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Is Airbnb still worth it in Bogotá?

Why is it so hard to know if Airbnb is still worth it in Bogotá?

Bogotá Airbnb data currently gives two very different pictures of the same market, so using one citywide occupancy number can badly distort the investment case.

AirDNA tracks roughly 14,100 active short-term rentals in Bogotá and currently reports around 61% occupancy, an average daily rate close to $39 and roughly $8,300 in annual revenue per active listing. At first glance, those are solid numbers for a big urban market.

Inside Airbnb sees something much weaker. Its latest Bogotá dataset counted 19,187 Airbnb listings, including 15,863 classified as short-term rentals. It estimated around 55 booked nights per year and annual revenue of COP 14.95 million for the average listing.

The gap mainly comes from what each dataset is measuring. AirDNA focuses more heavily on actively commercialized inventory and combines data from several booking platforms. Inside Airbnb captures a wider universe that includes homes available only occasionally and listings with very little activity.

That distinction changes the whole article. An apartment open 350 nights a year, professionally priced and managed every week belongs to a very different business from someone's spare apartment listed for a few weekends.

For a buyer today, Bogotá's average Airbnb is therefore a poor benchmark. We need to know how comparable properties perform in the exact neighborhood, building and price range being considered.

Bogotá Airbnb measure	AirDNA	Inside Airbnb	What it tells us
Listings measured	~14,100 active STRs	19,187 Airbnb listings	Each dataset captures a different market
Short-term listings	Included in active inventory	15,863	Bogotá has a large STR base
Usage	~61% occupancy	~55 booked nights/year	Listing activity varies enormously
Annual revenue	~$8,300	COP 14.95M	A citywide average is risky for underwriting
Best use of the data	Active commercial benchmark	Broad Airbnb-market benchmark	Comparable listings matter more than either headline

Is Bogotá still getting enough tourists to support Airbnb?

Yes. Bogotá still has plenty of visitor demand for Airbnb, although the latest numbers look more like a healthy mature market than another tourism boom.

Bogotá received about 1.91 million international visitors in 2025, around 2.6% more than a year earlier. In the first five months of 2026, the city's Tourism Observatory counted 751,969 foreign visitors, about 1.8% fewer than over the same period of 2025.

We would not read that small decline as a serious weakening of demand. Air traffic was still moving the other way. During the first four months of 2026, flights into Bogotá rose 5.8%, passenger traffic increased 6.5% and average aircraft occupancy reached 80.3%. Forward international bookings for the following three months were also running 12.1% above the previous year.

Hotels tell a similar story. Bogotá hotel occupancy reached 55% in April, slightly above the previous year and 8.7 percentage points above the Colombian average.

More importantly for Airbnb owners, Bogotá does not depend on one tourism season. Business travel, conferences, concerts, hospitals, family visits, government activity and conventional tourism all bring people into the city at different times. AirDNA currently gives Bogotá its maximum seasonality score, which fits what we see in the demand mix.

So the city still gives good properties plenty of chances to fill nights throughout the year. Winning those bookings from other hosts is the harder part.

Are there already too many Airbnbs in Bogotá?

Yes, Bogotá now has enough Airbnb supply that a generic furnished apartment can easily disappear into the crowd.

Inside Airbnb counted 19,187 listings in its latest city dataset. About 69% belonged to hosts controlling more than one listing, which tells us how professional the market has become. Airbnb competition in Bogotá increasingly means competing with operators running portfolios, dynamic pricing and standardized guest operations rather than with casual hosts renting a spare bedroom.

The concentration is especially high in the obvious Airbnb neighborhoods. Chapinero alone had 5,097 listings, representing 26.6% of the entire city dataset. Usaquén and Teusaquillo followed, and those three areas together contain a huge share of Bogotá's short-term inventory.

The formal market is still expanding too. The latest figures from Bogotá's Instituto Distrital de Turismo counted 14,264 active tourism providers, 7.1% more than a year earlier. Tourist homes added 689 registrations, an 8.8% increase, which was faster than the overall tourism-provider market.

