Will Cartagena crack down on Airbnb?

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Is Cartagena too crowded for Airbnb investors now?

Yes, Cartagena is crowded enough that buying an ordinary Airbnb and expecting easy returns is a weak strategy today.

The scale is already substantial. AirDNA’s latest Cartagena snapshot tracks 9,777 active short-term rentals across Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com. Almost 89% are entire homes, while roughly two-thirds are available for most of the year. This is largely a professional accommodation market rather than homeowners occasionally renting a spare room.

The clearest warning came during 2025. Airbtics recorded 2,136 additional Cartagena listings, equivalent to 31.2% supply growth, while average annual revenue fell about 2.1%. Supply was expanding by nearly one-third while revenue per listing was slipping.

The market looks different now. AirDNA currently shows active supply down sharply year over year. We should not splice that figure directly into the Airbtics series because the companies track listings differently, but the direction is useful: Cartagena appears to have moved from rapid expansion into a shakeout.

That leaves a crowded market where weaker supply is already being tested.

Are enough tourists still coming to Cartagena to fill all these Airbnbs?

Cartagena tourism is still growing today, but demand has not been growing nearly as fast as short-term-rental supply did during the boom.

Rafael Núñez International Airport handled a record 7.76 million passengers in 2025, up 3.27% from the previous year. International traffic rose 4.9%, faster than domestic traffic at 2.8%. Corpoturismo also counted 5.5 million visitors arriving by air, road and cruise through November.

The strongest recent peak was even better. Cartagena reported more than 1.3 million visitors during the year-end tourism season, around 40% more than during the equivalent period a year earlier. Semana Santa also remained strong, with visitor entries up 13.2% and hotels running around 66% to 69% occupancy.

So Cartagena still has a serious demand engine. The problem for Airbnb owners is the order of magnitude. Annual airport traffic growing around 3% cannot effortlessly absorb accommodation supply that had recently been growing around 30%.

Tourism is helping Cartagena’s Airbnb market. It simply cannot rescue every property investors add to it.

Is Cartagena Airbnb occupancy getting worse?

No, Cartagena Airbnb occupancy currently looks healthier than the saturation story would suggest.

AirDNA’s latest data puts average occupancy at about 53%, up 16.9% year over year. Airbtics measured roughly 56% during 2025 using its own methodology. Two independent datasets therefore put the market around the mid-50% range rather than showing empty apartments across the city.

A 53% occupancy rate means an available property is booked roughly one night out of two. That leaves plenty of unused inventory, but travelers are still actively booking short-term rentals despite the amount of supply.

Cartagena also benefits from several travel calendars rather than one brief summer season. Beach tourism, Colombian holidays, weddings, conferences, cruises, religious tourism and international leisure traffic generate demand at different moments. During Semana Santa, for example, visitors stayed an average of six days according to the city’s tourism authority.

This is heavy competition, not weak demand.

Why are Cartagena Airbnb nightly rates falling if bookings are healthy?

Cartagena Airbnb owners are filling more nights partly by accepting lower prices, which is where the saturation pressure becomes visible.

The latest AirDNA snapshot shows occupancy up strongly while average daily rates are almost 20% lower year over year. Revenue per available night is slightly down.

That combination is more revealing than occupancy by itself. Properties can appear busier because hosts lower rates, weaker listings disappear, or both happen at once.

Imagine 100 competing apartments becoming 70. The surviving owners may fill considerably more nights even if the total amount travelers spend barely changes. The owners who remain feel busier, but the underlying market has not necessarily become more profitable.

Cartagena recently went through an unusually large supply expansion. Lower rates now show that owners are still competing hard for the same travelers.

Does the average Cartagena Airbnb still make good money?

The average Cartagena Airbnb produces respectable gross revenue, but today’s property prices can make the final return surprisingly ordinary.

AirDNA currently estimates around $21,500 in trailing annual revenue per active rental. Airbtics measured closer to $18,000 around the beginning of the year. Differences in methodology explain part of that gap, so we would use these numbers as a range rather than pretend there is one perfectly precise citywide average.

