Yucaipa, CA Short-Term Rentals: Taxes & Fees (2026)

The Yucaipa City Council imposes the Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax through Chapter 3.20 of the Yucaipa Municipal Code. Section 3.20.020 defines a hotel as any structure, or any portion of any structure, occupied or intended or designed for occupancy by transients for dwelling, lodging or sleeping purposes. The list that follows names bed and breakfast lodges, inns, motels, apartment houses, dormitories, clubs and a "tourist home or house," adds a mobilehome or house trailer at a fixed location, and closes with "other similar structure or portion thereof." The chapter does not print the term short-term rental in its definitions, so this page describes what the definitions say and does not claim a separate STR fee schedule.

A transient is any person who exercises occupancy, or is entitled to it, by concession, permit, right of access, license or other agreement for 30 consecutive calendar days or less, counting portions of calendar days as full days. The person stays a transient until the 30 days expire unless the operator and the occupant have a written agreement for a longer stay. A person occupying by virtue of a fee interest, and the resident manager or operator of a hotel, are not transients.

The operator is the proprietor of the hotel in any capacity: owner, lessee, sublessee, mortgagee in possession or licensee. A managing agent who is not an employee is also an operator with the same duties and liabilities. Rent means the consideration charged, whether or not received, valued in money, goods, labor or otherwise, with no deduction. The tax administrator is the administrative services officer, and the tax rate itself sits in Section 3.20.030.

The operator carries the paperwork. Section 3.20.060 requires registration with the tax administrator within 30 days after commencing business and a transient occupancy registration certificate posted in a conspicuous place. That certificate is not a permit and is not evidence of compliance with zoning or construction standards. Section 3.20.070 requires a return on or before the last day of the month following the close of each calendar quarter, with the full tax collected remitted when the return is filed. Section 3.20.050 requires the tax to be stated separately from the rent, with a receipt for each transient, and bars an operator from advertising that the tax will be absorbed or not added.