Is Airbnb still worth it in Medellín?

Get all the data you need about the real estate market in Medellín

Why is Airbnb in Medellín a harder investment now?

Airbnb in Medellín can still make good money, but buying almost any decent apartment and expecting tourism growth to do the rest is no longer a serious investment strategy.

The change is easiest to see in the supply numbers. Airbtics counted about 12,860 active short-term-rental listings in Medellín in its latest 2026 market data. That was 26.1% more than one year earlier and 114.7% more than three years earlier. Median revenue, meanwhile, was around $12,000 a year, only 5.3% higher than three years earlier.

Medellín has added Airbnb supply at a completely different speed from the growth in revenue available to each listing. Demand has absorbed far more of that new inventory than we might have expected, which is encouraging, but the days of entering a lightly supplied tourism market are gone.

There are two other changes investors have to take seriously. Residential rents have become much more attractive: La Lonja measured 2025 rent increases of 7.5% in El Poblado and 7.1% in Laureles. Medellín is also putting more effort into checking whether tourist apartments actually comply with planning, building and tourism rules.

The investment question has become much more property-specific. A good Medellín Airbnb can work very well. A mediocre one can now lose to an ordinary long-term rental surprisingly quickly.

Medellín Airbnb indicator	Latest useful level	Recent change	What we learn
Active listings	~12,860	+114.7% in 3 years	Competition has more than doubled
Median annual revenue	~$12,000	+5.3% in 3 years	Revenue has barely followed supply
Occupancy	~63%	Slightly higher YoY	Demand is still holding up
El Poblado residential rents	—	+7.5% in 2025	Long-term renting is a stronger alternative
Laureles residential rents	—	+7.1% in 2025	The Airbnb premium has to work harder

Are tourists still coming to Medellín in big enough numbers?

Yes. Medellín still has plenty of tourism demand for Airbnb, and the latest visitor numbers give us little reason to worry about the city suddenly losing its appeal.

Medellín received 954,600 tourists during the first half of 2025, according to the city's tourism authorities, up 12.4% from the previous year. Around 546,000 were international visitors, an 11.8% increase. The United States alone accounted for roughly 32% of Medellín's international tourism.

Airport data show the same trend on a larger scale. José María Córdova International Airport recorded more than 2 million arrivals by Colombian and foreign non-residents during 2025. Another 509,886 entered through the airport during the first three months of 2026.

Medellín is also keeping more of those arrivals in the region. The city reported that 73% of travelers entering through José María Córdova stayed in Antioquia in 2025, compared with 68% in 2023.

Large events add another layer of demand. International passenger arrivals during Feria de las Flores increased from 51,558 in 2024 to 65,581 in 2025, a rise of 27.2%.

None of this guarantees that an individual Airbnb will work. What it tells us quite clearly is that Medellín's current Airbnb problem comes from competition and economics rather than a shortage of visitors.

Tourism indicator	Earlier figure	Recent figure	Change
First-half tourists	~849,000 implied	954,600	+12.4%
First-half foreign tourists	~488,000 implied	546,000	+11.8%
Feria international arrivals	51,558	65,581	+27.2%
Airport arrivals by non-residents	—	>2 million in 2025	Very large base
Travelers staying in Antioquia	68% in 2023	73% in 2025	+5 points

Has Medellín built too many Airbnbs?

Medellín probably has too many Airbnbs for average hosts to keep getting easy growth, although the market has not reached the kind of oversupply that destroys occupancy.

Almost 2,900 new listings were added in Medellín during 2025 alone according to Airbtics. That was the second-largest absolute increase among the Colombian markets it analyzed, behind Bogotá.

The more striking number is the three-year increase. Active supply rose 114.7%. Occupancy over the same period slipped only about three percentage points and recently sat around 63%.

That combination is unusual. More than doubling supply without crushing occupancy means Medellín found a remarkable amount of new demand.

Hosts should still be cautious about what this says about future returns. When thousands of additional apartments compete for the same guests, owners increasingly have to win on apartment quality, location, reviews, amenities, pricing and operating skill. A listing that looks interchangeable with fifty nearby apartments has very little protection.

Professional operators already show how wide the performance gap can become. Airbtics currently tracks large Medellín hosts managing dozens or even more than 100 listings, while individual portfolios show radically different occupancy and revenue despite operating in the same city.

Medellín Airbnb is becoming harder for average properties rather than becoming unviable as a whole.

