Maryland, California Cities Enforce New Short-Term Rental Regulations

Short-term rental properties like Airbnb and Vrbo are increasingly under scrutiny across various U.S. localities to address regulatory compliance, safety, and tax revenue concerns. Annapolis reports nearly half of its short-term rentals are unlicensed, raising safety and revenue issues, with city officials emphasizing the need for enforcement and inspections. Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman is using innovative data scraping to ensure statewide proper tax reporting and collection from short-term rentals, following recent legislation centralizing tax remittance. Santa Cruz County has implemented a cap on non-hosted short-term rentals and requires platforms to remove unpermitted listings, aiming to protect housing availability and limit corporate property accumulation. Watertown maintains a strict prohibition on short-term rentals under 31 days, actively enforcing this through outreach and penalties. National City, California, is preparing an ordinance to regulate short-term rentals with permits, fines, and occupancy caps, motivated by issues including illegal activities, while also planning to collect significant transient occupancy tax revenue.