Running a vacation rental in Los Cabos, Mexico, through hurricane season
If you manage vacation rentals in Los Cabos, most of your guests fly into Los Cabos International Airport in San José del Cabo, which handled about 7.5 million passengers in 2025. Your year also has a hurricane season, which in 2025 ran from May 15 to November 30, with August and September the busiest months. 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
This table only covers what the municipality handles, checked as of September 25, 2026.
| Topic | What it says | Status | Since | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State rules | The lodging tax and the debate over a vacation-rental law are statewide, and they're on the Baja California Sur page. | No specific law | Checked in September 2026 | Baja California Sur |
| Environmental sanitation fee (Derecho de Saneamiento Ambiental) | It's a municipal charge run through a trust, and member hotels paid 103 million pesos into it over ten months. In July 2023 the municipal revenue director, Miguel Ángel Sedeño, told Tribuna de México that rental homes are harder to reach because they're listed on platforms, and that talks were under way on how to charge them, with nothing decided yet. We haven't found a more recent report. | No specific law | Latest report, July 2023 | Tribuna de México |
What Airbnb and the other platforms withhold for the SAT is federal, and we explain it 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
The airport sits about 10 kilometers north of San José del Cabo, and a toll road links it to both San José and Cabo San Lucas. Transcabo puts the ride to San José at around ten minutes. So a guest staying in San José can be at your door not long after they grab their bags, which means the house needs to be cleaned and checked before the flight lands.
There's also a second, smaller airport at Cabo San Lucas, about 26 kilometers south of the main one, according to Wikipedia. It's worth asking guests which one they're flying into, because the drive to the house is different.
The municipality flags August and September as the most active hurricane months and tells residents to check and reinforce their homes. For you, that means the cleaning between guests doubles as a storm check, when someone brings the terrace furniture in, ties down whatever stays outside and looks the house over before it opens again.
OOMSAPAS, the municipal water utility, explained in 2023 that if it loses power during a storm it can't pump water, which is why it lines up emergency generators with CONAGUA and works with the CFE, putting shelters and hospitals first. A house can come through a storm without a scratch and still have no water. Before the next guest arrives, someone needs to open a tap and make sure it's running.
Where Upbridge fits
For August and September, you can set up a photo cleaning checklist with us that covers the storm prep and the water check, with those items marked as required. The checklist can repeat on a schedule, too, so the seasonal check doesn't depend on someone remembering it.
When a guest can reach San José ten minutes after landing, it helps if the cleaning comes straight off the calendar. We connect Guesty, Hostaway, Lodgify or Uplisting, or import your iCal, and every checkout creates its own cleaning task.
In the guest guide, which we build for you and which opens on the guest's phone in English or Spanish, you can tell them which airport suits them, how to reach the house, and what to do if the water's out after a storm.
If you manage homes in Cabo San Lucas or San José del Cabo, or you clean other people's, Upbridge can help you keep the cleaning, the seasonal checks and every guest's arrival on your phone.
If you run a cleaning company in Los Cabos
In 2023, Tribuna de México counted roughly 4,400 rental homes across Baja California Sur, most of them in Los Cabos. If your company cleans a number of them for different owners, the account for cleaning companies shows every owner's iCal or PMS in one calendar. Those clients stay yours, and we don't take a commission on any job.
Questions about running rentals in Los Cabos
When is hurricane season in Los Cabos?
In 2025 it ran from May 15 to November 30, according to the municipality, and August and September were the most active months.
Do rental homes in Los Cabos pay the environmental sanitation fee?
As of July 2023, the municipality hadn't decided how to charge homes listed on platforms, Tribuna de México reported. We haven't found anything newer.
Why can the water go out in Los Cabos after a storm?
Without power, the pumps stop. OOMSAPAS said so in July 2023, while it was lining up emergency generators for hurricane season.
Sources
Checked on September 25, 2026
- OOMSAPAS Los Cabos, “Ante temporada de ciclones y huracanes 2023, OOMSAPAS Los Cabos y CONAGUA trabajan para el mantenimiento de la infraestructura pluvial”, July 5, 2023 (in Spanish).
- Luis Castrejón for Tribuna de México, July 24, 2023: “Hoteles no afiliados y Airbnb representan un desafío en la recaudación del Derecho al Saneamiento Ambiental en Los Cabos” (in Spanish).
- Wikipedia, “Los Cabos International Airport”, read on September 25, 2026.
- Transcabo, page on SJD airport, read on September 25, 2026 (in Spanish).
- Ayuntamiento de Los Cabos, “Huracanes”, the municipality's 2025 season page (in Spanish).