Orange County Short-Term Rental Rules by City (2026): Permits, Caps, Waitlists and Bans — Newport Beach, Anaheim, San Clemente, Dana Point & More

If you own a home in Orange County — or are thinking of buying one — and you want to rent it for stays of 30 days or less, the first thing to understand is that “Orange County rules” do not exist. There are 34 incorporated cities in this county, each with its own short-term rental ordinance, plus a county program for the unincorporated areas. A home can be fully legal on one side of a city limit sign and prohibited on the other.

The range is extreme. Newport Beach runs one of the largest permit programs in California and is not issuing new permits because its cap is full. Anaheim closed its program to new entrants years ago and only renews permits issued before its moratorium. Irvine prohibits short-term rentals in every residential zone — and prohibits even advertising one. Santa Ana banned them, had its ban thrown out by a court in April 2026, and as of this writing has no replacement framework at all. And layered over all of it, a new state law that took effect January 1, 2026 (SB 346) is changing how cities find unpermitted rentals — enforcement is shifting from complaint-driven to data-driven.

This guide walks through the rules city by city: whether a new permit is available, what caps and waitlists look like, what licenses you need, what tax your guests pay, and when permits renew. Every figure is drawn from the city or county source cited in the table — the municipal code chapter, the city’s own program page, or an official county document — because in this market, secondhand summaries go stale fast and the cost of relying on one is a permit problem that can take a high-performing home off the market entirely.

Marbella Lane is headquartered in Orange County, and permit tracking is part of the vacation rental management work we do for the owners whose homes we manage here. This is the same city-by-city framework we use with them.

