Is short-term rental legal in Los Angeles, CA?
Home-sharing means renting all or part of your primary residence for 30 or fewer consecutive days. Only your primary residence qualifies; rent-stabilized (RSO) units are barred outright.
Rules checked October 2026
Run the Los Angeles verdict on your facts
| What counts as a short-term rental | Home-sharing means renting all or part of your primary residence for 30 or fewer consecutive days. Only your primary residence qualifies; rent-stabilized (RSO) units are barred outright. |
|---|---|
| Permit / license | Home-Sharing Registration + Transient Occupancy (TOT) Registration Certificate — issued by LA City Planning (home-sharing) + Office of Finance (TOT) |
| Fee | $89 per year |
| Renewal | Annual renewal; extended home-sharing (over the cap) is a separate discretionary approval of roughly $850 |
| Primary-residence rule | Primary residence only — the home you live in at least 6 months of the year. RSO (rent-controlled) units never qualify. |
| Whole-home rental | Whole-home (unhosted) stays are allowed up to the yearly cap once registered; hosted stays (you present) do not count against it. |
| Night cap | 120 nights/year (unhosted) |
| Guests / occupancy | Per the municipal code's occupancy rules for the unit |
| Minimum stay | None stated for registered home-sharing |
| Zoning | No zoning ban for registered primary-residence home-sharing; RSO units and non-primary homes are excluded by the ordinance itself. |
| Density / scarcity | No density cap found in the current rules |
| Fines | Fines run up to about $2,000 per day of violation (CPI-adjusted schedules have cited ≈$2,060/day in 2025), plus misdemeanor exposure |
| Taxes | A TOT Registration Certificate is required and the 14% transient occupancy tax must be collected or confirmed collected by the platform. |
| Platform duties | Platforms must not book unregistered or over-cap listings and share data with the city. |
| State layer | No state preemption — California is the most locally regulated STR state in the country. Coastal-zone rules can add a Coastal Commission layer in some cities. |
What trips hosts in Los Angeles
- The 120-night cap counts only nights you are away; hosted nights are unlimited once registered.
- Renters: home-sharing registration requires your landlord's approval — the city bakes landlord consent into the law, in the form of a notarized affidavit.
The private layer still applies
These are the city's rules. Your HOA, condo board, lease or mortgage can say no on top of them — that layer is printed as a warning in the checker, never merged into the city's verdict.
Sources: LAMC § 12.22 A.32 (Home-Sharing Ordinance, Ord. 185,931) · LA City Planning Home-Sharing program. Rules checked October 2026.