Daly City Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Daly City and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is, you can, so long as it's the home you live in. Daly City, tucked into San Mateo County just south of San Francisco, has allowed short-term rentals since January 1, 2021, under Ordinance No. 1440, which the City Council adopted specifically to legalize home-sharing while keeping investment-property flipping out of the picture.

Unfortunately, there's a catch, and it's a real one. Daly City's ordinance draws a hard line between home-sharing and what it calls a vacation rental: a whole home you don't live in yourself, rented out purely for short stays, and that's banned outright inside city limits. So is any short-term rental on a property with an accessory dwelling unit or junior ADU on it, whether or not the ADU itself is the unit you'd rent. If you were hoping to buy a second Daly City property and run it as a full-time Airbnb, that plan doesn't work here.

So let's walk through what it takes to do this properly: what Ordinance 1440 requires in 2026, what the Short-Term Rental Permit costs, the tax layers stacked on top, how strictly the city enforces its own rules, and who to call when you get stuck on something. Every figure below comes from Daly City's own ordinance and application forms, checked in July 2026, and I'll say plainly where I couldn't confirm something. Once your numbers still pencil out as a primary-residence host, run the property through BNBCalc first to see what the after-tax math looks like.

What are short term rental (Airbnb, VRBO) regulations in Daly City,California?

That research starts with one document. Ordinance No. 1440, adopted November 23, 2020 and effective January 1, 2021, added Chapter 5.92 to the Daly City Municipal Code, and nearly everything in this guide traces back to those nine sections.

The ordinance states its own purposes up front. It aims to prevent long-term rental units from being converted into short-term ones, protect neighborhood character from the nuisances STRs can bring, generate city revenue to offset the added infrastructure cost, and give visitors an alternative to hotels. Reading the definitions that follow makes the shape of the law clear. "Home-sharing" is the legal activity: an accessory use of your own primary residence, offered for compensation, for stretches of 30 consecutive days or less. A "host" is the owner or tenant who lives there and does the home-sharing. A "vacation rental," by contrast, is a dwelling that is not a primary residence and is offered for short-term paid lodging, and the ordinance says flatly that vacation rentals "are prohibited and shall not be operated in the City." That's the whole business model question settled in one sentence: Daly City has a home-sharing law, not an Airbnb-investment-property law.

Eligible property types are single-family homes, condominiums, duplexes, townhomes, and properties with multiple rental units, though on a multi-unit property you may only host in the specific dwelling unit that's your own primary residence. Two categories are excluded no matter what. Inclusionary or income-restricted housing units are out, and so is any property that has an accessory dwelling unit or junior ADU on the parcel at all, even if the ADU itself isn't the unit you'd list. "Primary residence" isn't a loose term either. The ordinance defines it as your permanent home, documented to the Finance and Planning Departments, where you reside at least 265 days a year, and a person may only claim one.

One more wrinkle worth flagging early: properties inside Daly City's Coastal Zone, which runs along the Thornton Beach and Mussel Rock stretch of the city, sit under a different clock. The ordinance itself says it "shall not become effective" there until the California Coastal Commission certifies an amendment to Daly City's local coastal program under Public Resources Code § 30514. I couldn't confirm from any source I reached whether that certification has since happened, so if your property sits in the Coastal Zone, don't assume this ordinance applies to you yet. Call the Planning Division and ask directly.

Above the city, California itself sets no statewide short-term rental permit or registry at all. The state only authorizes cities and counties to tax stays of 30 days or less, under Revenue & Taxation Code § 7280, and leaves the permitting entirely to local ordinances like Daly City's. Our California statewide guide covers that layer in more detail if you're comparing Daly City against another city in the state.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Daly City

That prohibition on vacation rentals is the first thing to sit with before you plan anything else. There isn't really a "business" here in the sense most new hosts picture: buy a property, furnish it, run it nightly. What Daly City permits is a home-sharing arrangement layered on top of the home you already live in.

