Santa Barbara, CA Short-Term Rentals: Night Caps (2026)

Unlike cities that permit STRs but cap them at a set number of rental nights per year, the City of Santa Barbara controls short-term rentals through a duration threshold and a use prohibition rather than a night cap. An STR is defined by stays of 30 consecutive days or less outside the coastal zone (SBMC Title 30) and less than 30 consecutive days in the coastal zone (SBMC Title 28); any such transient use is classified as a hotel use. Because the City treats conversion to an STR as a permanent change to nonresidential use and prohibits that use in single-unit and two-unit residential zones, there is no 'X nights per year' allowance for otherwise-residential properties — the City's informational packet expressly states the Municipal Code does not recognize occasional short-term rentals. In other words, a homeowner cannot legally STR a residential-zone home for a limited number of nights; the use is either established as a permitted hotel use in an allowed zone or it is not allowed at all. Separately, properties with an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) or junior ADU (JADU) may not rent any unit on the lot for fewer than 31 consecutive days, and the minimum-lease provisions of SBMC Chapter 26.40 (Required One-Year Lease Offers to Residential Tenants) restrict rentals of 30 calendar days or less for covered residential units. Whether the pending STR/home-share program will introduce any night limit is not yet determined. These rules are City of Santa Barbara provisions and differ from California law and from Santa Barbara County's STR night standards for unincorporated areas.