Santa Clara, CA Short-Term Rentals: Host Platform Liability (2026)

090, and collection is the responsibility of the host, not any booking platform the host may use. A booking platform has no independent duty under this Section to collect or remit TOT on a host's behalf. 090, if a hosting platform is used and the City has entered into a voluntary collection agreement, or an equivalent arrangement, with that platform, then TOT may instead be collected and remitted directly to the City by the platform itself. That shifts the mechanical burden of collecting and forwarding the tax to the platform for bookings made through it, but it does not change who is legally accountable if the tax goes unpaid; the ordinance frames the platform's role as voluntary and contingent on the City-platform agreement existing at all, not as an independent legal duty the platform owes short-term renters or the City on its own.

A host renting through a platform without such an agreement in place, or through a platform the City has no arrangement with, keeps full personal responsibility for calculating, collecting from guests, and remitting TOT to the City's Tax Collector, and must also submit whatever information the Tax Collector requires to verify the tax paid as part of the annual renewal of the short-term rental registration.