Two paths exist inside that arrangement, and the ordinance treats them differently. A hosted stay means you're on-site with your guest, except during your normal daytime or work hours, and there's no annual cap on how many nights you can host that way. An unhosted stay means you're off-site during the guest's stay, which is capped at 100 days per year. You can also run these in conjunction with a long-term tenant in the same home, since the ordinance explicitly allows a short-term rental of one or more bedrooms alongside a long-term rental of the primary residence itself.

Eligibility comes down to a short checklist, and it's worth working through before you spend any money on the application:

• You have to be the primary resident. Owner or tenant, either works, but you must live there at least 265 days a year and have no other primary residence.
• Your property can't have an ADU or JADU on it. Not just as the rental unit. If one exists anywhere on the parcel, the whole property is ineligible.
• It can't be inclusionary or income-restricted housing. Those units are carved out entirely.
• If you're a tenant, your landlord has to sign off. The application requires a notarized supplemental authorization form from the property owner, so don't assume you can do this quietly.
• A homeowners' or condo association's rules still apply. The ordinance doesn't override an HOA that already bans home-sharing, which lines up with the statewide rule under Civil Code § 4741(c) letting common-interest developments prohibit rentals of 30 days or less.

If your property fails on any of those, the honest read is that Daly City isn't the market for a nightly-rate rental play, and it's worth checking that before anything else. Daly City sits right against San Francisco and inside San Mateo County, and the San Mateo County guide and the San Francisco County guide are worth reading side by side with this one if you're weighing where in the peninsula to buy.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Daly City

Assuming your home clears that checklist, you're still looking at two separate approvals, not one. A Short-Term Rental Permit from the Planning Division and a business license from the Finance Department are both required before you can legally host, and the ordinance is explicit that you need the permit approved before the business license gets issued.

To be granted the permit, the ordinance requires a notarized affidavit confirming several things at once:

• The unit is genuinely your primary residence, with that supplemental authorization form attached if you're not the owner.
• You have a designated local responsible contact person, available 24 hours a day, who'll respond to any concern within one hour.
• The space is legally permitted and habitable based on its building-permit history.
• It meets fire and life-safety requirements, including smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
• You've signed a city-approved indemnification and hold-harmless agreement.

That's a genuinely thorough bar for a single-page rental listing, and it's designed that way on purpose.

The fees, set by the City Council and confirmed on the current application packet as of July 2026, are straightforward:

Item	Amount
New Short-Term Rental Permit	$750.00
Permit renewal	$142.50
Staff review beyond one hour	$165.00/hour
Business license	Starting at $110.00/year

Both the permit and the business license expire on September 30 every year, regardless of when you were approved, so a permit issued in June still lapses that September. Neither one transfers: the permit is tied to one specific site, automatically expires if you sell or transfer the property, and can't be assigned or loaned to anyone else. Renewal isn't automatic either. You have to show a year of compliance, submit your short-term rental records, and demonstrate you paid the transient occupancy tax you owed.

Once you're through all of that, keep in mind that one regional detail is still unresolved. If your home sits in the Coastal Zone strip along Daly City's western edge, ask the Planning Division directly whether the ordinance is actually in force at your address yet. That carve-out hasn't been resolved as far as I could confirm from any public source.

Required Documents for Daly City Short Term Rentals

Since neither fee comes back if you're denied, make sure you get the paperwork right on the first pass. Daly City's own checklist lays out exactly what has to be in the packet:

• The Short-Term Rental Permit Application itself, completed in full.
• Payment of the application fee, accepted by cash, credit card, or check payable to the City of Daly City.
• Two documents proving primary residency, from two different categories: a valid state driver's license or ID plus one of a utility bill, property tax bill, credit card bill, voter registration, or bank statement.
• A notarized supplemental authorization form, only if you're not the property owner, signed by all owners.
• A notarized Primary Residence Certification, Indemnification and Waiver Agreement, the document that carries your legal acknowledgment of the rules and your agreement to hold the city harmless.

You submit the completed packet to the Planning Division by email, mail, or in person, and once it's approved you move on to the business license through the Finance Department, which handles that piece separately, so don't expect the two offices to coordinate it for you automatically. Keep a copy of everything, too, because the ordinance requires you to preserve short-term rental records and reproduce them at renewal time.

