San Francisco STR Rules: 90-Night Cap and Office of Short-Term Rentals

San Francisco was an early STR-regulator and runs one of the strictest primary-residence frameworks in the country. The 2014 ordinance and subsequent amendments require operators to register with the Office of Short-Term Rentals (OSTR), maintain the unit as primary residence, and limit annual unhosted rental nights to 90. There is no extended-host option that removes the cap (unlike LA's Extended Home-Sharing). Multi-property operators, vacation-home investors, and entity-owned properties are categorically excluded. The result: SF's STR inventory declined ~75% from pre-ordinance peaks and stabilized at roughly 5,000 active hosts.

Licensing & Registration

OSTR application: $250 initial + $50 annual renewal. Required: 60+ consecutive days of primary residence proof at the property within the prior 365 days, $500K liability insurance, life-safety inspection (smoke/CO/egress, fire extinguisher, posted exit map), property tax current. Booking platforms (Airbnb, Vrbo) are required to verify OSTR registration before processing bookings — unregistered listings cannot be booked through platforms in SF.

Lodging & Occupancy Taxes

SF Transient Occupancy Tax 14% on stays under 30 days. CA state sales tax generally doesn't apply to lodging. Effective SF STR lodging tax: 14%. Stays of 30+ days are exempt from TOT. Airbnb collects SF TOT automatically on registered listings. California state-level depreciation non-conformity applies the same as elsewhere in the state.

Penalties & Enforcement

Operating without OSTR registration: $484/day first offense, $968/day second, $1,452/day third. Booking platforms face $1,000 per illegal booking. Permit revocation typically follows a single egregious violation (commercial-style operation in a vacation home, false primary-residence claims). The city's enforcement is unusually aggressive — short of NYC's LL18, SF's enforcement intensity is among the highest nationally.

Recent Changes

2024-2025 OSTR enforcement focused on cross-property operators, entity ownership patterns, and primary-residence verification. Several high-profile cases of operators losing OSTR registration after being caught operating multiple properties through related LLCs. The 90-night cap has been politically stable; no signs of either tightening or loosening in 2026.

Tax Strategy for Compliant Investors

Even within San Francisco's regulatory framework, properly-licensed STR investors retain the federal tax stack. Cost segregation accelerates depreciation, the STR loophole can convert losses to active-income offsets for materially-participating owners, and 100% bonus depreciation under OBBBA applies to all reclassified 5- and 15-year assets. California decouples from federal bonus depreciation, so state-level adjustments apply — but the federal benefit remains substantial. See bonus depreciation explained.

Frequently asked questions