2026-09-21 7 min read

Vacation Rental Calculator

The short-term rental revenue, costs and cash flow at your occupancy for a vacation rental. Live calculator with worked steps and charts.

Calculator

Purchase Price Help

The price you pay, before closing costs.

Down Payment(%) Help

Investment loans typically require 20–30% down.

Interest Rate(%)

Loan Term(years)

years

Nightly Rate

Occupancy Rate(%) Help

Share of nights booked across the year.

Property Tax (Annual)

Insurance (Annual)

Maintenance & Repairs(%) Help

Share of effective income budgeted for repairs.

Property Management(%) Help

Share of collected rent charged by the manager.

Annual Appreciation(%)

Holding Period(years)

years

Selling Costs(%) Help

Commission plus closing costs, as a share of sale price.

Discount Rate / Target Return(%) Help

The annual return you require to tie up cash.

Advanced options (5)

Closing Costs

Furnishing & Startup Costs

Cleaning Fee per Stay

Utilities (Annual, Landlord-Paid)

Other Expenses (Annual)

This vacation rental calculator runs on a full rental pro-forma: rent is annualised and reduced by vacancy, every operating expense is itemised to reach NOI, and the loan amortises monthly at the rate entered. Results update live as you type.

Local short-term rental rules

Many cities cap, license or ban short-term rentals. Confirm the property is legally allowed to operate before underwriting the revenue.

Results

Optimal

Projected Annual Revenue

$53,995

226 booked nights at $220.00 a night, plus cleaning fees.

Average Nightly Rate

$220

Occupancy Rate

62.00%

Booked Nights per Year

226

Net Operating Income

$38,611

Operating Expenses

$12,689

Includes an estimated 3% platform booking fee.

Annual Cash Flow

$19,450

Cash-on-Cash Return

20.26%

Against cash invested including furnishing.

Cash Invested

$96,000

Down payment, closing, repairs and furnishing.

Cap Rate

12.07%

Furnishing & Startup Costs

$12,000

Furniture, decor, photography, initial supplies.

Live results update as you type — currently showing projected annual revenue of $53,995. Replace the defaults with your own rent roll, tax bill and insurance quote for an exact comparison.

Visualizations

Revenue Build-Up

49,720Room revenue

4,275Cleaning fees

-11,069Operating expenses

-1,620Platform fees

38,611NOI

Occupancy Sensitivity — Annual Revenue

Occupancy Rate

62%

0100

Formula

The short-term rental model prices the whole operation: occupancy-driven revenue, cleaning and platform fees, furnishing amortisation, plus the standard operating and debt stack.

Revenue = Nightly rate × Nights booked + Fees; Cash flow = Revenue − Costs − Debt service

Variables

Symbol	Name	Unit	Description
ADR	Nightly rate	$	The average daily rate you achieve
Occ	Occupancy	%	Share of nights actually booked
Fees	Cleaning & platform	$	Per-stay fees and platform commission

Explanation

Short-term rentals trade management intensity for income premium: the same unit may produce 1.5–3× a long-term lease, minus cleaning, furnishing, platform fees and a much more variable occupancy.

Step-by-Step Calculation

Follow each step to understand how the result is calculated from your inputs.

Step 1

Build revenue from the nightly rate and occupancy.

Revenue = nightly rate × 365 × occupancy % + cleaning fees

Nightly rate:$220.00

Occupancy:62.00%

Intermediate: $220.00 × 226 nights

Result: $53,995 a year

Step 2

Run the standard operating model on that revenue.

NOI = revenue − vacancy − operating expenses − platform fees

Operating expenses:$11,069

Platform fee:$1,620

Intermediate: $53,995 − $11,069 − $1,620

Result: $38,611 NOI

Step 3

Deduct the debt service to reach cash flow.

Cash flow = NOI − annual debt service

Debt service:$19,161

Intermediate: $38,611 − $19,161

Result: $19,450 a year

Step 4

Measure the return against cash invested, including furnishing.

