—Short-term rental rules · Los Angeles
LA’s Home-Sharing Ordinance allows STRs only at the host’s primary residence, capped at 120 nights per year unless the host qualifies for an Extended Home-Sharing permit (more review, more requirements).
Last reviewed against current municipal sources on 2026-05-20.
01The Los Angeles context
The Ordinance is enforced by the Department of City Planning against the host’s primary-residence claim — utility bills, driver’s license, voter registration. Investor-owned whole-homes are explicitly outside the program; whole-unit condo rentals in HOAs that already restrict STRs face a second layer.
The 120-night cap matters even more on Westside listings, where booking density makes the cap a real constraint. Extended Home-Sharing relaxes it but adds a hearing-style permit process.
Local rules change — confirm current requirements with your city before you list. This page is a market-context summary and a house-rules starting point, not a legal source or a substitute for Los Angeles's own California guidance.
02The house-rules angle
An LA host should be specific about which permit tier the listing is (standard 120-night or Extended), the primary-residence framing, and the rules an HOA might enforce on top of the city. Signed acknowledgment makes the layered posture visible to the guest on the way in.
Hollywood and Westside markets draw event traffic; the no-event rule needs to be specific, not vague. Beach communities (Venice, Santa Monica) layer their own coastal-zone considerations on top.
These are starting points to adapt — not legal advice, and not specific to any one California ordinance. Edit the wording and any amounts to your property and what your platform and city allow.
03Put the rules on the file
A house-rules block in your listing is disclosure — it proves the rule existed. It does not prove the guest who booked your Los Angeles place ever saw that specific rule or agreed to it. What sits in the file as evidence after an incident, and what shows good-faith compliance in a regulated market, is acknowledgment: the guest confirming each rule and each fee individually, with a timestamp, before check-in.
PreArrive turns the tuned rules above into a packet the guest signs in about ninety seconds. They tap each rule and each fee to acknowledge it, draw a signature, and you get a PDF certificate — disclosure and acknowledgment in one file, with a two-event audit trail and a content hash. It is evidence, not a verdict: it does not litigate a dispute or decide a code question for you, but it puts a traceable record behind every stay.
Build a packet from these rules once, send it on every reservation. Free covers one property. No credit card.
04Verify with the source
This page is a plainspoken summary. The municipal sources below are where the actual rules live. If something here disagrees with the source, the source is right — let us know and we'll re-review.
Page reviewed 2026-05-20.
05Other regulated markets
The same disclosure-versus-acknowledgment gap shows up across every active STR market. Each city below has a plain-language local summary and a house-rules angle tuned to that market.
Want all of them in one place? See PreArrive for regulated-market hosts.
06Keep reading