The quick-reference table

City	New permits available?	Cap & waitlist	What you need	Guest tax (TOT)	Renewal	Primary source
Newport Beach	No — cap is full; the city states no new permits are being issued until active permits fall below 1,550; a waitlist is available	1,550 active permits max citywide (1,475 residential + 75 mixed-use)	Short Term Lodging Permit and a city business license; only in R-1.5, R-2 and RM zones	10%	Annual; renewals due October 31	NBMC Ch. 5.95 and 3.16; City of Newport Beach Short Term Lodging FAQ
Anaheim	No — the program renews permits for pre-moratorium rentals only; no new permits	Closed program; only grandfathered permits continue (the city’s STR fact sheet counts 241 permitted, 222 active, as of August 2024)	STR Regulatory Permit and a Business Tax Certificate	15%	Annual; permits expire July 31, and renewal must be filed by the expiration date	Anaheim Municipal Code Ch. 4.05 and Ch. 2.12; City of Anaheim STR fact sheet and renewal instructions
San Clemente	Yes, but only in designated STLU zones — most single-family areas are not eligible; a discretionary STAR permit covers some apartment situations	No citywide cap; building-level cap — STLUs must remain under 20% of the units in a multifamily building	One-time STLU Zoning Permit, then an STLU Operating License	10%	Operating License renews annually	SCMC §17.28.292 and Ch. 3.24; City of San Clemente Planning Division STLU guide
Dana Point	Waitlist when the applicable cap is full	Coastal Zone: 115 permits for non-primary and similar STR types (home-stay/primary-residence permits are uncapped); outside the Coastal Zone: 115 permits, no more than 60 non-primary	City STR permit and a Transient Occupancy Tax registration certificate; one permit per owner	10%	Annual (March 1 under the Coastal Commission-approved program)	DPMC Ch. 5.38; STR Program under Coastal Development Permit A-5-DPT-22-0038
Irvine	No — prohibited in all residential zones; advertising an STR is itself a violation	Not applicable — no permit program	None available	Not applicable to residential STRs	Not applicable	Irvine Zoning Ordinance Ch. 3-25 (§§3-25-3.A–B), Ordinances 18-05 and 21-01; Ordinance No. 26-11 (adopted Sept 22, 2026)
Huntington Beach	Hosted (owner-occupied) rentals: yes, citywide. Unhosted whole-home rentals: only in Sunset Beach, and only for grandfathered permits from the 2021 window	One permit per person; unhosted permits closed to new applicants after the initial window	STR Permit and a city business license (within 15 days of the permit)	10% TOT, plus a Tourism Business Improvement District assessment (6%)	Initial permit term is two years, then annual renewal (apply at least 30 days before expiration); permits are non-transferable	HBMC Ch. 5.120 (Ordinance 4224); City of Huntington Beach STR page, FAQ and business license/TOT flyer
Laguna Beach	No new permits in residential zones (R-1, R-2, R-3); existing permitted units there are legal nonconforming. New permits only in commercial, mixed-use and downtown districts, with a use permit	300 STR units citywide, plus up to 165 home-share units; district-level conversion caps also apply	Short-Term Lodging Unit License, an annual city business license, the applicable use permit, and TOT registration	12% TOT, plus a 2% Tourism Marketing District assessment (14% combined)	Business license is annual; use permits run up to three years; confirm the Ch. 5.84 unit-license renewal schedule with the city	LBMC Ch. 25.23 (zoning) and Ch. 5.84 (licensing, effective July 1, 2025); city TOT/LBTMD return form
Santa Ana	Unsettled — see the Santa Ana section below. The city’s ban was ordered set aside by the Orange County Superior Court on April 20, 2026; the city has no STR permit program	None	No permit exists to apply for	11% Hotel Visitors’ Tax under the municipal code; how it applies to STRs is unsettled — confirm with the city	Not applicable	SAMC Ch. 8, Art. XXI (§§8-3400–8-3402, Ordinance NS-3072); OC Superior Court Case No. 30-2024-01404861-CU-WM-CXC
Fullerton	Not right now — a moratorium on new permits, extended by Ordinance 3346 (July 15, 2025), runs to about May 30, 2027; existing permit holders are unaffected	Whole-house permits capped at 100 (reduced from 325)	City Short-Term Rental Permit; the program is built around owner-occupied home-sharing	10%	Renewal required (renewal fee $85); permits are non-transferable and become void on sale	FMC Ch. 15.55 (incl. §15.55.020(F)); Ordinance 3290; Urgency Ordinance No. 3342 (May 2025), extended by Ordinance 3346 (July 15, 2025)
San Juan Capistrano	No STR permit program — the use is banned by zoning in single-family and most residential districts; it is a permitted use only in the RM (Multiple-Family) and VHD (Very High Density) districts	None — access is controlled by zoning district, not a permit cap	No STR permit exists; where the use is allowed, the city’s general business license is required, with a Planning Division zoning confirmation for the address	10%	Business license is annual; expires December 31, renew by January 31	SJCMC Title 9, §9-3.301(b), Table 3-1 (use as defined by Ordinance 1042, 2017); TOT at Title 3, §3-3.603
Mission Viejo	No city STR permit exists to apply for — the city has no STR-specific ordinance or permit program; the binding constraint for most homes is the HOA’s CC&Rs	No cap	No city business license is required (the city says so expressly); TOT registration with the city is required for STR operators	8%	No permit renewal; TOT is filed and paid quarterly	City of Mission Viejo TOT page and Municipal Code Ch. 3.25; City Business Resource Guide (no business license required)
Unincorporated Orange County (Ladera Ranch, Rancho Mission Viejo, North Tustin, Coto de Caza and other unincorporated areas)	Yes — permits are issued to applicants who meet the code standards	No cap	County STR permit (ministerial approval by OC Development Services) and TOT registration with a TOT certificate from the OC Treasurer-Tax Collector; ADUs cannot be used as STRs	10% county TOT, registered with and remitted to the OC Treasurer-Tax Collector; returns are quarterly	Every two years; a change of ownership terminates the permit	Orange County Zoning Code §7-9-93; Orange County Code of Ordinances, TOT Article (§§1-4-121 et seq.)

