Airbnb break-even occupancy calculator
How full does your short-term rental have to be before it stops losing money? Put in the numbers you already know — rate, costs, mortgage — and this returns your break-even occupancy as a percentage and as nights per month, plus what you actually keep at the occupancy you expect.
Free, no sign-up, and the arithmetic runs in your browser: nothing you type is uploaded anywhere.
Last reviewed . Platform fee rates and margin benchmarks are checked at least twice a year.
How break-even occupancy is calculated
Every booked night earns you something and costs you something. Subtract one from the other and you get the amount each night contributes towards the bills that arrive whether anyone stays or not. Break-even occupancy is simply how many of those nights it takes to cover the bills.
The whole calculation is two lines:
contribution per booked night
= (nightly rate + cleaning fee ÷ average stay) × (1 − variable %)
− (cleaning cost + consumables) ÷ average stay
break-even occupancy
= fixed monthly costs ÷ (available nights × contribution per booked night)Variable % is your platform fee plus any management fee plus the maintenance reserve — everything charged as a share of revenue. Fixed monthly costs are mortgage or rent, utilities, insurance and anything else that lands every month.
Dividing the cleaning fee and the cleaning cost by the average stay converts them from per-stay figures into per-night ones, which is the step most back-of-envelope versions skip. It matters: at a 2-night average stay you pay for twice as many turnovers as at 4 nights, from the same number of booked nights.
Worked through, with the default figures
At €115 a night, a €55 cleaning fee, a 3.2-night average stay, 20.5% of revenue going to the platform and reserves, €45 of cleaning and €8 of consumables per stay:
- Revenue per booked night = 115 + 55 ÷ 3.2 = €132.19
- After 20.5% variable costs = 132.19 × 0.795 = €105.09
- Turnover cost per night = (45 + 8) ÷ 3.2 = €16.56
- Contribution per booked night = 105.09 − 16.56 = €88.53
- Fixed costs = 950 + 190 + 70 + 55 = €1,265
- Break-even occupancy = 1,265 ÷ (30 × 88.53) = 47.6%, or 14.3 nights a month
Anything above 14.3 nights is profit at roughly €88.53 a night. Anything below is a bill you pay yourself. That single number is more useful than a revenue projection, because it tells you where the danger sits: not in a bad year, but in the specific months that fall under the line.
What each input means
- Average nightly rate
- Your rate per night before any fees, excluding the cleaning fee, which is entered separately. If you use dynamic pricing, take the last twelve months of nightly revenue divided by nights booked.
- Occupancy you expect
- Only affects the profit figures. Break-even occupancy is independent of it — that is the point of the number.
- Nights available per month
- The nights you actually offer. If you block a fortnight for your own holiday, occupancy measured against 30 nights will flatter you and break-even measured against 30 nights will lie to you.
- Average length of stay
- Booked nights divided by number of stays. Drives the number of turnovers, so it changes both your cleaning bill and the cleaning fee income you collect.
- Platform host fee
- Charged on the booking subtotal, cleaning fee included. Use a blended figure if you list on more than one channel.
- Maintenance and damage reserve
- Not a bill, a discipline. Setting nothing aside does not make repairs free, it just moves them into whichever month the boiler chooses.
- Fixed monthly costs
- Everything that arrives regardless of bookings. Annual items — licence fees, the accountant, insurance paid yearly — go in divided by twelve.
- Negative and blank entries
- Treated as zero. Percentages are capped at 100. If available nights or average stay is left empty the calculator shows a dash rather than a number it cannot justify.
What a short-term rental actually costs in 2026
Ranges you can sanity-check your own figures against. Platform commissions are the ones that changed this year, and they changed upwards.