Cash-on-cash = cash flow ÷ (down payment + closing + furnishing)

Cash invested:$96,000

Intermediate: $19,450 ÷ $96,000

Result: 20.26%

Final Answer

$53,995

Worked Examples

See how the calculator works with different scenarios.

Scenario

The vacation rental calculator run on the values above, showing the full calculation path rather than only the answer.

Inputs

Price:320000

Down Payment Pct:25

Rate:7

Term Years:30

Calculation

1. Build revenue from the nightly rate and occupancy. → $53,995 a year 2. Run the standard operating model on that revenue. → $38,611 NOI 3. Deduct the debt service to reach cash flow. → $19,450 a year 4. Measure the return against cash invested, including furnishing. → 20.26%

Result

Projected Annual Revenue: $53,995

Interpretation

226 booked nights at $220.00 produces $53,995 of revenue; after $12,689 of expenses and $19,161 of debt service the cash flow is $19,450 (20.26% on $96,000 including furnishing).

Understanding Your Result

Your Result: Projected Annual Revenue: $53,995

Typical range: Short-term rentals usually need 60%+ occupancy to beat a long-term lease, because turnover, cleaning and furnishing costs run well above a standard rental.

What This Means

Short-term rentals trade management intensity for income premium: the same unit may produce 1.5–3× a long-term lease, minus cleaning, furnishing, platform fees and a much more variable occupancy.

Why It Matters

226 booked nights at $220.00 produces $53,995 of revenue; after $12,689 of expenses and $19,161 of debt service the cash flow is $19,450 (20.26% on $96,000 including furnishing).

Professional Interpretation

226 booked nights at $220.00 produces $53,995 of revenue; after $12,689 of expenses and $19,161 of debt service the cash flow is $19,450 (20.26% on $96,000 including furnishing).

How this is calculated

The short-term rental model prices the whole operation: occupancy-driven revenue, cleaning and platform fees, furnishing amortisation, plus the standard operating and debt stack.

What drives the result

Each strategy isolates a profit source. Flipping earns the spread between all-in cost and resale. BRRRR earns the value created by rehab, then recovers cash through a refinance. Wholesaling earns a fee for assigning a contract. House hacking converts your own housing cost into investment income.

Recommendations

•Underwrite occupancy at 10 points below the market average — regulation and seasonality hit short-term books hard.
•Furnishing is a real capital cost and a recurring one: plan to refresh every three to five years.

Educational Content

Introduction

Beyond buy-and-hold, real estate investors use repeatable playbooks — flipping, the BRRRR loop, wholesaling, house hacking and short-term rentals. Each prices a specific edge: buying below value, adding value with rehab, or monetising a property more intensively.

Concept Explanation

Applications

▸Pricing a flip offer with the 70% rule before the negotiation starts

▸Planning a BRRRR refinance so the cash-out returns your original down payment

▸Modelling whether an Airbnb premium beats a standard lease after cleaning, furnishing and vacancy

▸Testing whether renting out rooms covers the mortgage on a house hack

Benefits

•Forces the profit to be priced at offer time, not discovered at closing
•Makes the capital recycling of BRRRR explicit: how much cash actually comes back out
•Compares active income (wholesaling, flipping) against passive holds on the same page

Limitations

•Rehab budgets overrun more often than not — carry a contingency and a timeline buffer
•Strategy returns depend on executing in a short window; a slow sale or refinance erases thin margins
•Short-term rental income depends on regulation and seasonality that a single occupancy input cannot fully capture
•Local short-term rental rules: Many cities cap, license or ban short-term rentals. Confirm the property is legally allowed to operate before underwriting the revenue.

Best Practices

•Get contractor bids before the offer, and add 10–20% contingency to whatever they say
•Underwrite the refinance at today’s rates and a conservative appraised value — hope is not a financing plan
•For short-term rentals, model both a strong and a weak season before buying furniture

Common Misconceptions

Myth: The 70% rule is a valuation.

