Mendocino County, CA Short-Term Rentals: Night Caps (2026)
Key Facts
- Vacation Home Rental cap
- 10 licenses town-wide
- Single Unit Rental cap
- 20 licenses town-wide
- Applies to
- Town of Mendocino only
- Application order
- Chronological; SUR before VHR
- Transfer rule
- VHR non-transferable except family/trust
Summary
Within the Town of Mendocino, County Code caps licensed Vacation Home Rentals at 10 and Single Unit Rentals at 20 total, with new applications only granted while the county is under those numbers and a waiting list for the rest.
To preserve Town character and maintain the Town as a residential community with limited commercial services, the County shall maintain no more than ten (10) Vacation Home Rentals and twenty (20) Single Unit Rentals subsequent to the effective date of this Section. The County shall not require any reduction in the number of licensed Vacation Home Rentals or Single Unit Rentals in existence on the date of certification by the Coastal Commission of this Section.
Official source re-checked September 7, 2026: no newer edition of the code had been published (publisher’s edition: Code of Ordinances: Supplement 75).
Full Breakdown
Sec. 020(A) sets a hard quantity limit, not a nightly limit: 'the County shall maintain no more than ten (10) Vacation Home Rentals and twenty (20) Single Unit Rentals' operating in the Town of Mendocino, adopted to preserve the town's residential character under a limited-commercial-services policy. No new Vacation Home Rental or Single Unit Rental license may be granted unless the county is below those thresholds. Existing licenses in excess of the cap, and any Vacation Home Rentals sitting in residential zoning districts, are phased out only as their business licenses lapse or are abandoned under Sec.
010; the County does not force an existing licensee to give up a rental to hit the cap. 020(F) requires applications to be processed strictly in the chronological order received, with Vacation Home Rental applications held behind every pending Single Unit Rental application. 020(I) directs Planning and Building Services to keep a public status log of every licensed rental and a waiting list once the cap is reached; a vacancy opens when a license expires unrenewed, is revoked for nonpayment of Transient Occupancy Tax, or (for a Vacation Home Rental) the property changes ownership outside the family/trust transfer exception in Sec. 020(E).
Violations & Fines
A Single Unit Rental license is tied to the land and cannot be transferred separately; a Vacation Home Rental license cannot be transferred to a new owner, location, or entity at all except to a spouse, domestic partner, child, parent, or an estate-planning trust under Sec. 20.748.020(E). Converting a second residential dwelling unit into a Single Unit Rental is barred outright under Sec. 20.748.020(G). Because the cap is enforced through the county's licensing and Coastal Development Permit certification process (Sec. 20.748.015), operating above the cap or without the required certification exposes the operator to license denial or revocation rather than a per-day fine.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many short-term rentals are allowed in the Town of Mendocino?
Can I get on a waiting list if the cap is full?
Does this cap apply outside the Town of Mendocino?
Sources & Official References
Other rules in Mendocino County
California rules heatmap·Compare Mendocino County to another location·View the California short-term rentals overview
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