| Cost | Typical 2026 figure | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Airbnb service fee — single fee | 15.5% of the booking subtotal | Most hosts pay 15.5%; the rest typically 14–16%; 16% for listings in Brazil and Mexico. The guest pays no separate Airbnb service fee under this model. |
| Airbnb service fee — split fee | 3% host, 14.1–16.5% guest | The legacy model (4% for hosts in Brazil and Mexico). Airbnb is withdrawing it, so treat 3% as a number with an expiry date. |
| Vrbo, pay-per-booking | 8% all in | 5% commission plus 3% payment processing. Connected through property-management software you pay the 5% only. |
| Booking.com commission | ~15% | Commonly around 15%, ranging roughly 10–25% by market and programme. Deducted entirely from the host. |
| Cleaning, per turnover | €40–90 | Usually recharged to the guest, but the recharge is taxed, commissioned and rarely exact. |
| Consumables, per stay | €5–12 | Coffee, toiletries, paper, laundry, the occasional replaced glass. |
| Utilities and internet | €120–260 / month | Seasonal. Guests are not careful with heating, and an empty property in January still needs to stay above freezing. |
| Short-let insurance | €40–120 / month | Standard home cover generally does not extend to paying guests. Platform guarantees are not insurance. |
| Maintenance and damage reserve | 3–5% of revenue | Higher for older properties, hot tubs, or anything with a garden. |
| Channel manager and pricing tools | €15–40 / month per listing | Dynamic pricing, a channel manager, a smart lock subscription. Individually small, collectively a fixed cost. |
| Full-service management | 18–25% of revenue | Up to 40% where the manager also handles linen, restocking and guest communication end to end. |
| Lodging or tourist tax | Varies widely | Frequently collected and remitted by the platform. Never yours — keep it out of your revenue figure. |
Fees verified 3 August 2026
Airbnb percentages were checked against the Airbnb Help Centre article on service fees on 3 August 2026: most hosts pay 15.5% under the single fee, 3% under the split fee. Airbnb is retiring the split fee, and channel managers report cut-over dates of 15 September 2026 for hosts outside the European Economic Area and 13 October 2026 for hosts inside it. Fee structures move, so check the percentage shown on your own payout statement before relying on any figure on any website, including this one.
What net margin should you expect?
Net margin is net profit divided by gross revenue. It is the fastest way to tell whether a property is a business or a hobby with a mortgage.
| Setup | Typical net margin | What decides it |
|---|---|---|
| Owner-operated, no mortgage | 35–50% | Almost no fixed costs, so nearly everything above the turnover cost drops through. |
| Owner-operated, mortgaged around 70% LTV | 18–28% | The mortgage sets a high break-even occupancy; the shoulder months decide the year. |
| Owner-operated, general benchmark | 15–30% | The usual band once the platform fee, cleaning and reserves are all counted. |
| Professionally managed | 5–15% | A manager taking 18–25% of gross takes it from the same place your profit comes from. |
Where these come from. The 15–30% owner-operated and 5–15% managed bands are operator-published benchmarks — see the 2026 profit-margin guide at airbnbinvestmentproperty.com, whose figures are derived from the author’s own operating statements rather than from third-party research. Treat them as orientation, not as data. Two cautions when you compare your own number with anything published: many quoted short-let margins are struck before any mortgage payment (an NOI margin of 34–40% is a different measurement from a net margin of 20%), and almost none of them price the host’s own labour.
A worked year: one two-bedroom flat, twelve months
The same property as the calculator’s defaults, run month by month with seasonal rates, seasonal occupancy and a heating bill that behaves like a real one.
| Month | Occupancy | Rate | Revenue | Costs | Profit | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 38% | €95 | €1,322 | €1,781 | −€459 | 58% |
| February | 42% | €95 | €1,319 | €1,775 | −€456 | 64% |
| March | 48% | €100 | €1,744 | €1,889 | −€145 | 54% |
| April | 58% | €110 | €2,213 | €1,997 | €216 | 49% |
| May | 66% | €120 | €2,807 | €2,154 | €653 | 43% |
| June | 78% | €135 | €3,561 | €2,352 | €1,209 | 39% |
| July | 92% | €165 | €5,196 | €2,788 | €2,408 | 31% |
| August | 94% | €175 | €5,600 | €2,885 | €2,715 | 30% |
| September | 74% | €130 | €3,268 | €2,278 | €990 | 41% |
| October | 56% | €110 | €2,208 | €1,995 | €213 | 48% |
| November | 40% | €95 | €1,346 | €1,764 | −€418 | 59% |
| December | 46% | €105 | €1,742 | €1,913 | −€171 | 53% |
| Year | 61% | €130 | €32,326 | €25,571 | €6,755 | 48% |
The year makes €6,755 on €32,326 of revenue — a 20.9% net margin, respectable for a mortgaged owner-operated flat. But look at the shape rather than the total. Five of the twelve months lose money. January and February are not a problem to be fixed; they are the normal condition of a seasonal property, and the summer exists to pay for them.
Notice too how break-even occupancy moves. In August it is 30%, because the nightly rate is high and the heating is off. In February it is 64%, because the rate has collapsed and the boiler has not. The annual average of 48% is the least useful number in the table: nobody experiences an average month.