Daly City Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all that paperwork and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to deal with, and it comes in more than one piece. The city's own charge is the Transient Occupancy Tax, governed by Chapter 3.32 of the Municipal Code and confirmed on the city's own FAQ for new rental applicants: 13% of your taxable rent, due quarterly. TOT payments follow the city's fiscal-year quarters, not the calendar year, so mark these dates down rather than guessing:

Quarter	Period covered	Payment due
1	July 1 to September 30	October 31
2	October 1 to December 31	January 31
3	January 1 to March 31	April 30
4	April 1 to June 30	July 31

Remember that a return is required every quarter even if you earned nothing that period, and penalties and interest apply to late payments. TOT is processed through a third party the city retained, the HdL Lodging Tax Processing Center, so don't be alarmed if correspondence about it doesn't come directly from City Hall.

Be aware of a detail a lot of hosts get wrong here. Airbnb collects and remits occupancy tax automatically in plenty of California jurisdictions, but Airbnb's own list of California jurisdictions where it collects doesn't include Daly City. That means TOT here is generally on you to calculate, file, and remit yourself, not something the platform quietly handles in the background. I couldn't find any source confirming Vrbo's position either way, so check directly with whichever platform you use before assuming you're covered.

On top of TOT, Daly City's business license carries its own annual fee starting at $110, billed through the same rental-property application. Above the city, California levies no state occupancy tax of its own, since Rev. & Tax. Code § 7280 only authorizes local governments to tax short stays. Larger operators may also owe the state's Tourism Assessment under the Tourism Marketing Act, though from what I can tell the current filing threshold and small-operator exemption weren't clearly documented anywhere I could verify, so I'd treat that one as worth confirming with the Office of Tourism rather than assuming it applies to a single-listing host. And whatever profit you clear is ordinary taxable income to the Franchise Tax Board, same as any other rental income in California.

Wisconsin wide Short Term Rental Rules

Every one of those local numbers sits on top of a California framework that applies no matter which city you're in, so it's worth understanding how thin that statewide layer is. Unlike some states, California has no broad preemption statute forcing cities to allow short-term rentals; cities and counties regulate under their own police power, which is exactly the authority Daly City used to write Chapter 5.92 in the first place.

Where the state does step in is at specific edges. Fines for STR-ordinance violations are capped statewide, generally $1,500 for a first infraction, $3,000 for a second within a year, and $5,000 for further violations within that year, under Government Code §§ 25132(e) and 36900(d), and the higher tiers only apply to violations that threaten public health or safety. ADUs and junior ADUs carry a statewide floor, too: Government Code § 66323(e) requires any ADU rental to run longer than 30 days, and AB 1154, signed in 2025, extends the same floor to JADUs. Daly City's blanket ban on STRs at any ADU-bearing property goes further than the state requires, but it's built on the same underlying policy.

Hosting platforms carry their own statewide obligations regardless of city. They must warn hosts that a listing could violate a lease or that insurance might not cover short-term use, under Business & Professions Code § 22592, and since July 2024 advertised nightly rates must show the full price including mandatory fees before checkout, per § 17568.6. Coastal properties get an extra layer everywhere in the state, not just in Daly City: the Coastal Commission's own December 2016 guidance treats STR regulation as "development" that has to run through the Coastal Act process, which is the exact mechanism behind Daly City's own coastal-zone carve-out mentioned earlier. And as of January 1, 2026, SB 346, the Short-Term Rental Facilitator Act of 2025, lets any city that opts in require platforms to report booking addresses and licence numbers directly. I found no source confirming whether Daly City has adopted that reporting ordinance, so I've left it as an open question rather than a fact.

Does Daly City strictly enforce STR rules?" Is Daly City Airbnb friendly?

Given the amount of statewide scaffolding behind it, Daly City's own enforcement machinery is worth taking seriously rather than treating as boilerplate. The ordinance builds in three separate consequences, and they escalate on purpose.

