Merced, CA Short-Term Rentals: Host Presence Rule (2026)

The City of Merced does not distinguish between hosted and unhosted short-term rentals and imposes no requirement that a host be present or reachable during a guest's stay, because the city code has no short-term-rental ordinance at all. On-site presence appears in the code only for the bed and breakfast use: under Section 20.44.030 the owner must reside on the premises and maintain separate owner's quarters, and the Title 20 definition (Section 20.90.020) describes a bed and breakfast as a structure with one or more managers in permanent residence. That on-site requirement applies to the permitted bed and breakfast use, which needs a conditional use permit, and not to an ordinary self-managed short-term rental. For accessory dwelling units, Section 20.42.040 prohibits transient occupancy outright, requiring any ADU or JADU rental term to be at least 30 continuous days, so ADUs cannot be operated as hosted or unhosted short-term rentals regardless of where the host lives. The practical effect is that, outside of a bed and breakfast, the city neither requires nor prohibits an on-site host. By comparison, some short-term-rental programs in California require a local contact reachable on short notice; in Merced the closest analog is the Transient Occupancy Tax operator who is responsible to the finance officer, not a guest-facing host-presence duty. Hosts should confirm current expectations with the city.