Westminster, California Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Westminster, California and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Unfortunately, the honest answer is no. Westminster, the Orange County city best known for Little Saigon, banned short-term rentals of residential property outright back in 2020, and its own Planning Division still puts it in plain language: "No, the City does not currently allow short term rentals." That's not a soft restriction you can work around with the right paperwork. There's no permit to apply for, because the use itself is prohibited.

A divided City Council approved that ban on May 27, 2020, voting 3-0-2 to "affirmatively" prohibit renting a residential dwelling for stays of fewer than 30 days, according to the Orange County Tribune's coverage of that meeting. Mayor Tri Ta and two colleagues carried the vote; two more abstained rather than block it. Councilmember Kimberly Ho noted at the time that the ordinance "can always be amended or repealed later," though six years on, nobody has. The one real wrinkle is Midway City, an unincorporated Orange County pocket that sits inside Westminster's footprint but was never annexed into it, so the ban doesn't reach it.

So this guide covers a closed market rather than a permitting process: why the ban exists, what still applies to the handful of properties it doesn't reach, the taxes and enforcement mechanics behind it, and who to call if your situation is different from what's described here. Every fact below comes from Westminster's, Orange County's, or California's own pages, checked in July 2026. Assuming you're deciding between a Westminster property and a market where nightly rentals are legal, run both through BNBCalc first, because that comparison matters more here than in almost any other market we cover.

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

That comparison only makes sense once you understand how closed Westminster is, because "no permit exists" is a very different problem from "the permit is expensive" or "the cap is full." The ordinance the City Council adopted in 2020, since codified in the Municipal Code as Chapter 9.74, Transient Uses Including Short-Term Rentals, doesn't regulate nightly rentals. It prohibits them. There's no tiered system, no waitlist, and no owner-occupied carve-out published anywhere I could find. Airbnb, Vrbo, and every other booking platform are off the table for a Westminster address, at least the way most investors picture the business: buy or convert a property, list it, and collect nightly bookings.

None of that is a recent development, either. The council's 3-0-2 vote happened in May 2020, and I found no news coverage, council record, or city page suggesting it's been revisited since. A few third-party listing sites claim Westminster "recently approved" short-term rental regulations, but I couldn't verify that anywhere official, it contradicts the city's own current FAQ page, and it reads like boilerplate copied across many different cities' pages. Take it with real skepticism if you see it elsewhere. The state framework above Westminster doesn't force a different answer, either: California has no law compelling a city to allow short-term rentals. Revenue and Taxation Code § 7280 does the opposite, handing cities and counties broad authority to tax and regulate stays of 30 days or less however they see fit, up to and including banning them outright. Our California short-term rental guide covers that statewide picture in full, and it's worth a look, since plenty of California cities land somewhere between Westminster's total ban and a wide-open market, and knowing where on that spectrum you're looking matters before you buy anything.

The one meaningful exception is geographic rather than regulatory: Midway City. It's an unincorporated slice of Orange County that sits inside Westminster's footprint but was never part of the city at all. Westminster's own history page explains why. In 1957, a plan to incorporate a single "Tri City" out of Westminster, Barber City, and Midway City fell apart when Midway City withdrew before the vote, and it's remained unincorporated ever since. Westminster's own FAQ confirms the ban "does not extend to Midway City," and since a city's police power stops at its own boundary, a Midway City address plays by Orange County's rules instead, which is a real, legal situation covered in the next few sections.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Westminster

Unfortunately for almost everyone reading this, there's no business to start inside Westminster's own boundaries. If you were planning to buy a house or condo here, furnish it, and run it as a nightly rental, that plan is illegal today and there's no application, fee, or LLC structure that changes it. The zoning code has no short-term rental use permit to apply for, because the City Council removed the possibility entirely rather than creating a licensing tier for it.

What's left are two narrower paths, and it's worth being honest about how narrow they are. The first is the 30-day floor built into California's own tax and regulation authority. Revenue and Taxation Code § 7280 only reaches stays of 30 days or less, so a furnished rental of 31 nights or more sits outside the short-term rental framework everywhere in the state, Westminster included, and falls under ordinary landlord-tenant law instead. That's a real, legal option if the numbers work at monthly rather than nightly rates. The second path is Midway City itself, and it only applies if your property is there rather than in Westminster proper. Orange County requires a short-term rental permit for unincorporated properties, approved by the Director of OC Community Resources/Development Services, renewable every two years, and the county's own program handout lays out real operating conditions: a minimum of two off-street parking spaces, occupancy capped at two people per bedroom plus two more, no exterior signage advertising the rental, and quiet hours under the county's Noise Control Ordinance holding exterior noise to 55 decibels from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and 50 decibels overnight. Accessory dwelling units are excluded from short-term use entirely, and a change of ownership terminates the permit outright, so it doesn't transfer with a sale.

