San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera is proposing a tax on second homes and full-time vacation rentals that he says could help close the city's structural budget deficit.
The proposal came during Elo-Rivera's presentation at Politifest, Voice of San Diego's annual event on local politics, in a session titled "How do we get the city we want?"
"In the weeks to come, our office is going to be proposing a tax on vacation homes and full-time, full-home vacation rentals," Elo-Rivera said. "There are 11,000 homes in San Diego right now that are not being used to be lived in by San Diegans. There is a cost to that, and we need to generate revenue from that."
Elo-Rivera did not say how much the tax would be or how it would be levied, but said his office estimates it could generate between $100 million and $135 million annually. He said that amount "would more than cover the entire cost of our city's homelessness programming, and have additional revenue there to… help generate middle-income housing that the market currently will not build."
Elo-Rivera's office shared a draft memo with KPBS offering more details on the proposal. The memo states roughly 5,000 homes in San Diego are used as second homes or vacation homes, meaning the owner does not rent them out and does not claim them as their primary residence.
An additional 5,713 homes are licensed by the city as "whole home" short-term rentals, meaning the entire unit can be listed on platforms like Airbnb and rented out for more than 20 days per year. The city charges a two-year licensing fee of $1,129 for such homes, with revenue dedicated to managing and enforcing the city's short-term rental regulations.
Elo-Rivera's office told KPBS the new tax would support the city's general fund, meaning it would require approval from a simple majority of voters. Such taxes cannot be earmarked for a specific use.
The memo requests a hearing at the council's Rules Committee, which meets next on Oct. 22, for consideration on the June 2026 ballot.
San Diego has been struggling to close a structural budget deficit that has plagued the city for years and has often been papered over with one-time resources. Last November, voters narrowly rejected a sales tax increase that would have turned the deficit into a small surplus.
Since then, the mayor and City Council have attempted to balance the budget by cutting library and recreation center hours, raising parking meter rates and adopting a new fee to fund trash collection at single-family homes. Yet despite all those measures, the city's current budget is still on shaky grounds, according to the city's Independent Budget Analyst's Office.