This is also why a single annual occupancy figure is a poor way to run a property. 61% for the year sounds comfortable. It hides the fact that six months of the year sat within a few points of the line.
Seven costs hosts forget
None of these appear on a booking statement, which is exactly why they get left out of the arithmetic.
1. Turnover consumables
Coffee pods, soap, paper, bin bags, batteries, the welcome bottle. €5–12 a stay is invisible one stay at a time, and roughly €400–950 across a year at a 3-night average stay and 65% occupancy.
2. The damage reserve
Sofas, mattresses, paintwork and the deep clean nobody charged for. Guests do not damage a property so much as age it quickly. Reserve 3–5% of revenue or pay it all in one bad month.
3. Off-season utilities
An empty property in January still has to be heated enough not to grow mould or freeze. Your worst utility month and your worst revenue month are usually the same month.
4. Licence and permit fees
Registration numbers, short-let permits, fire and gas certificates, sometimes an inspection. Annual, unavoidable, and increasingly a condition of being listed at all.
5. Lodging tax you are holding
Tourist or occupancy tax that you collect and later remit is not income, however good it makes the balance look in the meantime. Where the platform does not collect it, set it aside on the day it arrives.
6. Subscriptions
Dynamic pricing, a channel manager, smart-lock service, the noise sensor, cloud storage for the photos. €15–40 a month each, charged annually, and never reviewed.
7. Vacancy cleans and linen
The pre-arrival clean for a stay that cancelled, the refresh after a fortnight empty, and linen that wears out at short-let speed rather than domestic speed.
Short let or long let: reading the comparison
The comparison in the results panel keeps the mortgage and the insurance on both sides, because they are the same property either way, and leaves utilities out of the long-let column, because a tenant pays those. The allowance percentage covers what a long let actually costs you: a letting agent at 8–12%, plus void periods and repairs.
Two things the comparison does not price, and you should:
- Your hours. A short let at a 3-night average stay is six to ten turnovers a month to coordinate, plus messages, plus restocking. If short-letting nets €450 a month more than a tenancy, you are working for something between €45 and €70 a turnover. That may well be fine. It should be a decision, not an accident.
- Risk and regulation. A tenancy is one contract a year; a short let is fifty, each with a review attached. Short-let licensing is tightening in most cities, and a rule change can remove the option entirely — a long let cannot be legislated away in the same way.
Where the two come out close, the long let usually wins on effort and the short let on flexibility — you can use the property yourself, and you can raise rates in a good season. Where the short let wins by a wide margin, check that the margin is not simply your own unpaid labour showing up as profit.
Is my Airbnb profitable?
The honest answer takes four steps, and most hosts stop after the first.
- Start from net payout, not gross earnings. The number on your Airbnb dashboard is before the service fee. Use what actually landed in your bank account.
- Subtract every cost, including the ones nobody invoices you for. The seven above are the usual omissions. Add your own labour if you want the truth rather than the flattering version.
- Compare the result with your break-even occupancy, month by month. A profitable year made of five loss-making months has a cash-flow problem even though the annual total looks healthy.
- Compare it with the alternative. Profitable is not the same as worth it. A property clearing €300 a month more than a tenancy, for ten turnovers of work, is profitable and arguably not worth it.
If you cannot do step two from records you already keep, that — rather than the occupancy figure — is the thing to fix first. A year of receipts in a shoebox turns into an estimate, and an estimate is how a property that loses money keeps its owner comfortable for three years.
Five ways this calculation goes wrong
- Treating the cleaning fee as a pass-through. It is charged commission, and it rarely matches what the cleaner charges. Enter both sides separately.
- Using gross earnings. Under the single-fee model the platform takes 15.5% before you see the money. A projection built on gross is 15% wrong on the biggest line.
- Averaging the year. Seasonal properties do not experience the average. Run the calculator twice — once for a peak month, once for the worst month — and look at both break-even numbers.
- Forgetting the mortgage capital. Only the interest is a deductible expense, but the whole payment leaves your account. Break-even is a cash question, so use the whole payment here and let your accountant split it later.
- Not reserving for maintenance. Setting the reserve to zero makes every month look better and one month a year look catastrophic. The boiler is not an unusual event; it is a scheduled one with an unknown date.
When the year ends: Schedule E and the UK property pages
A break-even figure tells you whether to keep going. It does not survive contact with a tax return, which wants each cost sorted onto a numbered line: in the US, Schedule E (Form 1040) — advertising on line 5, cleaning and maintenance on line 7, insurance on line 9, mortgage interest on line 12, repairs on line 14, supplies on line 15, utilities on line 17. In the UK the property pages of the self-assessment return ask the same questions with different boxes, and most other countries do something recognisably similar.