Reading the table: the patterns that matter

Caps are the story in the coastal cities. Newport Beach (1,550), Dana Point (115 + 115), Laguna Beach (300 + 165 home-share) and Anaheim (closed) all ration permits. Where a cap is full, the practical questions change: Is there a waitlist? Does the permit transfer when a property sells? Newport Beach is the notable exception on transfer — its program allows a Short Term Lodging Permit to be transferred, which is one reason permitted Newport homes command attention. In Anaheim, San Clemente, Dana Point, Fullerton and the unincorporated county, the permit dies or must be newly issued when ownership changes, so a seller’s permit is not something a buyer can bank on.

Zoning decides before the permit office does. San Clemente’s program covers designated zones and overlays, not the whole city; Laguna Beach removed its residential districts from the map entirely; Huntington Beach splits the city into a hosted-only zone and Sunset Beach. The permit question is always address-specific, which is why several cities — Newport Beach among them — publish address-lookup tools, and why step one of the checklist later in this guide is an address-level check.

The tax stack is not just the TOT. The headline transient occupancy tax ranges from 10% in most cities to 15% in Anaheim, with Laguna Beach at 12%. On top of that, Huntington Beach adds a 6% Tourism Business Improvement District assessment and Laguna Beach a 2% Tourism Marketing District assessment. These are collected from the guest, but collecting and remitting them correctly is the operator’s obligation — and, as the next sections explain, an increasingly visible one.

Santa Ana: the ban a court set aside — and the uncertainty that followed

Santa Ana deserves its own section because it is the highest-risk line in the table above, and the one most often described wrong.

In April 2024, Santa Ana adopted an urgency ordinance (NS-3060) and a regular ordinance (NS-3061) prohibiting all short-term rentals — including home-sharing — anywhere in the city. In December 2024, the city repealed and reenacted the prohibition as Ordinance NS-3072, codified at Article XXI of Chapter 8 of the Santa Ana Municipal Code (§§8-3400–8-3402). The Santa Ana Short-Term Rental Alliance (SASTRA), a host group, sued.

On April 20, 2026, the Orange County Superior Court granted SASTRA’s petition for writ of mandate and ordered the city to set aside its ordinance (Santa Ana Short-Term Rental Alliance v. City of Santa Ana, Case No. 30-2024-01404861-CU-WM-CXC). The ruling was procedural, and the distinction matters: the court did not hold that a city may never ban short-term rentals. It held that Santa Ana adopted this ban without the environmental review the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires. The city’s 2022 General Plan Update environmental impact report, the court found, never analyzed or disclosed short-term rental impacts, so it could not carry the ban; and the “existing facilities” exemption the city claimed did not apply, because the ban reached housing that does not yet exist, not just existing facilities.

Where that leaves a Santa Ana homeowner today, stated as plainly as we can:

• The ban is unenforceable unless and until the city acts again. The court ordered the ordinance set aside. A ban could return, but only after the city completes CEQA review and re-enacts it — a process measured in months at minimum, with public comment along the way.
• There is no permit to apply for. Santa Ana never built a permit program; it built a prohibition. The set-aside did not create a licensing path, a registration, or a set of operating rules for hosts.
• The case is not entirely over. The court decided the CEQA claims; SASTRA’s remaining non-CEQA claims were severed and left for later proceedings (a status conference was set for August 2026).
• Tax treatment is unsettled. Santa Ana’s Hotel Visitors’ Tax is 11% under SAMC §35-127; how the city applies its tax code to short-term rentals in the current gap is a question to confirm with the city before relying on any assumption.

The practical advice for Santa Ana is the same advice we give on any unsettled file: do not treat the ruling as a green light with a framework behind it, and do not treat the old ban as still in force. Treat the city as what it is — a market in a legal gap, where the next city action (an appeal, a CEQA study, a new ordinance, or a permit program) will define the rules. Anyone buying or launching a rental there is underwriting that uncertainty, and should price it accordingly.

The 2026 change underneath everything: SB 346 and data-driven enforcement

On January 1, 2026, the Short-Term Rental Facilitator Act of 2025 — Senate Bill 346 (Durazo), codified at Government Code §§50990–50996 — took effect. It does not create a state permit, a state tax, or any new right to rent. What it does is give cities and counties a sharper tool, and owners should understand how it changes the enforcement picture.

