Huntington Beach extends deadline for short-term rental permit applications

Huntington Beach, California, has given short-term rental operators more time to get their required permits, extending the deadline of the new requirement from October 1 to December 31, 2021.

The new ordinance went into effect in February of this year and requires all operators to get a short-term rental permit. Operators must include their permit number on all marketing and advertising, including on platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo. Permit applications became available in March.

The law allows “hosted” short-term rentals — where the host lives on the property and is physically on-site during guests’ stays — throughout the city. In Sunset Beach, existing unhosted vacation rentals can continue to operate as long as owners obtain a permit by March 1, 2022. No new unhosted short-term rental permits will be issued after that.

The city counted 867 short-term rentals listed within Huntington Beach between May 2019 and April 2020, but Huntington Beach has only issued 26 short-term rentals since the new permit process began.

Vacation rental platforms are required to include short-term rental permit numbers for each Huntington Beach listing and provide monthly reports on their listings to the city. Properties without a permit will be delisted from marketplaces after the deadlines to apply have passed.

Under the law, Huntington Beach vacation rental operators must follow maximum occupancy, noise, safety code, and liability insurance rules and designate a contact that can respond to problems within one hour — 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Large gatherings are prohibited at short-term rentals. The city may issue fines of $1,000 per day for violations.

Short-term rentals are now part of the Huntington Beach Tourism Business Improvement District (BID) and pay BID assessments, which are collected from guests. All short-term rental operators in Huntington Beach must also register with the city for a Transient Occupancy Registration Certificate, collect transient occupancy tax (TOT) from guests, and file monthly tax returns.

If a short-term rental platform does not collect TOT on behalf of its hosts, hosts are responsible for TOT compliance. While Airbnb and Vrbo automatically collect short-term rental lodging taxes for their listings in other California cities, neither marketplace collects taxes or BID assessments on behalf of hosts in Huntington Beach.

Meanwhile, in nearby Costa Mesa, the City Council has passed an emergency ordinance that continues a moratorium on unhosted short-term rentals that went into effect a year ago. The city plans to explore the options for regulating vacation rentals in the meantime amid concerns about short-term rentals’ effects on neighborhoods, including loud parties and other disturbances. Home-sharing, where hosts live on the property and are physically present during guests’ stays, is allowed in Costa Mesa.

MyLodgeTax can help automate and simplify tax compliance for California short-term rental hosts. For more on lodging taxes in California, see our state Vacation Rental Tax Guide. If you have tax questions related to vacation rental properties, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you with answers.

Photo by Robert Alvarez on Unsplash