Two things reliably go wrong. Costs that belong to several properties — the accountant, the listing photography, a software subscription — have to be split before they can be reported. And depreciation has to be kept visible for tax while being kept out of your cash figures, or your monthly profit will be wrong in one direction and your tax return wrong in the other.
Neither needs software. They do need a consistent place to put things during the year, because reconstructing twelve months of costs in March is how deductions get missed.
Questions
What is break-even occupancy?
Break-even occupancy is the share of your available nights that has to be booked before the property stops losing money. It is your fixed monthly costs divided by the profit each booked night contributes after platform fees, cleaning and consumables. Below that occupancy you are subsidising the property; above it, every extra night is profit.
What occupancy do I need to break even on an Airbnb?
There is no single figure — it depends entirely on your fixed costs and your nightly rate. A mortgage-free flat with low bills can break even around 10–15%. A leveraged property paying a 15.5% platform fee typically needs 40–55%. Add a manager taking 20% of revenue and 65% or more is common. The averages you see quoted are averages of other people’s cost structures, which is why the calculator asks for yours.
Should I include my mortgage payment?
Include whatever leaves your bank account, capital included, because break-even is a cash question. Only the interest is a deductible expense on your tax return, so the break-even occupancy here is deliberately stricter than the profit figure your accountant will report. That is the right way round for a decision about whether to keep hosting.
Does the Airbnb host fee apply to the cleaning fee?
Yes. The service fee is charged on the booking subtotal, which includes the cleaning fee and any extra-guest fee and excludes taxes. Under the single-fee model you keep roughly 84.5% of the cleaning fee you charge, and you still owe the cleaner in full.
What is a good occupancy rate?
Occupancy alone tells you very little: 90% at a rate that barely covers the turnover is worse than 55% at double the rate. What matters is occupancy relative to your own break-even point — how many percentage points of headroom you hold, and how many months of the year sit below the line.
How many nights a month is 60% occupancy?
About 18 nights in a 30-day month, or roughly 219 nights across a year. If you block dates for your own use, reduce the available nights in the calculator: occupancy should be measured against the nights you actually offered.
Should the cleaning fee count as income?
Yes, and the cleaner is an expense, and the two are rarely equal. Enter both. Hosts who net them off and ignore both sides usually flatter their margin, because commission is charged on the fee you collect but not on the invoice you pay.
What about lodging or tourist tax?
Money collected for a tax authority is not revenue — keep it out of the nightly rate you enter. Where the platform collects and remits it, it never touches your payout. Where you collect it yourself, treat it as a liability from the day it arrives.
Does this work for Vrbo, Booking.com and direct bookings?
Yes — change the platform fee. Vrbo pay-per-booking is 5% commission plus 3% payment processing; Booking.com is commonly around 15%; a direct booking taken through your own site is usually 2–3% in card fees. Listing on several channels? Use a blended average weighted by the share of nights each brings.
Is a 20% net margin good?
For an owner-operated property carrying a mortgage, yes. Published operator benchmarks put owner-operated margins at 15–30%, dropping to 5–15% once a manager takes 18–25%. Compare like with like, though: many quoted margins are struck before any mortgage payment.
Do I need to include depreciation?
Not here. Depreciation is not cash leaving your account this month, and break-even is a cash question. It matters a great deal for your tax return and for the long-run economics of the property — keep the figure your accountant gives you, in its own line, out of this calculation.
Does the calculator store or send my numbers?
No. Every calculation runs in your browser. Your figures are kept in your own browser’s local storage so the page still shows them when you return, and they are never uploaded. Start over clears them and restores the defaults.
Once the estimate needs to become a record
This calculator models one typical month from figures you supply. It cannot tell you what last March actually cost, which property is carrying the other, or which expenses your accountant is still waiting for — because it never sees your real bookings. The Airbnb Host Income & Expense Tracker is the spreadsheet for that part: paste your Airbnb Transaction History export into a booking log built for its column order, log costs against categories already mapped to Schedule E lines, and read real occupancy, average nightly rate and per-property profit from a dashboard rather than an estimate. Shared costs split across properties automatically; duplicate booking codes and missing receipts are flagged. Up to ten properties, one .xlsx file, Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice, no macros and no subscription. It is €14, and this calculator stays free and complete whether or not you buy it.
See the tracker — €14