Orange County

Operating rules

Primary residence

No

Min stay (nights)

—

Max nights / year

—

Max occupancy

Maximum overnight occupancy limited to two (2) persons per bedroom plus two (2) additional persons; the Director may approve a greater number on a case-by-case basis as part of a permit application or renewal.

Zoning-restricted

Yes

Cap on licenses

—

Zoning: Permitted (with STR Permit to the Director) in: single-family residential districts/areas, multifamily residential districts/areas, and commercial districts/areas within a previously approved residential dwelling unit. Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) shall NOT be used as short-term rentals.

• No primary-residence/owner-occupancy requirement appears in Sec. 7-9-93 (verified against full ordinance text).
• No minimum-night floor and no annual night cap are set; the only duration element is the definitional threshold of 'less than thirty (30) days' that makes a rental an STR.
• No numeric cap on the number of STR permits was identified in the ordinance or fee schedule (null = not stated, not confirmed-unlimited).
• No grandfathering provision was identified; a change in ownership terminates the STR permit (Sec. 7-9-93(e)(4)), so permits do not transfer with the property.
• Vehicle limits: one (1) vehicle per one-bedroom unit, or two (2) vehicles per two-or-more-bedroom unit; the Director may increase based on site conditions (Sec. 7-9-93(e)(9)).
• No on-site exterior signage advertising the STR is allowed (Sec. 7-9-93(e)(1)).
• Quiet hours per County Noise Control Ordinance Sec. 4-6-5: continuous noise limited to 55 dB (7:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.) and 50 dB (10:00 p.m.-7:00 a.m.) in residential property.
• Scope: applies to UNINCORPORATED Orange County only. Incorporated cities (e.g., Newport Beach, Dana Point, Huntington Beach, Anaheim, City of Orange) have their own, sometimes stricter or prohibitive, STR ordinances and are separate jurisdictions.

Enforcement

Active enforcement

yes

Fines

The ordinance authorizes citing/fining occupants and revoking the STR permit. A permit is revoked if the owner fails to maintain good standing with all County regulations, and two (2) violations related to the ordinance discontinue STR operations for up to one (1) year. A change of ownership terminates the permit. Specific administrative-citation dollar amounts (and any per-day penalty) are set by the County's general code-enforcement/administrative-citation provisions and were NOT confirmed from a primary county source in this research; secondary sources cite escalating citations of $250/$500/$1,000 and a $1,000/day figure for unpermitted operation - treat those dollar amounts as UNVERIFIED.

Notes

Enforcement framework exists in the ordinance: permit revocation, the two-violations/one-year discontinuance rule, and occupant records that must be made available upon request by the Orange County Sheriff or OC Development Services. The 2024-2025 Orange County Grand Jury report 'Long-Term Solutions to Short-Term Rentals' (released May 22, 2025) examined STR permitting/enforcement county-wide but focused on incorporated cities; it noted it did NOT observe STR volumes in unincorporated areas warranting analysis - so aggressive active enforcement specific to unincorporated OC is not independently documented. active_enforcement=true reflects the existence of the enforcement mechanism, not verified enforcement intensity.