Before SB 346, most cities found unpermitted rentals the slow way: a neighbor complained, an inspector drove out, a listing was screenshotted by hand. Under the new law, a city or county that adopts an ordinance opting into the Act can require the booking platforms themselves — Airbnb, Vrbo and other “short-term rental facilitators” — to report, on a schedule the city sets (no more often than quarterly), the physical address and assessor parcel number of every short-term rental booked through them, along with listing identifiers. The law also requires facilitators to display a listing’s local license number and tax certification where the local ordinance calls for it, lets the city impose administrative fines on a facilitator that fails to report, and lets the city audit a facilitator that collects and remits its transient occupancy tax. The Act expressly does not preempt stricter or different local rules — your city’s ordinance remains the rulebook; SB 346 is about how the city sees inside it.

Cities are already moving. Irvine — which bans STRs outright — adopted Ordinance No. 26-11 on September 22, 2026 (Zone Change 00986138-PZC), implementing SB 346’s platform-reporting tools for enforcement of its ban: platforms must, on the city’s request, report a listing’s URL, host contact, quoted price and stay length, address and parcel number — and each listing, and each day it stays up, is a separate violation. That is the pattern to expect across Orange County: the question for an unpermitted listing is becoming less “will anyone complain?” and more “when does the platform data reach the city?”

For owners, the takeaway is not fear; it is sequencing. A permitted, properly registered home has nothing to reconcile when the data flows. A home operating on a summary it read somewhere — or on a permit that lapsed, or that belonged to the previous owner — has a problem that is now much easier for a city to find. Confirm the permit first; the marketing can wait a week.

Before you buy or switch managers: the 3-step permit check

Whether you are underwriting a purchase or moving an existing home to a new manager, run these three checks on the specific address before anything is signed. (Our Orange County management page explains how we handle permits during onboarding.) Each one kills deals regularly, and each is cheap to run early.

Step 1 — Confirm eligibility at the address, not the city. “Newport Beach allows STRs” is not a fact about your house. Zoning district, overlay, cap status and waitlist position are all parcel-level: Newport Beach permits only R-1.5, R-2 and RM properties and is at its cap; San Clemente’s overlays cover some streets and not the next one over; a Laguna Beach home in an R-1 district is out regardless of its views. Use the city’s address lookup where one exists, and get the answer from the permitting division in writing for the exact APN.

Step 2 — Read the HOA’s CC&Rs yourself. A city permit does not override private restrictions. Under California Civil Code §4741, an HOA may prohibit rentals of 30 days or less outright (it may not ban longer rentals the same way), and Orange County’s master-planned communities use that power heavily — it is the operative rule in much of Mission Viejo and Ladera Ranch, where the city or county is comparatively permissive. Newport Beach’s own permit FAQ tells applicants to review their CC&Rs and follow up with their HOA before applying. Do that before the purchase closes, not after the first booking.

Step 3 — Ask whether the permit survives the sale. In most of Orange County, it does not. Anaheim requires a new permit on a change of ownership (and eligibility is limited to pre-moratorium properties); San Clemente’s zoning permit is void on the date of conveyance; Dana Point’s permit expires when title transfers, with narrow family/inheritance exceptions; Fullerton’s permits become void on sale; the county’s permit terminates on a change of ownership. Newport Beach, unusually, has a transfer process. Never pay a premium for a “permitted STR” until the city confirms, in writing, what the buyer actually receives — and if the answer is “the right to join the waitlist,” underwrite the property as an unpermitted one.

Frequently asked questions

Can I legally run a short-term rental anywhere in Orange County?
No. There is no county-wide right to rent short-term. Each of the county’s 34 cities sets its own rules, and the unincorporated areas follow the county’s program. Depending on the address, the answer ranges from “yes, with a permit” (unincorporated county, San Clemente’s eligible zones) to “not at any price” (Irvine’s residential zones, Anaheim for new entrants).

