Airbnb vs long-term rental: how to compare them with your own numbers

Compare one short-term year with one long-term year on the same property. Write down the cash each use collects and the cash each use pays. Break-even occupancy is the short-term occupancy at which those two operating profits match.

The short-term side here is nights you rent to guests, including nights booked on Airbnb. The long-term side is a lease measured in months of rent. An Airbnb stay of 28 nights or more is still an Airbnb reservation: Airbnb collects the guest’s payment monthly and sends payouts through the stay (monthly stays). That reservation is not the lease in this comparison. If you use Airbnb for the long stay, keep Airbnb’s fee on that side.

Both columns use amounts you type. The worked figures below are a made-up example. They are not a market rent, a market nightly rate, a typical occupancy, or a promise of a booking or a signed lease. This is a planning estimate, not financial, tax, legal, or pricing advice.

Run the short-term year in the ROI calculator and, for an upfront furnishing amount, the break-even calculator. The long-term year is the rent arithmetic on this page, because those two calculators start from a nightly rate. The short-term vs long-term rental calculator is the place for both columns together. How to estimate Airbnb ROI and break-even walks the short-term calculators with its own illustrative example. How to Calculate Short-Term Rental ROI is the short version of cash invested and three cases.

The two incomes

Short-term income in the ROI calculator is the nightly rate times booked nights. Booked nights are 365 times the occupancy percent you enter. A guest cleaning fee is not inside that revenue. Add it only if you say you added it, and then keep the cleaning cost you pay on the cost side.

Long-term income is the monthly rent times the months a tenant pays. A security deposit you expect to return is not income.

You can offer an Airbnb discount for a weekly stay of 7 nights or more, or a monthly stay of 28 nights or more. You type the discount percentage (length-of-stay discounts). If that discount will apply, the nightly rate in this comparison is the rate after the discount, not the rate before it.

Lines that differ

Use the same year and the same property. A cost that is identical on both sides, such as a mortgage payment you choose to count, does not decide the comparison. Put that payment on both sides or leave it off both. The made-up example leaves a mortgage off both sides.

Cleaning

Short-term cleaning happens once per stay. A flat guest cleaning fee, if you charge one, is a fee per booking. It is not part of the nightly price (additional fees). The cost you pay the cleaner is a different amount from the fee the guest pays.

Spread the cost you pay across the nights in the stay:

cleaning cost per booked night = cleaner cost per turnover ÷ nights per stay
turnovers in the year = booked nights ÷ nights per stay

That even split is right when every stay has the length you typed. A one-night stay and a week do not share a turnover the same way. How to set an Airbnb cleaning fee and the cleaning fee calculator build one turnover. How to Build a Sustainable Cleaning Fee lists the pieces of that cost.

A long-term year might have one turnover when a tenant leaves, or none in the year you are costing. Put the amount you expect. Do not copy the short-term per-stay invoice into the long-term column.

Count a guest cleaning fee once. It is either income, or you leave it out. The cleaner’s bill is a cost either way. Putting the guest fee in income and also dropping the cleaner’s bill double-counts the turnover in your favor. Leaving the guest fee out and also ignoring the cleaner’s bill hides a cost.

Platform fees

An Airbnb host fee is a percentage of the booking subtotal. On the service-fee help page, checked on 27 October 2026, that subtotal is the nightly price and any fees the host charges, excluding the guest service fee and taxes. A cleaning fee the guest pays is one of those host-charged fees. Airbnb host service fees explained quotes the percentages on that page and the move from the split fee to the single fee. Confirm the percentage in your Airbnb account. The Airbnb fee calculator applies it to one stay.

The ROI calculator’s variable-expense percent applies to nightly revenue only. Nightly revenue is not the booking subtotal when a cleaning fee is in the stay. Typing a host-fee percent into that field does not reproduce the fee. The made-up example uses a round allowance per booked night and says so.

A lease that is not booked on Airbnb has no Airbnb service fee. A leasing commission, an advertising cost, or a placement fee belongs on the long-term side if you pay one.