Are Medellín Airbnb hosts actually earning more money?

Medellín Airbnb revenue is still rising, but the average host has captured only a small fraction of the city's huge growth in listings and tourism.

Airbtics estimates median annual revenue of roughly $12,000 in its latest Medellín data, 10.2% above the previous year. Its full-year 2025 analysis produced a similar figure of about $11,750.

La Lonja gives us a useful cross-check from a completely different dataset. It counted about 14,000 short-term-rental properties across the Valle de Aburrá during 2025, generating approximately COP 76 billion a month at 66% average occupancy.

Dividing that revenue across the 14,000 properties gives roughly COP 5.4 million per property per month. That calculation is only a broad average, but it puts the size of the market into perspective.

The spread between properties is much more interesting than the average. Some professional Medellín portfolios tracked by Airbtics currently operate around market-level revenue, while others generate several times the city average. The property, location and operator increasingly determine the result.

As seen above, supply has more than doubled in three years while median annual revenue has barely moved over the same period. That is probably the clearest evidence that the Medellín Airbnb boom has become much more competitive.

Is 63% Airbnb occupancy in Medellín actually good?

Yes. Around 63% occupancy is a strong result for Medellín Airbnb, especially when Colombia's broader short-term-rental market sits below 50%.

At 63% occupancy, an available property is booked for roughly 230 nights in a full year. Airbtics put Colombia's 2025 average at about 48.7%, so Medellín is running around 14 percentage points above the national market.

El Poblado performs even better, at roughly 67% in Airbtics' latest neighborhood data.

The impressive part is that Medellín maintained occupancy around these levels while adding thousands of listings. We would have expected a much sharper fall if supply had genuinely overwhelmed demand.

But occupancy alone can fool investors. A host can defend bookings by lowering the nightly rate. Someone earning $80 a night at 55% occupancy can easily outperform someone earning $50 at 70%.

Medellín currently passes the demand test. For an actual property, the harder question is whether it can maintain a good nightly rate while staying occupied.

Is El Poblado still the best place for Airbnb in Medellín?

El Poblado is still Medellín's strongest Airbnb neighborhood for revenue, but paying El Poblado prices can erase a surprising amount of that advantage.

Airbtics' latest data put El Poblado occupancy at around 67%, compared with 63% across Medellín. The average daily rate was roughly $91, versus about $51 citywide, while estimated annual revenue reached $22,764.

Those are big differences. An El Poblado property can generate close to twice the annual revenue of a typical Medellín short-term rental.

The demand makes sense. Provenza, Parque Lleras and Manila concentrate restaurants, nightlife, accommodation and services used heavily by international visitors. Foreign travelers can book El Poblado without knowing Medellín particularly well, which gives the area an advantage that less famous neighborhoods have to earn.

Property prices already reflect that advantage. Recent Ciencuadras market estimates have placed El Poblado around COP 8 million per square meter on average, with large differences between buildings and micro-locations.

There is also more scrutiny. City authorities have recently carried out targeted operations in El Poblado residential buildings after complaints about apartments being used for temporary accommodation. They are also cross-checking information with Migración Colombia to identify potentially non-compliant stays of less than 30 days.

We would still choose El Poblado when the purchase price makes sense. We would not pay almost any price simply to own in Medellín's most obvious Airbnb neighborhood.

Metric	Medellín overall	El Poblado
Occupancy	~63%	~67%
Average daily rate	~$51	~$91
Estimated annual revenue	~$12,000	~$22,764
Active listings	~12,860	~2,787
Purchase prices	Lower overall	Among Medellín's highest

Is Laureles a better Airbnb buy than El Poblado?

Laureles can beat El Poblado for investors who care about the purchase price as much as Airbnb revenue, but we would only consider a unit there after checking the building rules very carefully.

Laureles has a different appeal from El Poblado. Visitors get restaurants, cafés, nightlife, walkability and easy access to central Medellín without being surrounded by quite the same concentration of international tourism.

The residential market is also extremely deep. Fincaraíz ranked Laureles as Medellín's most searched neighborhood during 2025, ahead of El Poblado and Belén. That gives an investor several possible exits: short stays, medium-term tenants, conventional tenants or resale to people who actually want to live there.

Acquisition costs can be lower too. Recent Ciencuadras estimates put Laureles-Estadio around COP 6.3 million per square meter versus roughly COP 8 million in El Poblado, although the exact gap changes considerably from one building to another.

