Airbnb income calculator, after the mortgage and taxes
Start with your nightly rate and occupancy. Comparable listings give you both, as does any estimate for your address. The calculator takes out Airbnb's fee and the mortgage. Interest and depreciation then shrink the taxable line before your 2026 tax bracket applies. On the default $350,000 purchase, about $2,100 of the $41,900 in bookings is left as cash flow before tax, because the mortgage takes $21,200.
Your average across the year, not the peak week.
Booked nights divided by available nights. Most US markets land between 50% and 70% for a well-run unit.
Airbnb fee model
Share of the payout paid to a co-host or management company. Leave at 0 if you self-manage.
Federal brackets are the 2026 rates from IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32. Depreciation is straight-line on the building only, year one, with no mid-month convention. Cleaning is treated as billed to guests and occupancy tax as remitted by the platform, so both are excluded.
An estimate for comparing deals, not tax advice. Passive loss rules, the 14-day rule, bonus depreciation and cost segregation are not modeled. Run the final numbers with a CPA.
After-tax cash flow, year one
$2,138.86
Your city's permit is a cost too
Count the permit fee in your yearly costs. Sedona charges $210 a unit each year. San Francisco stops unhosted stays at 90 nights, which caps the revenue line.
Find your city's permit rulesHow much do Airbnb hosts make?
Airbnb says the typical US host earned about $15,600 in supplemental income in 2025, in an economic impact release dated April 15, 2026. It doesn't define typical. Nor does it say whether its own fee comes out first. The number pools spare rooms with whole homes, so it can't tell you what one property will clear.
Bookings are not income either. Airbnb keeps 15.5 percent from most US hosts, and the mortgage leaves your account before the IRS taxes what remains. Put your own rate and occupancy in the calculator above to see where one property lands.
For the market side, read is Airbnb still profitable in 2026, which starts with the permit check.
Where the nightly rate and occupancy come from
This calculator doesn't estimate your nightly rate or occupancy. You bring both, and a few points of occupancy can move the result from a loss to a profit.
Start with the listings around you. Pick places with the same number of bedrooms in the same ZIP code and follow their calendars for a few months. Take the middle of the range, not the best month you can find in July.
Airbnb's Host your home page shows an earnings estimate, built from a nightly price for your area and a number of nights you choose. Market-data estimators start from an address. They return a nightly rate, an occupancy rate and a gross revenue figure. The rate and the occupancy go straight into the first two fields above.
None of it counts if your city doesn't allow the rental. Some cities cap the nights a whole home can be booked, so check the short-term rental laws for your city first.
How it works
Three lines most calculators skip
Debt service is not an expense to the IRS
Your mortgage payment leaves your account in full, but only the interest is deductible. The principal is cash out with no tax effect, which is why cash flow and taxable income diverge.
Depreciation is a deduction you never paid for
The building loses value on paper over 27.5 years, or 39 when the rental is classed as transient. That deduction can turn a cash-positive year into a tax loss.
Schedule C costs you 15.3% more
Provide hotel-like services and the income moves to Schedule C with self-employment tax on top. Most hosts who only clean between stays report on Schedule E.
Where Airbnb profit calculators go wrong
They stop at gross revenue, or at best at revenue minus the cleaning fee. The mortgage, the property tax bill that resets after a sale, the insurance policy that costs three times a homeowners policy because it covers nightly guests, and the management company's 20 percent all live below that line. Then comes the IRS, which has its own view of what you earned.
That view is friendlier than hosts expect. The principal you repay is not deductible, but the interest is, and the building depreciates on paper whether or not it loses value. Take the defaults above: a $350,000 purchase with 20 percent down at 6.5 percent, 62 percent occupancy at $185 a night. The property grosses about $41,900, clears $23,400 after fees and operating costs, and keeps roughly $2,100 once the $21,200 of mortgage payments are out. On the tax side, $18,100 of interest and $10,200 of depreciation turn that into a loss of about $4,900 on paper. Whether that loss offsets other income depends on the passive activity rules, and a rental with short stays can get out of them through the short-term rental tax loophole. The cost segregation calculator shows how much more depreciation a study would bring into year one.
The two toggles that change the answer most are the fee model and the schedule. Airbnb charges most US hosts 15.5 percent host-only; hosts on the split model pay 3 percent and the guest pays the rest, which lowers your fee but raises the guest's total. Schedule C applies when you provide substantial services, such as daily cleaning or meals, and it adds 15.3 percent self-employment tax on the profit. Schedule E, for most hosts, does not.
Questions
Airbnb income, answered
How much can I make on Airbnb?
What is a good cash-on-cash return for a short-term rental?
Schedule E or Schedule C for Airbnb income?
Is an Airbnb depreciated over 27.5 or 39 years?
Does the calculator include occupancy tax and cleaning fees?
Why is my taxable income lower than my cash flow?
How much do Airbnb hosts make on average?
How do I estimate Airbnb income for my address?
Sources
- Airbnb Newsroom, “Hosts and guests boost US economy by a record $93B in 2025” (April 15, 2026): the typical US host earned approximately $15,600 in supplemental income in 2025. Read October 2, 2026.
- Airbnb, Host your home (airbnb.com/host/homes): earnings estimate from a nightly price for the area and a number of nights. Read October 2, 2026.
- Airbnb Help Center, Service fees (article 1857): 15.5% host-only fee for most hosts, 3% host share on the split model. Read September 10, 2026.
- IRS Publication 527 (2025 returns): residential rental property is depreciated over 27.5 years, and the class excludes “a unit in a hotel, motel, inn, or other establishment where more than half of the units are used on a transient basis.” The publication gives no length of stay. IRC § 168(e)(2)(A)(ii)(I) states the same exclusion, and § 168(c) sets 39 years for nonresidential real property. Read October 2, 2026.
- IRS Schedule SE: 15.3% on 92.35% of net self-employment earnings; one half deductible from income. Social Security wage base not modeled.
- IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (October 2025): 2026 federal brackets of 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 37%. Standard deduction $16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly.
- Model assumptions: 365 available nights, 30-year fixed loan amortized for year-one interest, depreciation on the building share only, cleaning billed to guests, occupancy tax remitted by the platform, tax on positive income only and no credit for a loss.
Keep going
Other free tools
Airbnb host fee calculator
What Airbnb takes on a booking under the 15.5% host-only fee or the old split fee, what the guest pays on top, and the payout that reaches you.
Rental arbitrage calculator
Rent, deposit, furnishing, nightly rate and occupancy. You get monthly cash flow, the occupancy you break even at, and how long the setup takes to pay back.
Airbnb cleaning fee calculator
What to charge so the cleaner is paid after Airbnb's cut, how the fee reads to a guest on a short stay, and what it adds up to across a year.