Furnishing

Guests on a short stay arrive to a furnished place. A long-term lease might be unfurnished, or it might include appliances only. Count the furnishing you actually provide on each side.

Split the cash into two piles, and do not put one sofa in both:

• An annual replacement reserve is an operating cost for the year. More turnovers can wear furniture, linens, and finishes faster than a single tenant. Choose the reserve. This page has no wear rate and no standard replacement percent.
• The cash already spent on furniture is an upfront amount. The ROI calculator keeps furniture and setup inside cash invested, out of annual operating profit. The break-even calculator can ask how long operating profit takes to recover an upfront amount you type. How to estimate Airbnb ROI and break-even shows that split with its own illustrative example.

Utilities

Assign each bill to the side that pays it. Electricity, water, heat, internet, and trash can sit with the host every month on a short-term listing, booked or empty. A lease can pass the same bills to the tenant. This guide does not say which arrangement you have. If the tenant pays, the long-term utility cost is zero, and the rent you type is the rent you collect.

Bills you pay in vacant months stay in the fixed column. They are not a per-night cost.

Vacancy

Short-term vacancy is the nights in your base that are not guest-booked. The ROI calculator’s base is 365 nights. At the occupancy you type, booked nights are 365 times that percent, and the other nights collect no nightly revenue. Do not also subtract a vacancy percent.

Long-term vacancy is months without rent. Rent collected is the monthly rent times the months the tenant pays. Fixed costs you still pay during the empty month stay in the cost column. Do not also multiply rent by a second vacancy rate.

How to calculate your Airbnb occupancy rate, ADR and RevPAR is the calendar count behind the occupancy percent, including blocked nights and nights you stay yourself. The calendar there is made up.

Management

A short-term manager may be paid from bookings: a percent of revenue, or a fee per stay. A long-term manager may be a percent of rent collected, a flat monthly fee, or a fee only while the home is leased. Put the contract you would sign on that side.

If you manage it yourself, the management line can be zero. The hours go on the time line. A percent and the same hours, both in the total, charge you twice for one job.

Time

Time cost is hours you expect to spend times an hourly value you choose. Count messages, turnovers, restocking, and repairs on the side where you do them. The hourly value is yours. This page does not publish a wage, and the hours in the example are made up.

The hours are also the workload, separate from the dollars. Two profits can match while one side still asks for the larger share of your time. Read the hours as well as the profit.

The ROI calculator has no hours field. Fold the year’s time value into monthly fixed expenses, and label it, or subtract it after the calculator’s operating profit. The example below folds it in and shows the pieces.

Break-even occupancy

Use one contribution per booked night:

contribution per booked night = nightly rate − variable cost per booked night
short-term profit = contribution per booked night × (365 × occupancy) − short-term fixed costs − short-term time cost
long-term profit = monthly rent × months occupied − long-term operating costs − long-term time cost

Variable cost per booked night holds the pieces that move with nights: the cleaning cost you pay, spread across the stay, supplies, a platform allowance you chose, and a manager’s percent if you put it there.

Set the two profits equal and solve for occupancy, when the contribution is positive:

break-even occupancy = (long-term profit + short-term fixed costs + short-term time cost) ÷ (365 × contribution per booked night)

That occupancy is the short-term booked share of 365 nights at which the short-term year matches the long-term profit you calculated. It is not a forecast of how many nights will book.

If the contribution is zero or negative, raising occupancy does not catch a higher long-term profit. If the solved occupancy is above 100%, a full year at this nightly rate and these costs does not match that long-term profit.

A different occupancy covers the short-term costs and the time value with nothing left over, and it ignores the long-term alternative:

occupancy that covers short-term costs = (short-term fixed costs + short-term time cost) ÷ (365 × contribution per booked night)

The break-even calculator answers a third question: how long monthly operating profit takes to recover one upfront amount. It does not solve for the occupancy that matches a lease.

The nightly price calculator goes the other direction. You type an occupancy, and it solves for a nightly rate that covers costs and a host fee. How to set an Airbnb nightly price from your costs is that walkthrough, with its own made-up example.

