Los Angeles 120-Night Cap, Explained

Los Angeles home-sharing hosts are subject to a 120-night cap. That number is the ceiling for home-sharing nights in the counting period set by the city, and hosts should confirm the counting year and counting rules on planning.lacity.gov before relying on any tracker. The cap applies to Los Angeles home sharing specifically; it is not a California statewide cap, and it must not be applied to San Francisco, San Diego or any other city, each of which has its own rules.

A cap of 120 nights allows substantial home sharing while preserving primary-residence character: a host can share while away for extended periods, but cannot operate a full-time short-let business from a primary residence under the home-sharing model. Hosts who plan to let close to the cap need precise tracking; hosts who let far below it need tracking too, since a cap query can arise even for a host who believes they are well under.

Count nights let as home-sharing nights, per property, in the city's counting period, and confirm whether hosted and unhosted nights, if both occur, count differently or together. A common error is counting nights booked rather than nights let, which overstates use when cancellations occur, or counting nights across platforms separately, which understates total use. The host's combined tracker, across all platforms plus direct bookings, is the only complete count.

Month-boundary stays, extensions and refunds also affect counting. A stay spanning two months counts by nights, not by bookings, and an extension adds nights to the total. Hosts should record stays by night dates, not by booking months, so the tracker can allocate nights correctly across periods. A night-level log prevents the most common counting errors.

When the tracker shows the cap approaching, block further home-sharing dates on every platform and for direct bookings at the same time. Blocking on one platform while leaving another open is a frequent multi-platform error that produces a breach despite good intentions. If bookings already exist that would exceed the cap, seek city guidance promptly on handling them, rather than letting them run and hoping the count is not checked.

Platform cap warnings can help, but they are incomplete where a host uses several channels. A platform that blocks dates based on its own data cannot see direct bookings or other platforms' bookings. Treat platform warnings as prompts to check the combined tracker, not as proof that the cap has or has not been reached.

Once the cap is reached for a period, home-sharing nights for that period should stop. Lawful alternatives depend on the property and the host's situation: longer stays outside home-sharing scope where appropriate, with tenancy-appropriate terms, or pausing letting until the next counting period. Hosts should not reframe home-sharing nights as another category to evade the cap, since authorities look at actual patterns, not labels.

Planning around the cap is commercial as well as legal. A host who expects to reach 120 nights should plan pricing, availability and longer-stay options for the remainder of the period in advance, rather than discovering the cap mid-season with bookings already taken. A seasonal plan that respects the cap from the start avoids cancellations and guest disappointment.

A cap count is only as good as its records. Keep a night-level stay log, platform statements, cancellation and alteration evidence, and the city counting rule as published at the time, all filed per property per period. If the city queries a period, that file lets the host show each night, its booking reference and its channel, without reconstruction. A host who can show the count night by night resolves queries far faster than a host who can show only a total.

Annual reconciliation should compare total home-sharing nights against the cap, total income against tax records, and platform activity against direct activity. Do that reconciliation before the next counting period, while statements are still accessible. Platforms archive old data, and a delayed reconciliation may lose evidence.

Confirm the counting period and rule on planning.lacity.gov, set up a night-level combined tracker, update it monthly, block dates as the cap approaches, reconcile annually, and recheck city guidance before each season. This guide is general information only for Los Angeles home sharing, last verified on 26 October 2026.