Do check which jurisdiction your address sits in before you get attached to either option, since Midway City and Westminster addresses can look nearly identical on a map. Westminster's Planning Division will confirm it for you: email Victoria Toris at [email protected] and ask for a letter verifying your property isn't within city limits. Make sure you get that in writing before you spend anything on an Orange County application, because the county process assumes you're already eligible, and it won't refund a fee if it turns out you're not.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Westminster

Assuming you clear that jurisdiction test and your address is still Westminster proper rather than Midway City, the honest answer on licensing is short: there isn't one. Westminster issues no short-term rental license, permit, or registration of any kind, because Chapter 9.74 removed the use rather than regulating it. There's nobody at City Hall to apply to, no fee schedule to budget for, and no renewal cycle to track, since none of that machinery was ever built for a use the city doesn't allow.

Inside Midway City, the licensing authority shifts entirely to Orange County rather than Westminster, and it works more like a normal municipal permit. A property owner applies through myOCeServices.ocgov.com, the permit is approved by the county's Development Services Director, and it lasts two years before you're expected to renew it. I could not find a current application fee or a stated processing timeline on any official page I could open, so I'm not going to guess at either one. Call Orange County Development Services directly and confirm both before you count on a specific number, since guessing wrong here costs you real money either way.

Required Documents for Westminster Short Term Rentals

Since there's no Westminster license to gather paperwork for, the only documents that matter here fall into two very different tracks, depending on which side of the Midway City line you're on. If you think you might qualify for the Midway City exception, the first document you need isn't a form at all: it's that confirmation letter from Westminster's Planning Division verifying your address sits outside the city. Request it before anything else, because everything downstream depends on it.

That settled, and you're ready to apply through Orange County, the county's own handout still lists a real checklist:

• A letter outlining the proposed short-term rental use and operation. This is your description of how the property will run day to day.
• A floorplan of the residence. The county uses it to confirm bedroom count against the occupancy and parking limits.
• A copy of a blank lease agreement. Not a signed one, just the template you intend to use with guests.
• Proof of ownership. Standard for any property-based county permit.

Keep in mind that a change of ownership terminates the permit automatically, so none of this paperwork transfers if you sell. A buyer has to start the whole process over, which is worth mentioning to anyone you might sell to eventually.

Westminster Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all of that and are able to operate legally, either through the 31-day floor or a genuine Midway City permit, there's still tax to work out, and it looks different depending on which path you took. Three layers stack here, though only one of them realistically applies to most readers of this guide.

Layer	Rate	Applies to a Westminster host?
California transient occupancy tax (state)	None; the state levies no occupancy tax of its own	N/A everywhere in California
Westminster's own Transient Occupancy Tax	8%, per the city's own financial reporting	Only to properly licensed hotels, motels, and similar transient lodging; moot for a residential short-term rental, since none can legally operate
Orange County TOT, unincorporated areas including Midway City	10% of the rent	Yes, if your property is in Midway City

The state row is simple: California has no occupancy tax of its own, and Rev. & Tax. Code § 7280 leaves the whole thing to cities and counties. The Westminster row is the one worth flagging honestly: I found the city's 8% rate independently on the Orange County Taxpayers Association's city-by-city tax database, but couldn't open the city's own code chapter directly to confirm it against the primary text, so treat that figure as well-sourced rather than verified firsthand. It's largely academic anyway, since it applies to permitted hotels and motels rather than to the residential rentals this guide is about.

The row that matters most is the county one. If you're operating under a genuine Midway City permit, you register for a TOT certificate with the Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector and collect 10% of the rent from every guest, reporting and remitting it quarterly. That office can confirm your specific obligations at (714) 834-6143 or [email protected]. Remember that your rental income is also ordinary taxable income at the state and federal level regardless of which path you're on, even though that's outside the scope of any local ordinance.