A made-up example

Every amount in this section is made up. Replace it. The figures are here so the arithmetic can be checked. They are not a rent, a nightly rate, an occupancy, or a wage from a market.

The short-term column:

• Nightly rate 150
• Comparison occupancy 60%, which this example solves for
• Nights per stay 3
• Cleaner cost you pay, 45 per turnover, which is 15 per booked night
• Platform allowance 10 per booked night
• Supplies 5 per booked night
• Management 0
• Utilities 150 a month, which is 1800 for the year, paid by the host in this example
• Insurance 1200
• Maintenance 900
• Furnishing replacement reserve 900
• Software 600
• Time, 90 hours at 20 per hour, which is 1800 for the year, or 150 a month

The 10 per booked night is an allowance chosen for the example. It is not a host-fee percentage from Airbnb’s help page. The 20 per hour is a value chosen for the example. It is not a wage this site recommends.

Variable cost per booked night is 15 + 10 + 5 = 30, which is 20% of 150. Contribution per booked night is 150 − 30 = 120. Cash fixed costs are 1800 + 1200 + 900 + 900 + 600 = 5400, or 450 a month. With the time value, the monthly fixed amount is 600.

The long-term column, for the same made-up property:

• Monthly rent 2000
• Months occupied 11, so one month is vacant
• Insurance 1200, the same figure as the short-term side, so insurance is not what separates the two columns
• Maintenance 700
• One turnover between tenants, 420
• Utilities 0, because this example’s lease has the tenant pay them
• Management 0
• Time, 30 hours at the same 20 per hour, which is 600

Furniture already bought, 8000, stays out of both operating columns. The 900 reserve is this year’s replacement allowance. The 8000 is a different pile of cash.

booked nights at 60% = 365 × 60% = 219
short-term revenue = 150 × 219 = 32850
short-term variable costs = 30 × 219 = 6570
short-term fixed costs, including time = 600 × 12 = 7200
short-term profit = 32850 − 6570 − 7200 = 19080

long-term rent collected = 2000 × 11 = 22000
long-term costs = 1200 + 700 + 420 + 600 = 2920
long-term profit = 22000 − 2920 = 19080

break-even occupancy = (19080 + 7200) ÷ (365 × 120) = 26280 ÷ 43800 = 60%

The profits match at 60% because the example was built that way. At 40% occupancy the same costs book 146 nights. Revenue is 21900, variable costs are 4380, and profit is 21900 − 4380 − 7200 = 10320. That is below the long-term profit of 19080. These two percents are the same made-up costs. They are not a low season and a high season.

The occupancy that covers the short-term fixed costs and the time value, with zero profit and with the lease ignored, is 7200 ÷ (365 × 120) = 60 ÷ 365. To the nearest hundredth of a percent, that is 16.44%. The booked nights at that point are 60. A year at that occupancy covers the short-term bills and the hours in this example. It does not match the long-term profit.

A manager paid 10% of the nightly rate would add 15 per booked night on top of the 30. The contribution would no longer be 120, and 60% would no longer be the match. Put that percent in the variable line and solve the formula again.

The same short-term year in the calculators

Open the ROI calculator and replace the filled-in amounts with:

• Purchase price 0
• Down payment 0%
• Closing costs 0
• Furniture and setup 0
• Average nightly rate 150
• Expected occupancy 60%
• Monthly fixed expenses 600
• Variable expenses 20% of revenue

The 600 is 450 of bills plus 150 of the made-up time value. Purchase price and cash invested are zero so this run is the operating comparison only. Cash-on-cash return and cap rate stay unavailable. The page says cash-on-cash return is not available until total cash invested is greater than zero.

booked nights = 365 × 60% = 219
annual revenue = 150 × 219 = 32850
annual variable costs = 32850 × 20% = 6570
annual fixed costs = 600 × 12 = 7200
annual operating profit = 32850 − 7200 − 6570 = 19080

With USD selected, the calculator shows 219 booked nights, annual revenue $32,850, variable costs $6,570, fixed costs $7,200, and annual operating profit $19,080. Cash invested displays as $0. Cash-on-cash return and cap rate each display as Not available. Whole currency units are display rounding. In this run the amounts are already whole.