The first is automatic. If the same property racks up three violations between one permit issuance and the next renewal period, that property becomes ineligible for renewal at the following cycle, and eligibility only resets once that next renewal period begins. The second is discretionary. The city can suspend a permit outright for one or more violations under Chapter 8.16 of the Municipal Code, and if a permit is revoked, the host has to wait at least a full calendar year before applying again for that same property. The third only shows up if a case reaches court. Anyone convicted in a criminal case, or found liable in a civil case a law-enforcement agency brings, has to reimburse the city's full investigative costs, pay all back TOT owed, and hand over all illegally obtained rental revenue.

I want to be honest about a gap here: I could not confirm the specific dollar amount of the administrative fines Chapter 8.16 sets for a given violation. Municode blocked automated access to that chapter every time I tried it, and the mirror site I found next was down. So rather than repeat a number I never read on an official page, I'm telling you plainly it exists and pointing you to Daly City's Code Enforcement Process page and its 650-991-8260 line to get the current figure directly.

What that leaves you with is a city that enforces primarily through eligibility rather than through a payment-blocking system like some larger cities run. There's a 24/7 complaint hotline at 650-275-5899, plus an online complaint form routed through a third-party monitoring platform. And because the vacation-rental ban sits inside the eligibility gate itself, rather than waiting for an after-the-fact citation, a whole-home listing that isn't someone's primary residence is a far easier thing for a neighbor, or the city, to spot and report than a genuinely marginal violation would be. Whether that makes Daly City "Airbnb friendly" really depends on what you were hoping to run. For a homeowner who wants to rent a spare room or a converted lower level while living there, the process is workable and the rules are clear. For anyone hoping to run an investment property as a nightly rental, the honest answer is that Daly City closed that door in 2020, and nothing in the current ordinance reopens it.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Daly City

Once you've confirmed your situation fits the model above, working through these in order saves you from spending the application fee before you know it's worth it.

1. Confirm your property is eligible before anything else. Check for an existing ADU or JADU on the parcel, confirm the unit isn't inclusionary or income-restricted housing, and confirm you'll be living there at least 265 days a year.
2. Check your HOA or condo rules and your lease, if you're a tenant. Get your landlord's written, notarized authorization now rather than after you've already applied.
3. Confirm whether the Coastal Zone applies to your address. Call the Planning Division at 650-991-8033 if you're anywhere near Thornton Beach or Mussel Rock and aren't sure.
4. Decide between a hosted and unhosted stay. Hosted has no day cap; unhosted caps out at 100 days a year. Plan your booking calendar around whichever one fits your life.
5. Install the required fire and life-safety equipment and line up a local responsible contact person who isn't you and can respond within an hour, 24 hours a day.
6. Assemble your documents: identity, two proofs of primary residency from different categories, the notarized certification and indemnification agreement, and the supplemental authorization form if you're a tenant.
7. Submit the Short-Term Rental Permit Application and pay the $750 fee to the Planning Division, by email, mail, or in person.
8. Apply for the business license through the Finance Department once the permit is approved, and budget for the $110 minimum annual fee.
9. Don't forget to register for TOT and file every quarter, even in a quarter with zero bookings, using the fiscal-year due dates above.
10. Diarize September 30. Both the permit and the license expire that date every year, and renewal needs a documented year of compliance behind it.

Who to contact in Daly City about Short Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever step trips you up, four offices between them handle almost every question that comes up.

Permit applications and eligibility

The Planning Division administers Chapter 5.92 and the Short-Term Rental Permit itself.

• Address: 333 90th Street, City Hall, 2nd Floor, Daly City, CA 94015
• Phone: 650-991-8033
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• More information: dalycity.org/428/Short-Term-Rentals

Business licenses

The Business License Division, part of the Finance Department, issues the required business license once your STR permit is approved.

• Address: 333 90th Street, Finance Department, 2nd Floor, Daly City, CA 94015
• Phone: 650-991-8088 (general) or 650-991-5700 (rental-property applications specifically)
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Friday 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Transient occupancy tax

TOT is processed through the HdL Lodging Tax Processing Center on the city's behalf.

• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: 650-285-6741

Complaints and code enforcement

For nuisance and violation complaints, two contacts split the work.

• 24/7 Short-Term Rental Complaint Hotline: 650-275-5899, or the online complaint form
• Code Enforcement Division: 650-991-8260, [email protected], for property-maintenance and nuisance-abatement matters under Chapter 8.16

What do Airbnb hosts in Daly City on Reddit and Bigger Pockets think about local regulations?

