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Airbnb rules for ADUs in Los Angeles

By los-angeles.com EditorialEdited by Last updated Fees checked against LA City PlanningReviewed by , Brown & Charbonneau, LLP

An ADU can be home shared in Los Angeles only where it is your primary residence. That is the difficulty: if you live in the main house and rent out the ADU, the ADU is not where you live, and the ordinance is written around the host's own home.

ADUs permitted under certain state and local programs also carry their own restrictions on short-term rental, separate from the Home-Sharing Ordinance.

On this page
  1. The primary residence rule is about the unit
  2. Permit conditions can prohibit it outright
  3. Common questions

The primary residence rule is about the unit

The test attaches to the unit being shared, not to the parcel. Living on the property is not the same as the ADU being your residence, and this is where most ADU plans fail. The short-term rental checker runs the rest of the test for the address.

Permit conditions can prohibit it outright

Some ADU approvals carry a covenant restricting short-term rental. Check the conditions on the permit for the unit itself, because they sit on top of the ordinance rather than under it.

If the unit does not exist yet, the question in front of you is a different one and it has a more encouraging answer. The ADU feasibility checker covers what the city allows at an address and what state law means it cannot refuse, which is worth settling before a covenant on a permit that has not been issued.

Can I Airbnb This Address?

Checks a specific LA address against the Home-Sharing Ordinance, including the rent stabilization exclusion that disqualifies most listings.

Common questions

I live in the front house and want to list the back unit.
The back unit is not your primary residence, so it does not qualify under the current ordinance, even though you live on the same lot. The test attaches to the unit being shared rather than to the property it stands on.
Can I Airbnb my ADU if I live in the ADU?
That is the version that can work, because then the ADU is the home you live in. The rest of the conditions still apply: registration before listing, the night cap, and, if you rent rather than own, the landlord's notarized written approval filed with the application. What you cannot then do is list the main house as well, for the same reason in reverse.
Does a garage conversion count as an ADU?
What matters is whether it is a separate permitted dwelling unit rather than what it used to be. The permit record held by Building and Safety is what settles it, and an unpermitted conversion raises a larger problem than short-term rental rules, because an unpermitted dwelling is a code issue in its own right.
Can I rent my ADU out long term instead?
That is a different question and the Home-Sharing Ordinance is not what governs it. A long-term tenancy raises its own questions instead: whether the unit is rent stabilized, what any covenant on the ADU permit says, and what your own lease allows if you are a tenant rather than the owner.

Related guides

The rules on this page were last checked by a person on October 16, 2026