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Published July 15, 2026
No. Redondo Beach bans rentals of less than 30 days in its residential zones citywide, with no permit pathway.
No. Redondo Beach does not permit rentals of less than 30 days anywhere in the city's residential zones. There is no application, no permit, and no fee that makes a short term rental legal here. Unlike Hawthorne next door, which regulates short term rentals under a permit system, Redondo Beach simply does not allow them, full stop.
Some South Bay cities took the Hawthorne approach: allow short term rentals but require a permit, a business license, and standing inspection access. Redondo Beach went the other direction entirely. The city's position, stated plainly on its own short term rental guidance, is that rentals of less than 30 days are not permitted in residential zones. There is no discretionary process, no conditional use permit, no variance that opens a door here. The city's own published notice on this is titled, without ambiguity, that short term rentals are not permitted.
This traces back to how Redondo Beach's zoning code treats residential land use. The city's land use tables for its single-family zones and its multifamily zones do not list hotels, motels, or transient lodging as a permitted or conditional use. A short term rental, functionally, is transient lodging, so it falls outside what those zones allow regardless of how the property is otherwise used. That is a different legal mechanism than an explicit short term rental ordinance like Hawthorne's Chapter 17.74. Redondo Beach did not need to write a specific short term rental ban because its underlying zoning never allowed transient occupancy in a residential zone in the first place.
Owners moving from other South Bay cities or from out of state often assume that if Airbnb allows a listing to go live, the city allows it too. That is backwards. Listing platforms do not verify local zoning before publishing a listing, and Redondo Beach's Code Enforcement Division actively investigates complaints and listings independent of what the platform shows. An active, bookable listing on a short term rental site is not evidence of legality. It is often the evidence code enforcement uses to open a case.
Second, owners sometimes assume a corporate housing or extended stay angle gets around the ban if the stay runs a little under a month. It does not. The line the city draws is 30 days: a rental of less than 30 days falls on the wrong side of it the same as a weekend rental does. If you want to be clearly outside the prohibition, keep the lease term at 30 days or more, and confirm the exact day count with the city if a booking sits right at the edge.
Third, this is not a temporary enforcement pause or a pandemic-era rule that is going away. The prohibition is structural, built into how the zoning code defines allowed residential uses, not a standalone ordinance that could sunset or get repealed in a single council vote the way a permit cap might.
If you own property in Redondo Beach and were counting on short term rental income to make the numbers work, the legal paths are a standard lease of 30 days or more, or looking at a comparable property in a city that does permit short term rentals under its own ordinance, such as Hawthorne's permit system. Trying to run a short term rental in Redondo Beach anyway exposes the owner to code enforcement action, not just the platform or the guest.
If your Redondo Beach property is currently listed for stays under 30 days, that listing is operating outside the zoning code with no permit pathway to fix it, not a paperwork gap you can close. The safer play is a standard lease term, full stop. If you are weighing whether a South Bay property elsewhere could support short term rental income legally, that is a city-by-city question worth checking before you buy or convert.
If you would rather have someone who tracks which South Bay cities allow what handle this instead of guessing, that is what we do.
This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm with a licensed professional before you act.
Last verified: July 2026.
Topics: compliance, short term rental, redondo beach, airbnb, zoning
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Schofield Properties is a family run property management company at 323 Richmond St, El Segundo, CA 90245. We have managed the South Bay since 1972 and personally oversee about 186 doors today. Book a call to talk about your property.
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