Westminster wide Short Term Rental Rules

Taxes are the least of it, though. The substantive rule underneath all of this fits in one line: any rental of a residential dwelling in Westminster for a stay under 30 days is prohibited, regardless of whether you're present during the stay, and regardless of what kind of dwelling it is. A few things follow from that one rule that are worth spelling out:

• The ban is citywide, not zone-by-zone. It doesn't matter whether the property sits in a single-family neighborhood, a multifamily building, or a mixed-use corridor. None of Westminster's zoning districts carve out an exception.
• There's no hosted-stay exception publicized anywhere. Unlike cities that allow a room rental as long as the owner is present, Westminster's own FAQ makes no such distinction; it states flatly that the city doesn't allow short-term rentals.
• Midway City is excluded entirely, not restricted differently. It isn't a stricter version of Westminster's rule. Orange County's separate permit system, covered above, governs it instead.
• A stay of 30 nights or more isn't a short-term rental at all, in Westminster or anywhere else in California, and falls under regular landlord-tenant law rather than any transient-use ordinance.
• HOAs have their own separate authority. Even where a city allows short stays, Civil Code § 4741(c) lets a homeowners association prohibit rentals of 30 days or less on its own. That's redundant inside Westminster city limits, since the city's ban already covers it, but it matters for any Midway City property that also happens to sit in an HOA.

One more layer worth knowing about, even though it rarely comes up here: state law also requires that any accessory dwelling unit approved under Gov. Code § 66323(e) be rented for longer than 30 days, and a 2025 law extended the same floor to junior ADUs. In Westminster that's belt-and-suspenders on top of an existing citywide ban, but it's the rule that would apply even somewhere with a more permissive main ordinance.

Does Westminster strictly enforce STR rules?" Is Westminster Airbnb friendly?

Given that one-line rule, enforcement is more about catching violations of a ban than administering a permit program, and Westminster's process for that runs through Code Enforcement rather than through Planning. Anyone can report a suspected illegal rental through the city's 24-hour complaint line at (714) 548-3246, by emailing [email protected], or through the MyWestminster mobile app. The department's own language is that a property found out of compliance is "subject to further enforcement, which may include fines and legal action." I couldn't find a published fine schedule specific to short-term rentals on any page I could open, so I won't repeat the "$100 to $2,000 per day" figure some aggregator sites throw around, since I can't verify it against anything official. State law does bound the outcome either way. Government Code § 36900(d) caps fines for short-term-rental-ordinance infractions at $1,500 for a first violation, $3,000 for a second within a year, and $5,000 for anything after that, with the higher tiers reserved for violations that threaten public health or safety.

So, is Westminster Airbnb friendly? No, not remotely, and it's one of the more closed markets in Orange County rather than merely a restrictive one. You'll still occasionally spot a listing that claims a Westminster address on Airbnb or Vrbo, since platforms don't independently verify every city's zoning, but running one carries real legal exposure with no permit behind it to fall back on. Unlike New York City, which publishes detailed enforcement statistics and has filed multi-million-dollar lawsuits against illegal operators, Westminster hasn't put out anything comparable that I could find; its public record here is a single 2020 ordinance rather than an ongoing stream of enforcement data. That's worth reading as a gap in transparency rather than as a sign the rule doesn't get enforced.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Westminster

Given everything above, the realistic path forward depends entirely on which of two situations you're in, so work through these steps in order rather than skipping to whichever one looks easiest.

1. Confirm your actual jurisdiction first. Email Victoria Toris at [email protected] and ask for written confirmation of whether your address sits in Westminster or in Midway City. Don't spend money on anything else until you have this answer.
2. If you're in Westminster proper, decide between two non-nightly options. Either target the 30-plus-night furnished rental market, which sits outside the short-term rental framework entirely, or hold the property for long-term tenancy and look at other markets for a nightly-rate business. Run both scenarios through BNBCalc before committing to either.
3. If you're in Midway City, design the operation around Orange County's actual limits. Two off-street parking spaces, occupancy of two guests per bedroom plus two more, no exterior signage, and quiet hours enforced under the county's noise ordinance. An ADU can't be part of the plan.
4. Apply through myOCeServices.ocgov.com with your operating letter, floorplan, blank lease template, and proof of ownership, and budget for a roughly two-year renewal cycle once approved.
5. Register for Orange County's Transient Occupancy Tax before your first guest checks in, and set up quarterly filing with the county Treasurer-Tax Collector.
6. Keep the county's two-violation threshold in mind. Two ordinance violations suspend short-term rental operation for up to a year, so treat the parking and occupancy limits as hard rules rather than suggestions.
7. If you're comparing Westminster against other California markets where nightly rentals are legal, work through our California short-term rental guide and BNBCalc Markets before you buy anything in Orange County specifically.