Truth: It is a screening heuristic that already embeds profit and buying costs; use it to filter listings, then underwrite properly.

Myth: BRRRR means buying with no money.

Truth: It means recovering your capital after adding value — until the refinance closes, your cash is fully at risk.

Myth: Wholesaling requires no capital or licence.

Truth: It requires earnest money at risk, marketing spend, and in many states a licence or disclosure rules — know yours before assigning contracts.

Practical Tips

•Pull real comps from the platform for both rate and occupancy — host-reported figures skew optimistic
•Model the weak season explicitly; annual averages hide the months that decide whether you survive

Common Mistakes

Using platform host estimates as underwriting.

Independently verify rate and occupancy from multiple sources before buying furniture.

Ignoring regulation risk.

Permits, caps and bans can change the business model overnight; know the local rules.

Assumptions

This calculator makes the following assumptions to provide estimates:

Average-night basis: Revenue is modelled at an average rate and occupancy across the year.

Limitations

Be aware of these limitations when using this calculator:

Limitation: Rehab budgets overrun more often than not — carry a contingency and a timeline buffer

Limitation: Strategy returns depend on executing in a short window; a slow sale or refinance erases thin margins

Limitation: Short-term rental income depends on regulation and seasonality that a single occupancy input cannot fully capture

Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to common questions about this calculator.

Is an Airbnb more profitable than a long-term rental?

Often, on gross income — but after cleaning, furnishing, platform fees, higher vacancy management and regulation, the premium shrinks; this model prices both sides of that trade.

Who uses the vacation rental calculator?

It is used by rental investors screening and pricing deals, by owner-operators budgeting expenses and rents, and by agents, lenders and advisers sanity-checking the numbers before money moves. It sits in the Strategies group of the Real Estate Investing section of Atlascalcs.

How accurate is the vacation rental calculator?

Every figure follows from the inputs using standard property underwriting mathematics, so it is accurate to the quality of the values you enter. Lenders, appraisers and tax assessors each apply their own adjustments, so expect small differences against formal documents.

Do I need to sign up or pay to use this calculator?

No. Every Atlascalcs calculator is free, runs entirely in your browser and never asks for an account. Nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.

Can I use these numbers in a formal valuation or loan application?

The calculator is an underwriting aid, not an appraisal or a lender offer. Lenders and appraisers apply their own adjustments, so treat the output as a disciplined estimate to bring to those conversations.

How do I choose realistic inputs?

Pull rent from comparable leases, property tax from the current assessment, insurance from a quote, and management and maintenance from what operators in your market actually pay. Seller pro-formas are marketing documents.

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Related Guides

Deepen your understanding with these educational resources.

Rental property cash flow guide

How the pro-forma layers build from rent to cash flow, and where deals usually hide problems.

Cap rate, DSCR and return metrics explained

Which metric answers which question, and why none of them should be read alone.

Financing an investment property

Down payments, rate premiums and how lenders size income-property loans.

Glossary

Technical terms used in mortgage calculations explained in plain language.

Occupancy Rate: The share of available nights or units actually producing income — the complement of vacancy.
PITI: Principal, interest, property taxes and insurance — the full monthly housing payment.
Net Operating Income (NOI): Effective gross income minus operating expenses, before debt service and income tax. The core measure of a property’s earning power.

Authoritative References

Trusted sources and standards referenced by this calculator.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — Owning a home Federal Reserve — Commercial bank mortgage rates (H.8) U.S. Census Bureau — Rental housing data HUD — Fair market rents IRS — Publication 527, Residential Rental Property IRS — MACRS depreciation of real property

Applicable Standards

Level-payment amortisation, payments assumed in arrearsIncome and expenses annualised; percentages entered as annual ratesStraight-line depreciation per IRC §168 recovery periodsMoney rounded for display only; all calculations run at full precision

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Last Updated:

2026-09-21

Version:

2.0.0

References:

License:

Free to use for educational and professional purposes.