Short-term rental permits in Los Angeles

The unit has to be inside the City of Los Angeles, where these rules apply, and it has to be your primary residence, meaning you live there more than 6 months of the year. A second home or an investment property does not qualify under the current ordinance.

A rent stabilized unit cannot be registered at all, whoever owns it. And if you rent rather than own, your landlord's written approval is one of the eligibility criteria: it has to be notarized, and it is submitted as part of this application rather than held in reserve, so arrange it before you start the form.

Registration is $89, and renewing it costs the same. An Extended Home-Sharing permit, for hosts who want more than 120 nights, is $850 added to the registration rather than instead of it, and an extended application that goes to discretionary review costs $5,660.

The largest cost is not a fee. A 14% transient occupancy tax applies to every stay of 30 nights or fewer, so it is charged on nearly every booking a host takes.

Whether a host also needs a separate city tax registration of their own, and whether a platform that collects the tax covers it, is still being checked on this site, so it is not answered here. Ask the city's Office of Finance before your first booking.

It does not make an address eligible. A registration number on a unit the ordinance excludes is not a lawful listing, and a stabilized unit cannot be registered in the first place.

It does not lift the night cap, which stays at 120 until an Extended Home-Sharing permit is granted. It does not override a lease that prohibits subletting, and it does not override a covenant on an ADU permit that restricts short-term rental.

And registering late does not undo listing early. The period a listing ran without a number is a violation in its own right, which is how most short-term rental fines begin.