Short-term rental insurance in Los Angeles

What the Home-Sharing Ordinance allows

The City of Los Angeles allows short-term rentals (stays of 30 consecutive days or less) only as “home-sharing” under Ordinance 185,931, which took effect July 1, 2019, with enforcement from November 1, 2019. What you may rent decides which policy fits:

• Primary residence onlyYou can home-share only the home you live in for more than six months of the calendar year, and one registration per person. On a duplex or a lot with two units, that means only the unit you occupy. All or part of the home may be shared, and City Planning’s FAQ says the city does not distinguish hosted from unhosted stays.
• RegistrationRegister with City Planning, renew every 12 months, and show the City-issued registration number on every listing and advertisement.
• 120 days a yearRegular home-sharing is capped at 120 days per calendar year. Extended home-sharing lifts the cap once you have held a regular registration for six months or hosted 60 days; ministerial approval also requires no more than one citation in the prior three years, and adjacent neighbors are notified.
• Rent-stabilized units excludedUnits under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, affordability covenants or income restrictions are not eligible, and a building converted from RSO units to a single-family home cannot be home-shared for five years after the conversion. Nor can a property removed from the rental market under the Ellis Act within the last five years.
• Transient Occupancy TaxHosts must comply with the city’s Transient Occupancy Tax and register with the Office of Finance. Platforms may not book a listing without a valid registration number, or past 120 days without extended approval.

City Planning’s updated Administrative Guidelines and its new online registration portal took effect September 28, 2026, and on October 28, 2026 the violation fines and the per-night fee hosts pay both rise 3.6% with inflation.

Does Los Angeles require hosts to carry insurance?

No. The ordinance and the 2026 Administrative Guidelines do not require a host to carry liability insurance or show proof of it to register. The city regulates who may host and how often; whether a guest injury or a kitchen fire is paid is left to you.

Neighboring jurisdictions write their own rules, and you register only with the one your address is in:

• Santa Monica. Only hosted home-sharing is allowed, with the host living on site throughout the stay; whole-unit vacation rentals are prohibited. Santa Monica does require insurance: proof of liability coverage for home-sharing of at least five hundred thousand dollars, unless you list only on platforms the city recognizes as providing that coverage. Insuring a home in Santa Monica.
• West Hollywood. Stays under 31 days need a home-sharing business license, open only to owners who live in the unit during the paying guest’s entire stay; renters are not eligible.
• Unincorporated Los Angeles County. Hosts register with the Treasurer and Tax Collector, must live on the property at least 275 days a year, and are limited to 90 unhosted nights per calendar year. The county’s registration requirement does not apply in its coastal zones (Marina del Rey, Santa Catalina Island and part of the Santa Monica Mountains), where it says short-term rentals are currently unregulated.

Your homeowners policy and home-sharing

Because the city limits home-sharing to your primary residence, most Los Angeles hosts already have a homeowners policy on the house. The question is whether it lets you take paying guests. Many homeowners forms treat renting to guests as a business activity and exclude or limit liability for it, and some exclude theft of your belongings by a guest. Some carriers offer a home-sharing endorsement; others will not write the house once they learn it is listed.

• Tell the carrier, in writing, before the first booking. An undisclosed listing is the claim problem, not the guest.
• Read any endorsement for limits on nights, whole-home rentals and guest counts. A form written for an occasional room may not fit an extended registration with no annual cap.
• If the carrier will not allow it, the house usually moves to a policy written for owner-occupied homes that are also rented short term. How I place short-term rental coverage.
• Earthquake follows the homeowners policy. The California Earthquake Authority does not sell stand-alone policies; its policy must come from the participating insurer that writes the residential policy, so if the house moves to a short-term rental form from a non-participating insurer, earthquake has to be placed separately. Earthquake insurance in Los Angeles.

