Perris, CA Short-Term Rentals: Primary-Residence-Only Rule (2026)

Unlike some California cities that restrict short-term rentals to a host's primary residence, the City of Perris imposes no primary-residence or owner-occupancy requirement in Chapter 5.38. The chapter requires the property owner to hold a short-term rental business license (Section 5.38.030) and to provide owner and agent contact information plus a 24-hour emergency contact within a 25-mile radius (Section 5.38.050), but it does not require the owner to live in the dwelling, to occupy it during guest stays, or to use it as a primary residence. Section 5.38.040 expressly permits the owner to designate an agent to act on the owner's behalf, which contemplates absentee owners; the owner simply remains responsible for compliance. There is also no annual cap on the number of nights a property may be rented and no requirement that the unit be hosted while occupied. In practical terms, this makes Perris a relatively permissive jurisdiction on the ownership-structure question: whole-home, non-owner-occupied short-term rentals are allowed so long as the owner obtains and maintains the license, registers for and remits the transient occupancy tax, and follows the operational standards in Section 5.38.080. Because absentee operation is allowed, the chapter leans heavily on the 24-hour local contact and the owner's 24-hour corrective-action duty to manage neighborhood impacts.