Can you rent a property short-term in Santa Cruz County?

[Dax Nollenberger]

As a real estate agent, I frequently get asked, can I rent this property short-term in Santa Cruz County? The answer: it depends. There are three regulating bodies in Santa Cruz County: the City of Capitola, the City of Santa Cruz, and the County of Santa Cruz. All of which have their own rules.

The city of Capitola has map, if the property falls within the map, the home qualifies as a short-term rental. 

The city of Santa Cruz no longer offers non-hosted permits. Non-hosted is defined as "an STR where the owner lives in the home for more than 6 months out of the year". The city Does have hosted permits available. Hosted is defined as "an STR where the owner doesn't live in the home or where the owner occupies the home for less than six months out of the year".

The county of Santa Cruz is more complicated. There are three designated areas in the county with permit caps. They are as follows:

“Live Oak Designated Area”- LODA

"Seacliff/Aptos/La Selva Designated Area"- SALSDA

"Davenport/Swanton Designated Area"- DASDA

Each one of the areas has above has a waitlist for both vacation rentals and hosted permits. 

The rest of the county is considered non-designated. There is no cap on vacation rental permits, only hosted permits. 

Per the county: A Hosted Rental is a short-term rental (less than 30 days) of one or two bedrooms in a home, where the property owner will stay on site during the rental. A Hosted Rental is different from a “Vacation Rental" which is a short-term rental of an entire house.

Reach out if you want to learn more about Short-Term Rentals in the County.