That profit matches the long-term profit above. The calculator did not compute the long-term column.

Open the break-even calculator for the 8000 of furniture. Nightly rate 150, occupancy 60%, monthly fixed costs 600, variable cost per booked night 30. The upfront amount is the furniture. It is not the annual reserve of 900.

booked nights per month = (365 ÷ 12) × 60% = 18.25
monthly revenue = 150 × 18.25 = 2737.50
monthly variable costs = 30 × 18.25 = 547.50
monthly operating profit = 2737.50 − 600 − 547.50 = 1590
months to break even = 8000 ÷ 1590
booked nights to break even = 8000 ÷ (150 − 30) = 8000 ÷ 120

With USD selected, the calculator shows 18.3 booked nights per month, monthly revenue $2,738, variable costs $548, monthly operating profit $1,590, and a break-even time of 5 months. The booked-nights result displays as 66.7. The 18.3, the $2,738, and the $548 are the exact 18.25, 2737.50, and 547.50 shown with the page’s rounding. The profit of 1590 is exact, and 1590 × 12 = 19080, the annual profit above. The time result is 8000 ÷ 1590 months. Shown to the nearest tenth of a month, that is 5.0 months, and the page drops the trailing zero. The 66.7 nights divide the upfront amount by the nightly rate minus the per-night variable cost. That nights figure leaves the monthly fixed costs out. The months figure includes them.

What else to weigh

The hours are the workload. In this example the short-term side uses 90 hours and the long-term side uses 30. Both hour counts are made up. A match at 19080 does not make the two years the same job.

Local rules and permits are a check, not a line this page can fill in. Airbnb’s page on regulations says Airbnb does not provide legal advice. It lists business licenses, building and housing standards, zoning, a special permit some jurisdictions require to rent a home, taxes, landlord-tenant rules on longer stays, and other contracts such as a lease or HOA rules, and it tells hosts to ask the local government or a local lawyer. Rules differ by place. This guide does not say which of those apply to a short stay, which apply to a lease, or whether your city uses a different night count than Airbnb does. Confirm them for the property. The New Airbnb host checklist points at the same kind of check for a new listing.

Airbnb’s calendar article says Airbnb may block the calendar when a listing is in a city that does not allow reservations shorter than a certain number of days (why nights are blocked). That is a statement about the calendar. It is not a statement of your city’s rule. If short stays cannot be booked, the short-term occupancy in this comparison cannot be assumed. Read the local rule before you treat a solved occupancy as a plan.

Wear sits in the reserve or the maintenance line you choose. The example’s 900 furnishing reserve and the two maintenance amounts are made up. They are not a measured wear rate.

What the comparison leaves out

Income tax, depreciation, appreciation, sale costs, and a change in a loan payment are outside the formulas, unless a cash amount you typed is the payment you want to count. The example leaves the mortgage out of both sides. A guest may not book, and a tenant may not sign, at the rates above. One empty month on the long-term side and a flat 60% on the short-term side hide seasons. Run a lower short-term occupancy as well as the match.

Help center pages checked on 27 October 2026

• https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1857 for the host fee as a percentage of the booking subtotal, which includes host-charged fees and excludes the guest service fee and taxes.
• https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2385 for the cleaning fee as a flat fee per booking, outside the nightly price.
• https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/285 for Airbnb monthly stays of 28 nights or more, with monthly payouts, as an Airbnb reservation.
• https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1233 for optional weekly discounts of 7 nights or more and monthly discounts of 28 nights or more, with the percent entered by the host.
• https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/961 for Airbnb’s statement that it does not provide legal advice, and for the kinds of local rules a host is told to check.
• https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3612 for calendar blocks, including a block when a city does not allow reservations shorter than a certain number of days.