I own a home in Newport Beach. Can I get a permit?
Not a new one today. The city caps active Short Term Lodging Permits at 1,550 and states on its program page that no new permits are being issued until the active count falls below the cap; there is a waitlist. Two routes still exist: join the waitlist, or buy a property whose existing permit can be transferred to you under the city’s transfer process — Newport Beach is the county’s notable exception on transfers. Existing permits renew annually, with renewals due October 31.

Does a short-term rental permit transfer when a house is sold?
Usually no. Anaheim, San Clemente, Dana Point, Fullerton and the unincorporated county all end, void or re-issue the permit on a change of ownership, and in capped programs the new owner may land on a waitlist. Newport Beach allows transfers through a city process. Always confirm transferability with the city for the specific permit before valuing it in a purchase.

What taxes apply to a short-term rental stay?
The guest pays a transient occupancy tax set by the city — 10% in most Orange County jurisdictions, 15% in Anaheim, 12% in Laguna Beach. Huntington Beach adds a 6% Tourism Business Improvement District assessment on top of its 10%, and Laguna Beach adds a 2% Tourism Marketing District assessment on top of its 12%. Collecting and remitting these correctly is the operator’s responsibility, and returns are typically filed monthly or quarterly depending on the city.

My HOA prohibits short stays, but the city would permit my home. Which wins?
The HOA. A city or county permit never overrides CC&Rs, and California Civil Code §4741 expressly allows associations to prohibit rentals of 30 days or less. The reverse is also true: HOA permission does not substitute for a city permit. You need both.

What is SB 346, and does it change whether I can rent my home?
SB 346 (the Short-Term Rental Facilitator Act of 2025, effective January 1, 2026) does not grant or remove any right to rent. It authorizes cities and counties that opt in by ordinance to require booking platforms to report the address and parcel number of every short-term rental, to require license numbers on listings, and to fine platforms that do not comply. Its practical effect is enforcement: unpermitted and lapsed-permit listings are becoming much easier for cities to identify.

I want to rent for 31 days or more instead. Do these rules apply?
Generally no. Orange County’s STR ordinances define a short-term rental as a stay of 30 consecutive days or less (San Clemente uses 29 days or fewer), so a genuine 31-day-plus rental sits outside the permit programs described here. It is still a tenancy, with the landlord-tenant law, tax and HOA rules that apply to one — and an HOA restriction written for “30 days or less” can still matter if stays are structured to dodge it. Get advice on your specific setup.

What does Marbella Lane charge, and can you help with my city’s permit?
Our full-service management includes daily dynamic pricing, 24/7 in-house guest communication, housekeeping coordination with photo-verified inspections, 24/7 maintenance triage, review management, and monthly owner statements with direct-deposit payouts. Every owner receives a complete fee breakdown in writing in their proposal before signing — no surprises, and no obligation. On permits: yes. We work with Newport Beach, Anaheim, San Clemente, and other Orange County programs, and we will confirm your home’s eligibility and permit status during onboarding.

A note from Marbella Lane

We are headquartered in Orange County, and the permit file is one we work address by address: eligibility and cap status before a home is onboarded, renewals tracked against each city’s calendar (October 31 in Newport Beach, the county’s two-year cycle, and every other city’s own renewal dates), and CC&R checks before a listing is ever built. Our team includes Tao Tao, former Technical Lead of Airbnb’s Search Platform, and Cindy Lin, former Airbnb User Growth Engineering Manager; we bring that data-driven experience to the pricing and listing performance that determine what a permitted home earns.

If you own an Orange County home and are not sure where it stands — eligible or capped out, permitted or grandfathered, transferable or waitlisted — request a free rental income projection and we will review your property, your city, and your current listing, and show you the numbers before you decide anything. No pressure and no obligation: just a clear picture of your property’s position under its own city’s rulebook.

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This guide reflects the ordinances, program documents and court record cited above as of late October 2026. Orange County’s STR rules change frequently — caps fill, moratoria expire, and Santa Ana’s position in particular is unsettled. This is general information for property owners, not legal advice; confirm your property’s status with the city or county that governs its address, and consult your own advisors about your specific situation.