Managing or cleaning vacation rentals in Baja California Sur, Mexico, where the tax is collected but there's no rental law yet
If you manage vacation rentals in Baja California Sur, your bookings carry a 4% state lodging tax, and the state's finance secretary said in July 2026 that the tax brought in close to 1 billion pesos in 2025. What the state still doesn't have is a vacation-rental law, although the hotel industry has been asking for one since June 2026. Upbridge's AI operations assistant, Cleo, works over WhatsApp with vacation rental operators and cleaning companies and organizes the cleanings and the inventory for each place.
The rules here
We checked every row on September 25, 2026, and each one links the piece it comes from.
| Topic | What it says | Status | Since | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vacation-rental law | We couldn't find a state law for vacation rentals. In June 2026 EMPRHOTUR, the hotel and tourism business association led by Agustín Olachea, asked for vacation rentals to be treated as a commercial activity and held to the same standards as a hotel, with an operating permit, commercial utility rates and benefits for employees. Gringo Gazette's report doesn't mention any bill filed in the state congress. | No specific law | The request dates from June 2026 | Gringo Gazette |
| Lodging tax | It's 4%, filed monthly, according to vezpa's state-by-state guide. Back in 2023, Tribuna de México reported that Airbnb already had an agreement with the state government to collect that 4% on bookings. | In force | The Airbnb agreement was reported in July 2023 | vezpa and Tribuna de México |
| Collection from platforms | The tax covers hotels, resorts and registered short-term rentals. Finance Secretary Bertha Montaño Cota said on July 28, 2026 that the state collected just over 4.9 billion pesos from 2021 to 2025, and that it has been working to get the platforms to collect it too. | In force | Figures for 2021 to 2025 | Gringo Gazette |
The federal withholding that platforms take out for the SAT works the same way everywhere in Mexico, so we cover it once, on the page for all of Mexico.
This is not legal or tax advice, and Upbridge does not file anything for you: no registrations and no tax returns.
How it works on the ground
State tourism officials put platform lodging at almost 30% of everything you can book in Baja California Sur, Gringo Gazette reported in August 2026, and they're upfront that it's an estimate rather than a count of registrations. In practice, that means a big share of the state's cleaning is done by crews driving from house to house, and every house gets put back together its own way.
The same report says road-trip tourism is growing up north, especially in smaller towns like Mulegé and Loreto. So more of your guests are driving in, with no fixed arrival time, and it helps them to have the address, the parking spot and the way in already on their phone.
The state also gets Pacific hurricanes. On the Los Cabos page we go through when the season starts, which months are the worst and what happens to the water when the power goes out, since the source we have is the municipality's.
Where Upbridge fits
If your cleaning crew switches houses several times a day, Upbridge puts a room-by-room checklist on their phone, with photos, comments and the items they can't skip. When they finish you get a timestamped report, so you know how each house was left without driving over.
For the guest who's arriving by road, we build the guest guide. It opens on their phone in English or Spanish and covers how to get there and how to get in. If you switch on online check-in, the guest uploads their ID before they arrive.
If you own or manage rentals in Baja California Sur, or you clean other people's, Upbridge can help you keep one guest's checkout, the cleaning and the next guest's arrival in one place.
If you run a cleaning company in Baja California Sur
In La Paz, vacation rentals have grown a lot in the last few years, including in neighborhoods like El Esterito, according to Gringo Gazette's June 2026 report. So your clients may well be scattered across several neighborhoods, and each owner keeps a calendar of their own. With the account for cleaning companies, we pull every owner's iCal or PMS into one calendar, so El Esterito and the rest of La Paz show up on the same screen. The client stays yours, and we don't take a cut of any job.
Cities and areas
Los Cabos
Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo get a page of their own. It covers hurricane season, why a storm can leave a house without water, and where the environmental sanitation fee stands for rental homes.
Todos Santos
The town has its own page too, with the surf, whale and turtle months and the drive from La Paz airport.
La Paz
Since July 17, 2025, Baja Ferries' Cabo Star has sailed from Pichilingue to Mazatlán on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 7 p.m., with four kinds of sleeper cabin, and the crossing takes about fourteen hours, according to El Universal. A guest coming over from Sinaloa by ferry probably has their car and isn't on a flight schedule, so it's worth asking how they're traveling.
Other states
Questions about running rentals in Baja California Sur
Is there a vacation-rental law in Baja California Sur?
We couldn't find one as of September 25, 2026. The latest development is EMPRHOTUR's June 2026 request to hold rentals to hotel rules, and the report on it didn't mention a bill in the state congress.
What rate of lodging tax do rentals pay in BCS?
It's 4%, filed monthly. Airbnb had an agreement with the state government to collect it, Tribuna de México reported in July 2023.
How much does Baja California Sur collect from the lodging tax?
Close to 1 billion pesos in 2025, and just over 4.9 billion from 2021 to 2025, according to Finance Secretary Bertha Montaño Cota on July 28, 2026.
Sources
Checked on September 25, 2026
- Gringo Gazette, “BCS Hotel and Business Association Seeks Regulation of Vacation Rental Platforms”, June 4, 2026.
- Gringo Gazette, “BCS Hotel Tax Brought in Nearly 1 Billion Pesos Last Year”, July 31, 2026.
- Gringo Gazette, “Airbnb Claims 30% of BCS Lodging as Road Tourism Reshapes the Market”, August 4, 2026.
- The state-by-state rate table on vezpa's blog, published April 19, 2026: “Impuesto Sobre Hospedaje (ISH) 2026: guía completa por estado” (in Spanish).
- Tribuna de México, “Hoteles no afiliados y Airbnb representan un desafío en la recaudación del Derecho al Saneamiento Ambiental en Los Cabos”, July 24, 2023.
- El Universal, “Nuevo ferry con cabinas para dormir que va de La Paz a Mazatlán”, July 2025.