Registered tourist-home supply is therefore expanding several times faster than foreign visitor arrivals did last year. The figures are not perfectly comparable, but the direction is pretty clear: competition is getting denser.

AirDNA has simultaneously reported a large year-over-year drop in its own measure of active inventory. That probably says more about weaker listings disappearing from active commercial circulation than about Bogotá suddenly running out of Airbnbs. The broad supply base remains large, while serious operators appear to be taking a bigger share of actual bookings.

Area	Listings in recent market dataset	Typical nightly price	Modelled occupancy	What stands out
Chapinero	5,097	~€44	~33%	Deep demand, brutal competition
Usaquén	3,582	~€45	~26%	Strong area, weaker modeled utilization
Teusaquillo	2,779	~€34	~44%	Lower rates but better modeled occupancy
Santa Fe	1,453	~€34	~37%	Central but very property-dependent
Fontibón	969	~€37	~40%	Airport demand helps
Candelaria	700	~€36	~41%	Tourist demand with a smaller supply base

Is 61% Airbnb occupancy in Bogotá realistic for a new host?

It is realistic for a good Bogotá Airbnb, but we would never assume 61% occupancy when buying an average apartment today.

AirDNA's current 61% figure would mean roughly 223 occupied nights a year. A professionally managed apartment with good reviews, strong photos, dynamic pricing and near-continuous availability can absolutely operate around that level.

The wider market performs much worse. Inside Airbnb estimates about 55 booked nights a year across its broad listing universe. Other review-based models put Teusaquillo and Candelaria above 40% occupancy while estimating Usaquén below 30%.

Availability explains part of that gap. Many homes counted by Inside Airbnb are not genuinely trying to book 365 nights. Still, the dispersion tells us something useful: occupancy is earned property by property.

We would therefore model a new acquisition from nearby comparable listings and stress-test it below their current performance. If the purchase only looks good at 60% or 65% occupancy, the margin for error is too thin.

Does Airbnb still make more money than long-term renting in Bogotá?

Airbnb can still beat a normal Bogotá lease, but the citywide revenue premium looks too small to make short-term renting automatically worthwhile.

Global Property Guide currently estimates that a typical Bogotá one-bedroom costing around $89,200 can rent for approximately $590 a month. That works out to $7,080 a year and a gross yield close to 7.9%.

AirDNA's current citywide short-term-rental revenue is about $8,300 a year. The samples are different, so we cannot treat this as a perfect apartment-for-apartment comparison. Still, the order of magnitude is useful.

The gap is only about $1,220 a year, or roughly $102 a month.

That extra gross revenue can disappear quickly. Airbnb owners usually carry internet, utilities, furniture replacement, linen, guest supplies, cleaning coordination, heavier maintenance and platform costs that a conventional landlord either avoids or passes to the tenant.

We would want a much wider spread before choosing Airbnb. If an apartment can earn COP 36 million annually on a normal lease, an Airbnb forecast of COP 39 million or COP 40 million does not excite us. Around COP 50 million to COP 60 million, depending on the operating costs, the extra work starts having a much stronger financial case.

This is also why occupancy can be misleading. A cheap apartment booked almost every night can still produce worse economics than a higher-rate apartment running at moderate occupancy.

Simplified benchmark	Long-term 1BR	Bogotá STR citywide figure
Representative annual revenue	~$7,080	~$8,300
Illustrative gross yield on $89,200	7.9%	9.3%
Extra annual gross revenue from STR	—	~$1,220
Extra monthly gross revenue	—	~$102
Owner operating burden	Lower	Much higher
Our reading	Already attractive	Needs clear outperformance to justify the work

Is Chapinero still the best place to buy a Bogotá Airbnb?

Chapinero is still Bogotá's strongest Airbnb district for demand, but buying there blindly is one of the easiest ways to overpay.

The attraction is obvious. Zona T, Zona G, Parque de la 93, Chicó and nearby areas combine restaurants, nightlife, offices and international visitors in parts of Bogotá where travelers can actually do a lot on foot. Few other parts of the city offer that mix.