Since I couldn't confirm the exact Chapter 8.16 fine schedule from an official page, it's worth being just as careful about what I can honestly claim here. I looked for a live BiggerPockets thread specific to Daly City and didn't find one, and the one Airbnb community forum thread I located, about building an "Airbnb-friendly" in-law unit in the Daly City and San Mateo County area, blocked automated access before I could read it. So what follows is my read of the regulatory shape itself rather than a survey of what hosts have posted, and I'd weigh it accordingly.

The pattern that stands out reading the ordinance itself is how deliberately narrow the legal path is. Investors scanning San Mateo County for a nightly-rate property tend to land on Daly City's dense, mostly single-family and duplex housing stock and assume it works the way Airbnb arbitrage works elsewhere, buy a place, furnish it, list the whole unit. The ADU ban and the flat vacation-rental prohibition close that door before you'd even get to the permit application, which is a stricter starting position than most Bay Area cities take. Owner-occupants weighing whether to rent a spare bedroom or a converted lower level face a much friendlier picture. The requirements (fire safety gear, a local contact person, two forms of residency proof) are real paperwork, but nothing in the ordinance looks designed to make an eligible host fail.

One theme is likely to matter for anyone with an ADU on their lot. Daly City's ban applies to the whole property, not just the accessory unit, which is stricter than the statewide floor of a simple 30-day minimum on ADU rentals. If you were counting on renting the main house short-term while a family member occupies the ADU long-term, double check that reading directly with the Planning Division, because the plain text of the ordinance reads as a blanket exclusion.

Since the room-share model is genuinely what's on offer here, it's worth sizing that against what a comparable listing earns elsewhere in the state before you commit to the paperwork. The California market data breaks nightly rates and occupancy down by area, which is a useful gut check on whether a Daly City home-share is worth the $750 and the ongoing compliance, or whether your money works harder somewhere the whole-unit model is still legal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Daly City in 2026?

Yes, but only as home-sharing in your own primary residence, not as a whole-home vacation rental. You need a Short-Term Rental Permit from the Planning Division and a business license from the Finance Department, must live in the home at least 265 days a year, and can host either an unlimited number of hosted nights or up to 100 unhosted nights annually. Properties with an ADU or JADU, and inclusionary or income-restricted units, are ineligible entirely.

How much does a Daly City Short-Term Rental Permit cost?

A new permit costs $750, plus a business license starting at $110 a year. Renewal runs $142.50 annually, and both the permit and the license expire every September 30 regardless of when you were approved. Staff review beyond one hour of processing time is billed separately at $165 an hour. None of these fees are refundable, so confirm your property's eligibility before applying.

Can you rent out an ADU on Airbnb in Daly City?

No. Daly City's ordinance bars short-term rentals on any property that has an accessory dwelling unit or junior accessory dwelling unit on it at all, even if the ADU itself isn't the unit being listed. That's stricter than California's statewide rule, which only requires ADU rentals to run longer than 30 days. If your parcel includes an ADU, the whole property is ineligible for a Daly City short-term rental permit.

How much is the transient occupancy tax in Daly City?

The city's Transient Occupancy Tax is 13% of taxable rent, filed quarterly through the HdL Lodging Tax Processing Center, with a return required every quarter even when you earned nothing. Airbnb does not appear on Airbnb's own list of California jurisdictions where it collects this tax automatically, so Daly City hosts are generally responsible for calculating and remitting it themselves rather than relying on the platform.

What happens if you operate an unpermitted short-term rental in Daly City?

The city can suspend or revoke your permit eligibility, and three violations on one property before a renewal cycle makes that property ineligible for renewal outright. A revoked permit means a mandatory one-year wait before reapplying. Anyone found liable in a criminal or civil enforcement case also has to repay the city's investigative costs, back taxes owed, and any rental revenue earned illegally, on top of whatever administrative fines Chapter 8.16 applies.

Last verified: July 2026. Every ordinance, tax rate, state law, and contact detail in this guide links to or comes from its official source.