San Bernardino County places primary regulatory responsibility on the property owner or permitted operator. Booking platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo are not deputized as enforcement agents, but must collect transient occupancy tax.
Unlike some California cities that bar platforms from listing unpermitted units, unincorporated SBC focuses enforcement on hosts directly. Listings must display the county permit number, and hosts must remit transient occupancy tax through platform pass-through agreements where available or directly to the county auditor-controller. Platforms operating under voluntary collection agreements forward TOT, but platforms are not required to verify each listing's permit status. Hosts caught listing without an active permit face penalties regardless of which platform was used.
Listing an unpermitted unit, omitting the county permit number from a listing, or pocketing collected TOT instead of remitting it to the county can trigger civil penalties and back-tax assessments.
San Bernardino County, CA
San Bernardino County requires a Short-Term Rental Permit under Development Code Chapter 84.28 for all STRs in unincorporated Mountain and Desert Regions. Pe...
San Bernardino County, CA
San Bernardino County imposes a 7 percent Transient Occupancy Tax on stays under 30 days in unincorporated areas under County Code Chapter 14.0201, plus STR ...
See how San Bernardino County's host platform liability rules stack up against other locations.
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