Guests clearly want to stay there. Hosts know it too.

Inside Airbnb counted 5,097 Chapinero listings, more than a quarter of Bogotá's entire Airbnb supply. A new studio is therefore being compared with hundreds of similar apartments, many inside buildings designed specifically around furnished short stays.

Buying prices make that competition more painful. Current new-project inventory tracked by Zonario puts Chapinero around COP 14 million per square meter on average, with many new units extremely small. At that acquisition cost, generating average Bogotá Airbnb revenue is nowhere near enough.

A strong Chapinero deal can still work. We would want either an unusually good purchase price, a property guests clearly prefer over nearby alternatives, or a nightly rate far above the city average. Paying a premium simply because the sales brochure says “Airbnb-friendly” is much harder to defend these days.

Could Teusaquillo or Corferias beat Chapinero for Airbnb returns?

Yes, parts of Teusaquillo and the Corferias area can produce a better Airbnb equation than Chapinero because investors often pay less for access to very repeatable visitor demand.

Recent neighborhood estimates put Teusaquillo's nightly rate below Chapinero's while showing materially higher modeled occupancy. That combination deserves attention because investment returns depend on the relationship between purchase price and revenue, rather than on having the highest ADR in the city.

Corferias gives the area an unusually dependable booking engine. Its calendar runs through trade shows, professional congresses, consumer fairs and international events throughout the year. Comic Con Colombia alone brought more than 32,000 visitors to Corferias over four days in 2026. The latest Gran Salón Inmobiliario attracted more than 22,000 people over another four-day stretch.

Ágora Bogotá adds large conferences next door, while Movistar Arena and El Campín create a second source of event-driven demand in nearby parts of Teusaquillo.

A host here can price around actual calendar events instead of waiting for general tourism to rise. That creates attractive spikes without requiring the acquisition price of Bogotá's most fashionable northern neighborhoods.

We would still inspect the exact street carefully. Teusaquillo is heterogeneous, and being technically in the same locality as a major venue does not mean guests will consider the apartment convenient.

Is an Airbnb near Bogotá airport actually a good investment?

Yes, a well-priced Airbnb near El Dorado can work surprisingly well because airport guests care about convenience more than prestige.

Fontibón benefits from one of Bogotá's clearest recurring reasons to book a short stay: catching or recovering from a flight. El Dorado handles huge passenger volumes, and air traffic into the city has continued growing recently.

The customer base is wider than people on overnight connections. Airline staff, business travelers, delayed passengers, travelers arriving before a domestic connection and families with very early departures can all prefer staying close to the airport rather than crossing Bogotá traffic.

Recent neighborhood modeling has put Fontibón around 40% occupancy, above some much more famous Airbnb areas.

The main constraint is price. Airport guests compare apartments with hotels and usually have a fairly clear ceiling on what convenience is worth. We would therefore want a low purchase price, easy self-check-in and genuinely quick airport access.

An expensive “luxury” airport apartment makes little sense to us. A simple unit bought cheaply can be much more interesting.

Are studios and one-bedroom apartments still the safest Airbnb bet in Bogotá?

Yes, small apartments are still the easiest Bogotá Airbnb format to defend because they keep the purchase price lower and have a strong backup plan if short-term renting disappoints.

Solo visitors, couples, consultants and business travelers naturally fit studios and one-bedrooms. Those units are also easier to furnish, clean and turn over.

The long-term market gives them another advantage. Current Global Property Guide estimates put Bogotá's gross yield around 7.9% for one-bedroom apartments versus about 6.5% for two-bedrooms. In Chapinero, its modeled one-bedroom yield is around 7.4%.

So a well-located one-bedroom can often be moved back to a conventional lease without wrecking the original investment.

Larger properties can work when there is a reason guests need the space: families near hospitals, groups attending events or properties serving longer corporate stays. Buying three bedrooms merely because the Airbnb nightly rate looks higher gives us less comfort.

For a new buyer, optionality is valuable. A small apartment that works both as an Airbnb and as a normal rental is easier to own through a bad year.

