San Francisco, California

San Francisco allows short-term rentals only in a host’s primary residence, one of the strictest STR regimes in the country. To qualify, an operator must occupy the unit at least 275 nights per calendar year and have lived there at least 60 days before applying, register with the Office of Short-Term Rentals ($925 fee, two-year certificate) and the Treasurer & Tax Collector, and file quarterly activity reports. Unhosted rentals (host away) are capped at 90 nights per year; hosted rentals have no night cap. This owner-occupancy model effectively bans pure investment STRs.

San Francisco welcomed roughly 23.06 million visitors in 2024, generating $9.26 billion in visitor spending, a mix of leisure travelers, international tourists, and business and convention attendees at the Moscone Center. StaySTRA tracks short-term rental performance at a shared San Francisco Bay Area regional level covering San Francisco alongside Half Moon Bay, Redwood City, San Anselmo, San Mateo, San Rafael and Stinson Beach, so the figures below describe the Bay Area STR market rather than San Francisco alone, and because San Francisco is the largest, highest-volume member of that pool, it likely dominates and inflates those regional figures well above what a smaller Bay Area suburb would show on its own. Listing-type mix, bedroom mix and top property managers are also tracked at that shared regional level, so this profile omits those breakdowns rather than presenting regional totals as San Francisco-specific.

In June 2026, the Bay Area STR market posted an average daily rate of $260 and occupancy of 83.1%, producing average monthly revenue of $5,556 per listing, up 11.6% year over year on a 4.0-point occupancy gain and a 4.8% ADR increase. There is a real irony worth naming here: San Francisco’s own regulatory framework makes those regional numbers among the hardest in the cluster to actually replicate, since a new investor cannot legally operate a non-owner-occupied STR in the city at all.