minimum license tax + $44.85 processing fee + $458.40 home-share review fee + $4.00 CASP fee), $500,000 liability insurance (waived if booking exclusively through Airbnb or HomeAway/VRBO, which provide equivalent coverage), smoke/CO detectors and a fire extinguisher, and compliance with occupancy caps (lesser of 10 people, 1 per 200 sq ft, or 2 per bedroom excluding minors) and a 2-booking/2-listing limit per date. Hosts must collect and remit a 17% Transient Occupancy Tax (effective March 1, 2023, up from 14%, per voter-approved Measure CS; hotels/motels pay 15%). Permits run July 1–June 30 and require renewal. Violations are an infraction (fine up to $750) or misdemeanor (fine up to $1,000 and/or up to 6 months in jail), plus administrative fines, cost recovery, and disgorgement of illegal rental revenue; two final citations in a permit term trigger a 30-day-minimum suspension and three trigger revocation. Hosting platforms are legally barred from completing bookings for any home-share not on the City's registry and must collect/remit TOT as the host's agent — a scheme the Ninth Circuit unanimously upheld against Airbnb and HomeAway's Communications Decency Act and First Amendment challenges in 2019.

Taxes on guests & hosts

TaxRateApplies toPlatform collectsOfficial source
Transient Occupancy Tax (Home-Share rate) 17% of total room rental amount Home-share stays of 30 consecutive days or less; occupants staying 31+ consecutive days are exempt Yes source

Enforcement

PenaltiesPer SMMC 6.20.100(a) (verified via Wayback capture, 2026-03-11, of the official ecode360.com code page — direct fetch returned HTTP 403): violating Chapter 6.20 is an infraction punishable by a fine up to $750, or a misdemeanor punishable by a fine up to $1,000 and/or up to 6 months in County Jail. Hosts are separately subject to administrative fines/penalties under SMMC Chapters 1.09 and 1.10 (base administrative citation fine of $75 for a first violation, rising for repeat violations within 36 months, per the City's Administrative Citation Fine Schedule — this specific dollar schedule could not be independently re-verified this session, see needs_review). Convicted/adjudicated violators must reimburse the City's investigative costs, pay all back TOT, and disgorge illegally obtained rental revenue (6.20.100(b)). A home-share with 2 final citations in a permit term faces suspension of at least 30 days (or until the citation is resolved, whichever is longer); 3 final citations trigger revocation; a single citation for conduct endangering public health/safety can trigger immediate revocation (6.20.100 / 2019 Rules and Regulations, Section IX).
Platform liabilityHosting platforms are the host's legal agent for TOT collection and remittance (SMMC 6.20.050(a)), must periodically disclose listing/host/price/length-of-stay data to the City (6.20.050(b)), and — the central enforcement mechanism — may not complete any booking transaction for a property that is not on the City's home-share registry (6.20.050(c)); platforms that comply with these duties get a 'safe harbor' presumption of compliance (6.20.050(e)) but remain liable for violating them. This scheme was challenged by Airbnb and HomeAway and unanimously upheld by the Ninth Circuit in HomeAway.com, Inc.; Airbnb Inc. v. City of Santa Monica, Nos. 18-55367, 18-55805, 18-55806 (9th Cir., filed March 13, 2019) — the panel held the ordinance was not preempted by the Communications Decency Act and did not violate the First Amendment. Verified directly against the court's own published opinion PDF.
NotesThe City's home-sharing press releases describing the 9th Circuit litigation and a 2019 Airbnb settlement (santamonica.gov/press/... URLs) could not be fetched this session — both direct fetch and Wayback Machine captures of those exact URLs returned only the City's Cloudflare bot-wall interstitial page, not article content. The underlying legal facts were instead verified directly against the court's own opinion PDF (cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov) and the operative code section, so no needs_review entry was needed for the case outcome itself.

What we could not verify (4)

  • The $582.25 initial home-share license/permit fee total was verified against the current santamonica.gov process-explainer page (2026-07-18), but I could not independently verify a separate, current renewal-year fee total — the 2019 Rules PDF's $100 initial/$50 renewal figures appear superseded by Council resolution and should not be relied on.
  • The administrative citation fine schedule under SMMC Chapters 1.09/1.10 (base $75 first-violation figure and escalation percentages surfaced via web search) could not be fetched from an official source this session — finance.smgov.net/Media/Default/fines/Administrative.pdf redirected to a generic finance department landing page instead of the PDF, and a Wayback capture of the original PDF URL was found but not verified in time. Treat the $75 base administrative fine as unconfirmed.
  • Whether Santa Monica's Tourism Marketing District (TMD) per-room-night assessment (added on top of TOT, tiered by average daily rate) applies to home-shares or only to traditional hotels/motels was not conclusively confirmed from an official source; it has been left out of the taxes[] array pending that confirmation.
  • Two Santa Monica press releases about the Airbnb/HomeAway litigation and a 2019 Airbnb settlement (santamonica.gov/press/...) could not be fetched — both live and Wayback-archived versions returned only the site's bot-wall interstitial rather than article content. The core legal facts they'd support were instead confirmed directly against the 9th Circuit's own opinion PDF, so this does not affect any claim in the main fields, but the settlement terms specifically (santamonica.gov/press/2019/12/10/settlement-with-airbnb-guarantees-compliance-with-home-sharing-ordinance) were not verified and are not referenced above.

Sources

A markdown mirror of this page lives at /santa-monica-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.