Are new Airbnb-friendly developments in Bogotá still worth buying?

Many new Bogotá projects marketed around Airbnb look expensive for the revenue they can realistically generate today.

DANE's latest residential property index showed Bogotá home prices up 8.88% year over year, compared with 5.96% a year earlier. New-home prices also continued rising during the latest quarter.

Airbnb pricing has not kept pace. AirDNA currently puts Bogotá's average daily rate around $39, with very little year-over-year growth in its latest reading.

Those datasets use different currencies and property samples, so we should not turn them into a precise spread. But the basic problem is obvious enough: buyers are paying noticeably more for residential property while average nightly Airbnb pricing has barely moved.

That squeezes new investment returns.

Developers can hide the problem by selling the Airbnb story rather than the yield. Coworking rooms, digital locks, rooftop terraces and permission for short stays are useful features, but none of them fix a purchase price that is too high.

An owner who bought several years ago may still have excellent Airbnb economics. Someone buying the same apartment at today's price has a completely different return.

Does expensive financing kill the Bogotá Airbnb investment case?

For a highly leveraged buyer, today's financing costs can make an average Bogotá Airbnb very difficult to justify.

Banco de la República currently has its policy rate at 12%. Actual mortgage rates vary by borrower and product, but peso housing loans remain expensive enough that buyers have to be very careful with leverage.

Put that beside the property's income. Current long-term data suggests a Bogotá one-bedroom can produce around an 8% gross yield. Applying AirDNA's $8,300 citywide Airbnb revenue to the same illustrative $89,200 property value gives roughly 9.3% of gross revenue before the extra short-term-rental expenses.

There is little magic in borrowing at double-digit rates to buy an asset producing a single-digit operating return.

A large down payment changes the equation. So does buying below market or operating a property that earns far more than the city average. Buyers using expensive debt without those advantages are relying heavily on future appreciation.

Cash buyers, older owners with low debt and people who bought before the latest price increases are in a much stronger position.

Is Bogotá cracking down on Airbnb now?

Bogotá is making short-term rentals more formal and easier to police, so investors should assume that compliance will matter more over time.

The direction has been consistent. Tourist accommodation already falls under Colombia's Registro Nacional de Turismo framework, and MinCIT has continued working on updated rules around the RNT and the obligations of digital tourism platforms.

The latest Bogotá figures show why authorities care. More than 14,200 tourism providers now have an active RNT in the city, and tourist homes are the category adding the largest number of new registrations. Short-term rentals have become too large to sit on the edge of housing and tourism policy.

Bogotá has also debated their effect on residential buildings, security, housing prices and neighborhood life. At the same time, the city has worked directly with Airbnb on responsible-tourism initiatives.

We do not see an imminent Bogotá Airbnb ban. We do see a market where operating informally becomes steadily harder to defend.

That should influence what investors buy. A property with clean authorization becomes more valuable when enforcement gets stricter.

Can you legally Airbnb any apartment in Bogotá?

No. A Bogotá apartment can look perfect financially and still be unusable for Airbnb because the building rules do not allow tourist accommodation.

Colombian rules treat habitual stays under 30 days as tourist accommodation, which brings the property into the National Tourism Registry framework.

Apartment buildings add another layer. In a propiedad horizontal, the building's regulations must expressly permit tourist accommodation. Colombia's Council of State has upheld that requirement, and MinCIT's RNT process asks applicants in these buildings to declare that the unit is authorized for tourist use.

Land-use compatibility also has to be checked.

This is one area where we would be extremely strict. A buyer can estimate occupancy badly and recover later. Buying inside a building that legally blocks the intended business is a much harder mistake to fix.

Before studying projected Airbnb revenue, we would read the building regulations and verify the authorization in writing.

How much extra work does a legal Bogotá Airbnb create?

Running a legal Bogotá Airbnb now comes with enough administration and operating costs that investors should treat it as a small hospitality business.