The uncomfortable part is regulation. Laureles appeared in 21 of the 93 technical reports produced during a recent six-month round of short-term-rental inspections. El Poblado appeared in 16.

So we would never treat Laureles as the quieter neighborhood where enforcement does not matter. Its attraction comes from a better mix of tourism demand and ordinary residential demand.

That combination can make Laureles a better investment than El Poblado, especially when the Airbnb business is legally allowed and the entry price is substantially lower.

Does Airbnb still beat a normal long-term rental in Medellín?

Sometimes, but the gap is much smaller than many Medellín Airbnb investment pitches make it sound.

Airbtics currently estimates a 12.3% gross short-term-rental yield for Medellín. Fincaraíz asking-price and asking-rent data imply gross long-term residential yields that can already reach the high single digits in several upper-income segments.

For example, its data put estrato 6 apartments around COP 7.04 million per square meter for sale and COP 56,805 per square meter in monthly advertised rent. Annualizing those figures produces a rough gross yield close to 9.7%.

Estrato 5 comes out around 9.3%, while estrato 4 is closer to 8.7%.

These are asking-market calculations rather than realized portfolio returns, so they are not perfectly comparable with Airbtics' modeled Airbnb yield. The useful finding is the size of the gap. Gross Airbnb returns can sit only a few percentage points above ordinary residential rent before any extra short-term-rental costs are paid.

That changes the decision completely.

Long-term tenants require far less turnover, guest communication, pricing work, furnishing replacement and daily operating attention. Medellín residential rents also rose another 6.5% on average during 2025 according to La Lonja, with stronger increases in El Poblado and Laureles.

An Airbnb earning 30% or 40% more gross revenue than a conventional rental can still be compelling. If the advantage is closer to 10% or 15%, we would usually prefer the simpler rental unless the owner has another reason to keep the property available.

Residential segment	Sale asking price / m²	Monthly rent / m²	Rough gross annual yield
Estrato 4 apartment	COP 5.41m	COP 39,060	~8.7%
Estrato 5 apartment	COP 5.93m	COP 45,990	~9.3%
Estrato 6 apartment	COP 7.04m	COP 56,805	~9.7%
Medellín short-term rental benchmark	—	—	~12.3% modeled gross

Can you legally Airbnb any apartment in Medellín?

No. Buying an apartment in Medellín does not automatically give the owner the right to rent it to tourists for stays under 30 days.

Medellín's latest 2026 guidance makes the requirements unusually clear.

A tourist accommodation operator needs a Registro Nacional de Turismo, commonly called the RNT. But having an RNT alone does not settle the issue.

When the apartment belongs to a building governed by propiedad horizontal, the building's rules must expressly allow tourist accommodation. If they do not, the owner cannot simply rely on the fact that other units are already appearing on Airbnb.

Land use also matters. Medellín requires the activity to be compatible with the city's planning rules, and the property needs the appropriate construction authorization for the intended accommodation use.

Operators also face tax and commercial registration requirements, guest-registration obligations and reporting rules for foreign visitors.

The latest city guidance is particularly useful because Medellín is still describing short-term rentals as a growing source of income for property owners. The city is not telling legal operators to leave the market. It is drawing a much clearer line between authorized tourist housing and apartments that happen to be taking bookings without the full legal structure behind them.

We would therefore check Airbnb legality before negotiating the purchase price, not after buying.

Check before buying	Why it matters
Registro Nacional de Turismo	Required for formal tourist accommodation
Propiedad horizontal rules	The building must allow the activity
Land-use compatibility	Tourist accommodation must fit local planning rules
Construction authorization	The approved property use has to match the activity
Tax and commercial registration	The operator enters Colombia's formal tourism economy
Foreign-guest reporting	Applicable stays create immigration reporting duties

Is Medellín really cracking down on illegal Airbnbs?

Yes. Medellín is currently checking illegal short-term rentals much more seriously, and the latest city policy suggests those controls will become more systematic rather than disappear.

A recent six-month enforcement effort produced 93 technical reports in areas with heavy tourism activity. Authorities found 34 locations operating without the necessary license and identified other potential problems involving prohibited land use, unauthorized changes of use, construction interventions and violations of propiedad horizontal rules.

The geographic spread is useful. Laureles accounted for 21 reports, San Cristóbal for 19, El Poblado for 16 and La Candelaria for 13. Enforcement is clearly broader than a few famous apartment towers in Provenza.