Gross revenue also comes before administration fees, utilities, internet, cleaning, maintenance, furniture replacement, platform fees, property taxes and management. An absentee foreign owner can lose another meaningful share of revenue to professional management.

The purchase price is where the equation gets uncomfortable. If a $300,000 apartment generated $21,500 gross, the gross yield would be only about 7.2% before any operating expense. At $400,000, the same revenue would equal about 5.4%.

A strong Airbnb can obviously beat the city average. Paying a premium price for an average-performing unit leaves very little room for disappointment.

Are Cartagena property prices making Airbnb saturation worse?

Yes, expensive real estate makes Cartagena’s crowded Airbnb market much less forgiving for people buying now.

Bocagrande is a good example. Cartagena’s coastal real-estate observatory has put asking prices around COP13 million per square meter there, compared with roughly COP8 million in El Laguito. Prime properties inside the historic city can go much higher.

At the same time, the short-term-rental business is struggling to raise revenue per available night. That creates an awkward mismatch: the underlying apartment can remain expensive while the nightly accommodation it produces faces intense price competition.

Older owners have an advantage here. Someone who bought years ago at a much lower peso or dollar price does not need today’s Airbnb revenue to support today’s property valuation. A new investor does.

We would judge new Cartagena Airbnb deals on actual yield from the purchase price rather than assume the city’s tourism success will eventually make an expensive apartment work.

Are investors all buying the same kind of Cartagena Airbnb?

Yes, and the huge concentration in ordinary one- and two-bedroom apartments is one of the clearest reasons the Cartagena Airbnb market feels crowded.

AirDNA shows one-bedroom properties representing 38.9% of active supply and two-bedroom properties another 35.2%. Together, they make up roughly three quarters of the market.

Thousands of listings are fighting with very similar products: a modern apartment, air conditioning, Wi-Fi, a balcony, access to a pool, perhaps an ocean view and a short ride to the historic center.

A nicer sofa or better Airbnb photography can help, but competitors can copy those improvements quickly. The harder advantages to copy are structural: an exceptional direct sea view, a large terrace, several bedrooms, a rooftop, a private pool, a colonial courtyard or a building where tourist rentals are explicitly supported.

The crowded part of Cartagena is especially crowded because so much of the inventory looks interchangeable.

Is Bocagrande too crowded for a new Airbnb?

For a standard Airbnb apartment, Bocagrande is one of the Cartagena neighborhoods where we would be most careful today.

Bocagrande attracts both tourists and investors for obvious reasons: beaches, restaurants, high-rise buildings, sea views, security and quick access to the historic center. Those advantages have already attracted an enormous amount of competing accommodation.

The entry price compounds the problem. Local property-market data puts Bocagrande among Cartagena’s most expensive apartment districts, around COP13 million per square meter in the coastal observatory’s study.

A normal one-bedroom apartment bought at a premium therefore enters a market full of normal one-bedroom apartments bought for exactly the same reason.

Bocagrande can still work when the unit has something genuinely difficult to replace: front-line ocean exposure, an exceptional balcony, an unusually good purchase price, several bedrooms, strong historical booking data or a building clearly designed to accommodate short-term rentals.

Without one of those advantages, we would assume tough competition rather than build the investment case around optimistic Airbnb projections.

Is El Laguito too saturated for Airbnb investors too?

El Laguito is heavily saturated with vacation rentals, although its cheaper real estate can produce better numbers than a similar property in Bocagrande.

Cartagena’s own planning data has long identified El Laguito, Bocagrande and La Boquilla as major concentrations of tourist housing. That concentration is still visible today across Airbnb and other platforms.

El Laguito units frequently compete on the same features: ocean or lagoon views, pools, beach access and proximity to Bocagrande. Operationally, the neighborhood is crowded.

The investment case changes when we look at acquisition cost. The coastal real-estate observatory estimated prices closer to COP8 million per square meter in El Laguito, far below Bocagrande’s roughly COP13 million.

That difference can matter more than a small difference in Airbnb revenue. Two apartments earning similar amounts can produce completely different yields if one costs a third less to buy.

We would still avoid paying a premium for an ordinary El Laguito rental, but value purchases there deserve more attention than the word “saturated” alone suggests.