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

Whichever step trips you up, three offices between them cover almost every question this guide raises, and knowing which one owns your particular issue saves a lot of time on hold.

Zoning, jurisdiction, and the Midway City question

The Westminster Planning Division handles zoning questions and can confirm whether a specific address sits inside city limits.

• Main line: (714) 548-3247
• Email: [email protected]
• Midway City confirmation: Victoria Toris, [email protected]
• Address: 8200 Westminster Blvd., Westminster, CA 92683

Reporting a suspected illegal rental, or defending against a complaint

Westminster Code Enforcement investigates suspected violations of the city's short-term rental ban, whether you're filing a complaint or responding to one.

• 24-hour complaint line: (714) 548-3246
• Email: [email protected]
• Online and app: the MyWestminster mobile app, or the online complaint form

Orange County permits and taxes, for genuine Midway City properties

Anything involving an actual short-term rental permit or its tax obligations runs through the county rather than the city.

• OC Development Services (permits): apply and get handout details through myOCeServices.ocgov.com
• OC Treasurer-Tax Collector (Transient Occupancy Tax): (714) 834-6143, [email protected], octreasurer.gov/TOT

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

Given how little enforcement data the city itself publishes, it's worth checking whether hosts fill in the gap, and the honest answer is that they mostly don't. I couldn't find a single Reddit thread or BiggerPockets post specifically discussing Westminster, California's short-term rental rules. Nearly every search for "Westminster short-term rental" on BiggerPockets instead returns threads about Westminster, Colorado, a different city near Denver that's been actively debating its own regulations, which is a mix-up worth being aware of if you're researching this market yourself.

That silence is itself a data point. A market with a six-year-old blanket ban and no legal path for most properties doesn't generate much investor conversation, because there's nothing to strategize around. What discussion does exist about short-term rentals in Orange County tends to focus on cities that run a permit program, comparing caps, waitlists, and renewal odds in places like Newport Beach or Laguna Beach. Westminster barely comes up in that conversation at all, and when it does, it's usually as the example of a city investors have already crossed off the list rather than one they're actively debating.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Westminster, California in 2026?

No, not on a residential property inside Westminster's city limits. The City Council banned short-term rentals of 30 days or less in a 2020 ordinance, and the city's Planning Division still confirms the ban is in effect. The only exception is a property located in Midway City, an unincorporated Orange County pocket that Westminster's boundary doesn't reach, where Orange County's own short-term rental permit rules apply instead.

What is Chapter 9.74 of the Westminster Municipal Code?

Chapter 9.74, titled Transient Uses Including Short-Term Rentals, is the section of Westminster's Municipal Code that codifies the city's 2020 ban on renting residential property for stays under 30 days. It applies citywide with no owner-occupied or hosted-stay exception published by the city, and it doesn't extend to Midway City, which was never annexed into Westminster.

Can a property in Midway City legally operate as a short-term rental?

Yes, because Midway City is unincorporated Orange County territory rather than part of Westminster, so the city's ban doesn't apply there. An owner needs a short-term rental permit from Orange County Development Services instead, renewable every two years, with rules covering parking, occupancy, signage, and quiet hours. Be sure to confirm your address is in Midway City with Westminster's Planning Division before assuming this exception applies to you.

What happens if you rent a Westminster property short-term anyway?

Westminster Code Enforcement investigates complaints and can pursue fines and legal action against an unpermitted short-term rental. California law caps fines for this kind of ordinance violation at $1,500 for a first offense, $3,000 for a second within a year, and $5,000 after that, with higher amounts reserved for health-and-safety violations. Since no permit exists for the use in the first place, there's no way to cure the violation short of stopping the rental entirely.

Is there any legal way to rent a Westminster property for fewer than 30 days?

Within Westminster's own city limits, no, since the 2020 ban covers every residential dwelling with no publicized exception. The only ways around it are renting for 30 nights or more, which falls outside the short-term rental definition entirely under state law, or owning a property located in Midway City, where Orange County's separate permit system governs instead of Westminster's ordinance.

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