El Poblado has received extra attention because of repeated complaints from residential buildings. Medellín authorities have also said they are cross-checking data with Migración Colombia to identify properties hosting foreigners and possible stays under 30 days that may not comply with the rules.

More recently, the city introduced a 2026–2030 tourism-security plan that specifically calls for more inter-agency inspections, better monitoring and greater use of data.

An investor does not need to believe Medellín will ban Airbnb. The more realistic danger is buying a property that already fails rules the city is getting better at enforcing.

Can the apartment building itself kill a Medellín Airbnb deal?

Absolutely. In Medellín, the building rules can be more important to an Airbnb investment than the apartment's renovation, view or furniture.

Colombia's propiedad horizontal system gives apartment buildings a formal set of permitted uses and rules. Medellín's latest guidance states that tourist accommodation in these buildings has to be expressly allowed.

This creates a big difference between apartments that look almost identical.

One tower may have been structured from the beginning for short-term accommodation, with suitable rules, guest-access systems and management. The neighboring tower may have been approved as a normal residential building where owners expect permanent neighbors rather than a constant flow of tourists.

Purpose-built Airbnb projects solve part of that problem. They generally reduce the risk of conflicts with residents and make short-stay operations easier.

But there is a trap here too. Developers know investors will pay more for a building where Airbnb is explicitly allowed.

If a normal residential apartment is worth COP 400 million and an Airbnb-friendly equivalent costs COP 500 million, the extra COP 100 million has to generate its own return. Many buyers focus on the higher nightly income and forget that they paid for the privilege upfront.

Buildings full of investor-owned short-term rentals can also become vulnerable at resale. If Airbnb economics weaken, several similar units may hit the market at once.

We would pay something extra for verified Airbnb permission. We would not pay an unlimited premium for it.

Does financing a Medellín Airbnb still make sense?

Financing a Medellín Airbnb with expensive Colombian debt currently makes the deal much harder to justify.

Banco de la República's policy rate is 12% as of now. Actual mortgage pricing varies by borrower and lender, but Colombia is clearly nowhere near a cheap-money environment.

Compare that with the asset being financed. Medellín's modeled short-term-rental yield is around 12.3% gross according to Airbtics, while several residential segments can reach high-single-digit gross yields from current asking-market data.

Borrowing at rates close to the property's gross yield leaves almost no room after operating costs.

The maths becomes particularly unforgiving for Airbnb because gross revenue still has to cover management, platform fees, furnishing, utilities, repairs, vacancies and other expenses before the owner receives the remaining cash.

A cash buyer can accept a 10% or 12% gross property yield and decide whether the net return is attractive enough.

A heavily financed buyer faces a different investment entirely.

We would currently be much more interested in Medellín Airbnb as a cash or low-cost-financing purchase than as a highly leveraged local-mortgage strategy.

What happens if Medellín makes Airbnb rules even stricter?

The safest Medellín Airbnb today is an apartment that would still be worth owning if short-term-rental rules became stricter.

Medellín has good reasons to keep legal tourist accommodation. The city receives around 1.3 million international tourists a year, thousands of properties already serve the market, and La Lonja estimates short-term rentals generated roughly COP 76 billion per month across the Valle de Aburrá during 2025.

At the same time, local authorities are dealing with housing pressure, complaints from residential buildings, security concerns and illegal tourist accommodation. Those issues give the city strong reasons to keep tightening enforcement.

The 2026–2030 tourism-security plan reinforces that direction. Medellín is building more monitoring and inspection capacity into its tourism strategy rather than treating recent enforcement as a temporary campaign.

That favors apartments with several possible uses.

A two-bedroom property in Laureles or a well-connected part of El Poblado may work as Airbnb today, a furnished monthly rental tomorrow and a normal residential lease later. There will also be local and foreign buyers interested in living there.

A tiny unit designed almost exclusively for weekend tourists has fewer options.

We therefore give a substantial premium to fallback value. The property should make sense as Medellín real estate first and as an Airbnb second.

What kind of Airbnb still makes money in Medellín today?

The Medellín Airbnbs we would buy today are legally authorized, bought at a sensible price and clearly better than the mass of interchangeable apartments now competing for guests.

The first requirement is documentation. The building has to allow short-term tourist accommodation, and the property must comply with the other registration, land-use and licensing rules.