Is Cartagena’s historic center a better Airbnb investment?

Cartagena’s historic center can beat the apartment districts on scarcity, but investors take on much more legal and property risk.

A colonial house with a courtyard, rooftop and private pool has an advantage that another developer cannot reproduce next door. Cartagena’s walled city itself is part of the travel experience, so exceptional properties can command rates that have little connection to a generic apartment in a high-rise tower.

The catch is that investors pay heavily for that scarcity. Historic properties can cost well into seven figures in U.S. dollars, and renovation rules are far more complicated than in a modern condominium.

Enforcement is also real. Cartagena’s urban-control authority ordered tourist use to stop at apartments in the Santo Domingo II building after determining that the properties were licensed and governed for residential use. The city required them to return to their original residential purpose.

Heritage controls add another layer. During 2025, Cartagena’s heritage institute carried out 350 inspections of works on protected properties, 50% more than the previous year, while active administrative sanction procedures rose to 183.

A great historic property can have better Airbnb economics than an interchangeable apartment. We would simply refuse to treat the projected income as real until the tourist use, building rules and renovation position have all been checked.

Can any Cartagena apartment legally become an Airbnb?

No, and assuming that an existing Airbnb listing proves a Cartagena apartment is legal to rent by the night can become a very expensive mistake.

Colombia requires tourism providers to hold a Registro Nacional de Turismo, or RNT. For tourist accommodation inside a propiedad horizontal building, the operator must also declare that the building’s own regulations authorize that activity.

Cartagena adds practical land-use and building-rule enforcement on top of the national registration system. The Santo Domingo II case is especially useful because the city did not merely warn operators. It ordered short-term tourist use to stop after confirming that the apartments had residential use under their licenses and internal property rules.

The legal test therefore starts before calculating occupancy or nightly rates. We would want to see the relevant building regulations, permitted use and RNT position before assigning any Airbnb income to the investment.

Is Cartagena getting stricter with short-term rentals?

Yes, Cartagena is showing a clearer willingness to enforce property-use and tourism rules these days, particularly around the historic city.

The Santo Domingo II decision gave investors a concrete example of what enforcement can look like: complaints were investigated, the property’s license and horizontal-property rules were reviewed, and unauthorized tourist use was ordered to stop.

The broader enforcement environment has also become more active. Cartagena’s authorities have recently increased inspections across the historic center, including tourism businesses, nightlife venues and protected buildings. In Getsemaní and the historic area, heritage authorities have simultaneously stepped up scrutiny of unauthorized construction.

There is no solid basis for saying Cartagena is preparing to ban Airbnb citywide.

What has changed is the cost of being casual about compliance. A property with clean tourist-use authorization becomes more attractive when nearby illegal or ambiguous competitors face a genuine chance of enforcement.

For compliant owners, tighter enforcement may eventually reduce some of the crowding.

Are nearly 10,000 Cartagena Airbnbs really fighting for the same guests?

No, although the real competitive pool for a normal tourist apartment is still large enough to matter.

AirDNA’s headline number covers very different businesses. Around 45% of listings currently require stays of 30 nights or more, while roughly 44% have a two-night minimum. A monthly rental aimed at a remote worker or temporary resident does not compete for exactly the same customer as a weekend beach apartment.

Property size divides the market further. A six-bedroom colonial house hosting 12 people has very little direct overlap with a Laguito studio designed for a couple.

Cartagena’s own planning department also shows how geographically concentrated tourism accommodation has become. More than 80% of the tourist-housing inventory in its earlier mapping sat within the Histórica y del Caribe Norte locality, with Bocagrande, El Laguito and La Boquilla among the biggest concentrations.

We should not treat every active listing as a direct substitute. For the most common one- and two-bedroom properties in the main tourism districts, however, the number of genuine alternatives remains huge.

Can a really good Cartagena Airbnb still beat the market?

Yes, the best Cartagena Airbnbs can still make strong money because competition is concentrated much more heavily around average properties than scarce ones.

The easiest mistake is to call cosmetic upgrades differentiation. Nice furniture, smart locks, professional photos and a renovated kitchen are already standard across serious listings.

