El Dorado County, CA Short-Term Rentals: Host Presence Rule (2026)

130 of the Vacation Home Rental Ordinance (Ord. No. 5209, adopted October 22, 2024) sets different presence rules depending on rental type. For a hosted home rental, Subsection C requires the owner to designate a host who lives and stays in the house as their primary residence and is available 24 hours a day whenever the unit is rented; the owner can serve as the host if the owner lives there. If the host or a guest creates a nuisance involving noise, trash, or parking, the host has 30 minutes from notification to abate it, including visiting the site in person if needed.

The loss of a host voids the hosted home rental permit, so a hosted rental cannot keep operating once its designated resident host moves out or stops living there. Vacation home rentals, the non-owner-occupied category, get a looser standard under Subsection A: the designated local contact does not have to live onsite but must be reachable and able to reach the property within 30 minutes, and an owner living within a 30-minute travel radius can self-designate. Under Subsection D, every host or local contact, for either rental type, must pass a county-administered certification test and recertify every two years; operating without a currently certified, reachable host or local contact is itself a chapter violation.

Subsection E adds duties: verifying fire and life safety compliance, collecting renter contact information, and handing out the county's Visiting Guest Guidelines to every booking.