Tourist accommodation providers need an active RNT and have to renew it. Guests must be reported through Colombia's accommodation-registration system using the Tarjeta de Registro de Alojamiento.

Tourism operators also face the sector's parafiscal contribution. The statutory rate is 2.5 per thousand of operational tourism revenue, equivalent to 0.25%. Tax treatment beyond that depends on the owner, activity and guest, so we would model it with a Colombian accountant rather than apply one generic Airbnb tax rate.

Platform fees can be more material. Airbnb fee structures vary, and professional or software-connected hosts can face a host-only fee around the mid-teens rather than the roughly 3% host fee associated with the traditional split-fee model.

Then come the costs that rarely appear in screenshots of Airbnb revenue: utilities, internet, furniture wear, towels and sheets, toiletries, damaged items, cleaning coordination, guest messages and empty nights between bookings.

As seen above, the average Airbnb revenue premium over a conventional Bogotá lease is not enormous. These expenses are exactly why a small gross advantage can disappear.

Airbnb obligation or cost	Current situation	Financial effect	What we would check
RNT	Required for habitual tourist accommodation	Mostly administrative	Active registration and renewal
Building authorization	Tourist use must be allowed	Can determine whether the business is possible	Property-horizontal rules
Guest registration	Required for tourist stays	Recurring admin work	Operating process
Tourism contribution	0.25% of operational tourism revenue	Small direct cost	Correct reporting
Airbnb fee	Depends on host setup	Potentially material	Actual account fee structure
Utilities and turnover	Usually borne by host	Can materially reduce margin	Real annual operating budget

What type of Bogotá Airbnb is still worth buying today?

The Bogotá Airbnbs we would still buy today have a specific reason to win bookings and enough fallback rental value to survive if the short-term strategy underperforms.

A strong one-bedroom around Zona T or Parque de la 93 can attract international and business travelers willing to pay for location. A practical apartment beside Corferias can benefit from hundreds of event days rather than depending purely on leisure tourism. A cheaper Fontibón unit can target airport demand. A distinctive property in La Candelaria can work when its design and guest experience give tourists a reason to choose it over the surrounding supply.

The weakest setup is the generic investor studio inside a building full of nearly identical investor studios. When dozens of owners compete for the same guest, price becomes the easiest way to stand out. If demand weakens, many of those owners can also try to switch into long-term renting or resell at the same time.

We would rather buy a property that solves an obvious guest problem: walk to the conference, reach the airport quickly, stay close to the office district, or enjoy one of Bogotá's genuinely walkable visitor areas.

The building has to allow short stays, the purchase price has to work, and the long-term rent should still be respectable. Those three conditions remove a large share of the Airbnb projects currently marketed to investors.

Is Airbnb still worth it in Bogotá?

Yes, Airbnb is still worth it in Bogotá today, but we would only buy when the individual property can clearly beat a normal long-term rental after all costs.

Bogotá itself remains a good short-term-rental city. Visitor demand is healthy, air traffic is growing, hotel occupancy remains above the Colombian average and business, events and tourism keep demand relatively spread through the year. Good operators can still reach strong occupancy.

The investment case has become much less forgiving. Inside Airbnb now counts more than 19,000 listings. Tourist-home registrations are still increasing. Chapinero is packed with professional hosts. Bogotá residential prices have recently accelerated again, while average Airbnb nightly rates have barely moved. Financing is also expensive with the central-bank policy rate currently at 12%.

The comparison with long-term renting is what ultimately makes us selective. A normal one-bedroom can already generate a gross yield around 8% in current market estimates. AirDNA's citywide Airbnb revenue does not sit dramatically above that once we compare the order of magnitude, and short-term rentals carry substantially more costs and work.

For someone who already owns a suitable apartment cheaply, Airbnb can still be a very good business. The same is true for a cash buyer who finds an unusually good deal near a strong demand generator.

For a new investor buying an expensive “Airbnb-friendly” studio with debt and expecting 60% occupancy to make the numbers work, we would pass.

Airbnb in Bogotá still works. Easy Airbnb money in Bogotá is much harder to find.

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