San Marcos, CA Short-Term Rentals: Night Caps (2026)

Cities that license short-term rentals often cap how many nights per year a home may be rented, especially for non-owner-occupied or whole-home rentals (the City of San Diego, for example, limits some tiers). Unincorporated San Diego County has not adopted an STR ordinance, so there is no annual rented-night cap, no whole-home quota, and no lottery limiting the number of rentals in a community. An operator may rent for as many nights as zoning, building, fire, noise, and tax rules otherwise allow. The only night-count threshold under County law is definitional: Transient Occupancy Tax applies to stays of 30 days or less, and a guest occupying 31 or more consecutive days is not a transient and is not subject to TOT (with documentation as the County requires). That threshold determines tax treatment, not a limit on rental activity. Because no County ordinance sets a maximum number of STR nights, any claim of a specific annual night cap for unincorporated San Diego County would be unsupported. California law sets no statewide STR night cap, leaving such limits to local jurisdictions that choose to adopt them.