Physical scarcity is harder to copy. Four-bedroom and larger properties account for only about 8% of active supply according to AirDNA. A large house for several couples therefore operates in a much thinner market than another one-bedroom apartment.

Exceptional location works similarly. Unobstructed ocean frontage, a private rooftop, colonial architecture, a courtyard or a truly walkable historic-center location can change what guests are willing to pay.

Operations then widen the gap. Professional revenue management, fast communication, excellent cleaning and hundreds of strong reviews help a scarce property capture demand without constantly being the cheapest result.

The Cartagena Airbnb opportunity now rewards selection and execution much more heavily than simply owning an apartment.

Does cutting prices fix a weak Cartagena Airbnb?

No, repeated discounting can make a Cartagena Airbnb busier while barely improving the business.

The latest market data gives us a good example. Occupancy has risen substantially while average nightly rates have fallen, leaving revenue per available night slightly lower.

For an owner, more occupied nights also mean more guest turnover, cleaning, laundry, electricity use and wear. Many fixed expenses such as administration fees and property taxes remain unchanged.

Dynamic pricing still makes sense. A strong operator should charge less on weak dates and much more during periods such as Christmas, New Year, Easter or major events.

The problem begins when a property needs low prices throughout the calendar to compete. At that point the host is using margin to compensate for an apartment guests do not particularly want.

We would treat a forecast that requires exceptionally high occupancy at discounted rates as a warning, especially for a newly purchased property carrying today’s acquisition cost.

Is there still room for new Airbnb investors in Cartagena?

Yes, but Cartagena currently has much more room for good deals and unusual properties than for another average vacation apartment.

Demand is strong enough to keep the market alive. The airport has just come off a record year, international traffic continues to grow, peak tourism periods remain busy and short-term-rental occupancy is holding around the mid-50% range.

Competition has also started doing some of the cleanup itself. The newest AirDNA data shows a much smaller active supply than a year earlier under its methodology, following the unusually aggressive listing expansion captured by Airbtics in 2025.

The remaining problem is price. New buyers enter after years of appreciation in Cartagena’s prime districts while competing against owners with lower historical purchase costs. Standard one- and two-bedroom apartments also sit inside the deepest part of the supply pool.

The properties we would still investigate are those where the thesis does not depend on Cartagena tourism alone: a large group property, a legally clean historic house, exceptional beachfront inventory, a unit bought materially below comparable sales, or a building where short-term rentals are clearly authorized and operationally easy.

Those opportunities exist. They take more work to find.

So, is Cartagena too crowded for Airbnb investors?

Mostly yes for investors buying generic apartments, while carefully chosen Cartagena Airbnbs can still work very well.

The strongest evidence is the combination rather than any single statistic. Cartagena added more than 2,000 listings during the 2025 expansion tracked by Airbtics while revenue per property declined. One- and two-bedroom units now represent roughly three quarters of supply. Current AirDNA figures show nightly-rate pressure even though occupancy has improved. Meanwhile, property prices in areas such as Bocagrande leave new buyers with a much higher cost base than many existing hosts.

Tourism itself remains healthy. Cartagena’s airport has just handled a record 7.76 million annual passengers, international traffic is growing, recent peak seasons have been strong and travelers continue booking short-term rentals.

That keeps the opportunity alive, but the easy trade has disappeared.

We would be very cautious about buying a normal one-bedroom or two-bedroom unit at the market asking price in Bocagrande, El Laguito or another obvious tourist tower and assuming Airbnb will produce an attractive return. Too many investors are already offering versions of the same product.

A legally authorized property bought cheaply, a scarce large house, exceptional oceanfront inventory or a genuinely distinctive historic property is a different proposition.

Cartagena has become too crowded for lazy Airbnb investing. It has not become too crowded for good Airbnb investing.

Who is the author of this content?

THE LATINVESTOR

A team specialized in real estate investing in LATAM countries

We are a team of financial experts, legal professionals, developers, and local real estate specialists dedicated to helping people like you avoid mistakes when investing in real estate in a foreign place, particularly in Cartagena. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can check our presentation page.