The second is the purchase price. Current occupancy around 63% is strong enough to build a viable business, but we would not underwrite a deal that needs 75% or 80% occupancy every year to work.

The third is micro-location. El Poblado remains the obvious high-revenue market, especially around the areas tourists already know. Laureles can offer a more interesting relationship between acquisition price, visitor demand and residential fallback value. Envigado deserves consideration too: Airbtics currently estimates about 61% occupancy and roughly $10,876 of annual revenue there, surprisingly close to Medellín's citywide median despite a different tourism profile.

The fourth is differentiation. With nearly 13,000 Medellín listings, clean furniture and a decent bed are no longer enough. Quiet bedrooms, useful workspaces, reliable internet, kitchens people can actually use, good building amenities, views, balconies and genuinely convenient locations can all change pricing power.

Longer stays are worth thinking about too. Medellín attracts remote workers, business visitors, medical travelers and foreigners spending several weeks in the city. An apartment that works for both three-night tourists and one-month guests has more ways to fill the calendar.

Property type	Our view today	Why
Legal Airbnb in strong micro-location	Attractive	Strong demand plus lower regulatory risk
Generic unit bought at a high price	Weak	Too easy for competitors to replace
Laureles unit with legal STR use	Attractive at the right price	Tourism plus strong residential fallback
El Poblado unit with extreme Airbnb premium	Risky	Revenue can be high but entry price absorbs it
Apartment needing 75%–80% occupancy	Avoid	Current market is closer to the low-to-mid 60s
Property that also works long term	Strongest setup	Gives the owner a real fallback

Is Medellín Airbnb becoming too professional for a small investor?

Medellín Airbnb is getting much more professional, but a small investor can still compete with one very good property.

The scale of the market explains why. La Lonja counted roughly 14,000 short-term rentals across the Valle de Aburrá generating around COP 76 billion every month during 2025. This has grown into a real hospitality industry.

Airbtics currently tracks Medellín operators managing portfolios ranging from dozens of apartments to more than 100 units. Those businesses can spread software, cleaners, maintenance staff, photography, guest support and pricing systems across many properties.

Small owners cannot match that operating scale.

They can still compete on the actual product. One apartment with a great location, sensible pricing, strong reviews and thoughtful amenities can outperform a poorly run portfolio property.

What becomes harder is casual hosting. An investor living abroad, using generic furniture, replying slowly to guests and leaving nightly prices unchanged for weeks is now competing with operators who manage occupancy and pricing every day.

For somebody wanting an almost completely passive property investment, this pushes Medellín Airbnb down the list.

For somebody willing to hire a strong operator or manage the unit properly, the market remains very viable.

So, is Airbnb still worth it in Medellín?

Yes, but only the good deals. Airbnb in Medellín is still worth buying today when the property is fully legal, the purchase price is reasonable and the expected Airbnb revenue beats a normal rental by enough to pay for the extra work and costs.

The tourism side remains strong. Medellín welcomed 954,600 visitors in the first half of 2025, international tourism was still growing at double-digit rates, José María Córdova handled more than 2 million non-resident arrivals over the full year, and Airbnb occupancy currently sits around 63%.

The market has also proved remarkably capable of absorbing new accommodation.

However, the investment itself has become less forgiving. Medellín added about 2,890 short-term-rental listings in one year and active supply has more than doubled in three years. Ordinary residential rents are rising quickly. El Poblado purchase prices are already high. Colombian borrowing costs remain expensive. Owners also face management, furnishing, platform and utility costs that do not appear in gross Airbnb yield figures.

Regulation has become harder to ignore too. Medellín has identified dozens of non-compliant properties through recent inspections, is cross-checking accommodation activity with other authorities and has now built more tourism enforcement into its 2026–2030 plan.

Put all of that together and we get a fairly sharp answer.

We would still buy a Medellín Airbnb if the unit were legally authorized, bought close to its underlying residential value, capable of performing around realistic market occupancy and attractive enough to compete without constant discounting. We would particularly like properties that could switch to medium- or long-term tenants if Airbnb stopped making sense.

We would pass on an expensive “Airbnb investment” sold mainly on projected nightly revenue, especially when the buyer is paying a large premium for the building, financing the purchase at high rates or relying on optimistic occupancy.

Medellín itself remains a very good short-term-rental market.

The easy Airbnb investment is what has disappeared.

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 Medellín. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can check our presentation page.