What platform host protection is, and what it is not

Airbnb’s Host Damage Protection terms state that they are “not an insurance contract”: the platform guarantees the guest’s obligation to pay for damage, and pays only if the guest does not. Under those terms you must ask the guest to pay and notify the platform within 14 days of checkout, then file a payment request within 30 days of checkout; and wear and tear, mold, and acts of nature such as earthquakes are excluded. Loss of income is excluded too, apart from platform bookings that had to be cancelled because the damage made the home uninhabitable.

Its separate host liability insurance is placed with a third-party insurer, carries a limit of one million dollars, and excludes intentional acts and damage guests cause to your own place or belongings. Both apply only to stays booked through that platform; a direct booking, or a loss on a night with no guest, falls outside them.

Guests, neighbors and the liability limit

The ordinance writes a host’s safety duties into city law, and underwriters ask about the same things:

• Working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers, plus posted emergency exit routes and a contact number for you or your agent.
• Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. Hosts in a city-designated zone must state in every listing, and post on any patio or deck, that smoking is not allowed anywhere outside. Underwriters look hard at these addresses too. After a wildfire non-renewal.
• Occupancy and parties. No more than two overnight guests per habitable room (children and kitchens not counted), no amplified sound after 10 p.m., no outdoor gatherings of more than eight people after 8 p.m. (children not counted), and no events that charge a fee. Hosts may be held responsible for nuisance violations their guests commit.

Hillside stairs, decks and pools make guest injuries serious. Put an umbrella above the underlying limit, and confirm the umbrella does not exclude the rental activity the primary policy covers.

ADUs, guest houses and pool houses

An ADU whose building permit application and plan check fees were submitted on or after January 1, 2017 can be registered for home-sharing only if it has its own Certificate of Occupancy from LADBS and it is the host’s primary residence. In practice, a newer ADU can be home-shared only by someone who lives in it; an owner living in the main house cannot register the ADU as a separate short-term rental, because the city treats the unit you occupy as your primary residence.

• Other legally permitted residential spaces, such as an older guest house, may qualify as the host’s own primary residence or only as a portion of the main unit the host lives in.
• Pool houses, cabanas and garages generally do not qualify unless legally converted to residential use.
• On the insurance side, standard homeowners forms commonly exclude other structures rented to someone who is not a tenant of the main house, so a guest house booked by the night needs to be named and covered, not assumed. How ADUs and guest houses are insured.

Rental income under a 120-day cap

Loss of rental income coverage replaces bookings lost while the home is repaired after a covered loss such as a fire. Three Los Angeles facts shape it:

• Size it to your real calendar. A regular registration allows 120 days a year, so the income at risk is what you book inside the cap, not 365 nights at your peak rate.
• Regulatory losses are not property losses. Two citations suspend a registration for at least 30 days, and three sustained citations in a registration year revoke it for a year (for an extended registration, two citations revoke it for two years). Income lost that way is generally not what loss of rental income coverage pays for.
• Landlords: the city can hold a property owner responsible for home-sharing violations on the property, owners can bar tenants from registering, and a tenant cannot register without the owner’s notarized authorization. If your tenant hosts, your landlord policy should know about it.

What to send me

• The address and whether it is in the City of Los Angeles, another city or unincorporated county.
• Your home-sharing registration number, and whether it is regular or extended.
• How you host: a room while you are home, or the whole house while you travel, and nights booked last year.
• Your current homeowners or renters declarations page and any home-sharing endorsement.
• Which platforms you list on, and whether you ever take direct bookings.
• Any ADU or guest house, its permit date and Certificate of Occupancy, and who lives where.
• Pool, spa, hillside decks and fire zone status, plus detectors and extinguishers in place.
• Annual rental income and the value of the furnishings guests use.

Common questions

General information about insuring a home-share in the City of Los Angeles as of October 2026, not legal advice. Home-sharing rules, guidelines, fines and fees are set by the City of Los Angeles and by each neighboring city and the County, and they change; confirm your eligibility and registration with City Planning, check the rules where your address is, and read the platform’s current terms. Coverage depends on underwriting and the terms, conditions and exclusions of the policy actually issued. Coverage depends on underwriting and the terms, conditions and exclusions of the policy actually issued.