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SUMMARY
Yes, Airbnb can still be worth it in Tulum, but only when the property is bought at the right price and can perform without heroic occupancy assumptions.
Tulum's problem is no longer a lack of tourism. It is that accommodation supply has grown faster than demand, leaving thousands of similar studios and one-bedroom condos competing for the same guests.
Current STR occupancy around 46% to 47% is a useful reality check. A property needing 65% or 70% occupancy to produce an acceptable return is relying on exceptional performance, not a normal Tulum outcome.
The apparent recovery in Airbnb revenue needs some skepticism. AirDNA shows much higher revenue per active listing while simultaneously reporting a sharply smaller measured listing pool, lower ADR and weaker RevPAR, so the headline increase does not look like a simple surge in tourist demand.
Tulum's airport is a genuine long-term advantage, but easier access has not rescued occupancy. The destination gained direct international connectivity while hotel occupancy and recent foreign arrivals through the airport still weakened.
Purchase price now matters almost as much as rental performance. The same market-level Airbnb revenue produces a much stronger gross yield on a roughly MXN 3.25 million La Veleta apartment than on a roughly MXN 5 million Aldea Zama apartment.
Airbnb's advantage over long-term renting has also become surprisingly thin around the market median. In La Veleta, current long-term asking rents already imply roughly a 6% gross yield, while management and operating costs can quickly erase Airbnb's modest extra gross revenue.
The wide gap between individual listings is one of the most important things in the market. Comparable one-bedroom properties can differ by more than two times in annual revenue, which means the exact unit, pricing, reviews and management quality now matter far more than simply owning something in Tulum.
Generic presales look particularly vulnerable. Buyers have thousands of existing units to choose from, so paying a premium for construction risk and a projected Airbnb return makes little sense unless the development is genuinely differentiated or meaningfully cheaper than finished alternatives.
The best Tulum Airbnb deals today are properties that still make sense around 45% to 50% occupancy, have something guests cannot easily substitute, and leave enough margin after management, HOA fees, utilities, maintenance, platform charges and taxes. Full-price generic condos whose spreadsheets depend on 65% to 70% occupancy are much harder to defend.
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Why are investors questioning Tulum Airbnb now?
Tulum Airbnb can still make money today, but buying an ordinary condo and expecting tourism to carry the investment has become a weak strategy.
The reason is pretty simple. Tulum still receives a huge number of tourists, while the amount of accommodation competing for them has grown even faster. Airbtics counted 6,635 active short-term rentals in its early-year dataset, up 23.4% in twelve months and 126.8% in three years. Over that same three-year period, median Airbnb revenue fell 17.3% and occupancy dropped 14.6%.
The broader tourism numbers have also weakened. Quintana Roo's tourism department estimated roughly 1.23 million tourists in Tulum during the first nine months of 2025, down 5.3% from the same period a year earlier. Official hotel occupancy then fell from 73.8% in 2024 to 69.1% in 2025.
The deterioration continued into the current year. Tulum hotels averaged 66.2% occupancy during the first six months, compared with 74.3% one year earlier. That eight-point drop was much larger than the decline recorded in Cancún, Playa del Carmen or the Riviera Maya overall.
Tulum clearly still has demand. The harder part now is getting an individual property to win enough of it.
| Tulum indicator | Earlier level | Latest comparable level | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan-Sep tourists | 1.30M | 1.23M | -5.3% |
| Hotel occupancy | 73.8% | 69.1% | -4.7 pts |
| H1 hotel occupancy | 74.3% | 66.2% | -8.1 pts |
| Airbtics STR occupancy | ~50% | 47% | -6% YoY |
| Airbtics active rentals | ~5,376 | 6,635 | +23.4% YoY |
| Active rentals vs. 3 years earlier | ~2,925 | 6,635 | +126.8% |
Is Tulum Airbnb actually oversupplied?
Yes, Tulum Airbnb is oversupplied today, especially with studios and one-bedroom condos that look almost interchangeable online.
Airbtics counted 6,635 active rentals earlier this year. The latest AirDNA Tulum dataset shows 4,130 active units, although AirDNA also reports a huge year-over-year contraction in its measured inventory, so the two providers are clearly using different definitions of what remains genuinely active.
The disagreement is actually useful. We should be skeptical of anyone presenting a single listing count as the unquestionable size of the market. Both datasets still tell us that thousands of short-term rentals are competing inside one relatively small destination.
The residential market shows the same abundance. Propiedades.com currently counts 1,715 apartments for sale in Aldea Zama, 1,061 in La Veleta and thousands more across other parts of Tulum. These are sale listings rather than active Airbnbs, but much of this housing stock was built for the same investor-and-vacation-rental market.
That is rough for generic units. A one-bedroom condo with a rooftop pool, tropical furniture and a jungle view may photograph well, but there are plenty of others offering almost exactly the same thing.
Owners can still win in an oversupplied market. They just need a stronger reason for guests to choose their property.
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Are Tulum Airbnbs still getting booked?
Yes, Tulum Airbnbs are still getting booked, but current market occupancy sits around the mid-40s rather than the packed calendars sometimes shown in developer projections.
AirDNA's latest completed market data puts average Tulum short-term-rental occupancy at 46%. Airbtics measured a 47% median earlier in the year. Different methodologies landed very close to each other.
At 46% occupancy, a property available all year would fill around 168 nights and sit empty for roughly 197. At 50%, it would still have more than 180 vacant nights.
Some Tulum Airbnbs do much better. Airbtics has shown comparable one-bedroom units around Aldea Zama ranging from below 30% occupancy to around 70%. That spread is more important for an investor than the destination average because performance has become so uneven.
A model that needs 65% or 70% occupancy to produce an acceptable return is aggressive today. A property that works financially at 45% to 50% gives us much more room for mistakes, weak seasons or new competition.
| Occupancy | Booked nights/year | Empty nights/year | How we would read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40% | 146 | 219 | Weak |
| 46% | 168 | 197 | Current AirDNA market level |
| 50% | 183 | 182 | Sensible underwriting case |
| 55% | 201 | 164 | Strong |
| 65% | 237 | 128 | Very strong |
| 70% | 256 | 109 | Exceptional comp territory |
Is Tulum Airbnb demand recovering now?
Tulum Airbnb looks healthier in some current datasets, but we would not call this a clean demand recovery yet.
The latest AirDNA numbers are a good example of why headline growth needs context. Average revenue per active Tulum listing reached about $17,700 over the previous twelve months, up 62.2% year over year. Occupancy was also up 17.4%.
Those numbers sound spectacular until we look at the rest of the dataset. AirDNA simultaneously reports 69.4% fewer active listings than a year earlier and a 23% drop in average daily rate. RevPAR, which captures both occupancy and pricing, was still down 9.7%.
So surviving listings are earning more on average, partly because AirDNA's measured competitive pool has become dramatically smaller. That does not show a 62% increase in total tourist demand.
The broader tourism picture is still soft as well. Official Tulum hotel occupancy has continued falling, and foreign arrivals through Tulum airport were also down sharply during the first four months of the current year compared with the same period one year earlier, according to Mexico's tourism ministry.
There may be a genuine shakeout happening. Weak listings leaving the market would eventually make life easier for the properties that remain. For now, some Airbnb metrics are improving while the destination itself is still working through softer demand.
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Can Tulum Airbnbs still charge expensive nightly rates?
Some Tulum Airbnbs can still charge premium prices, but ordinary condos have lost a lot of pricing power.
AirDNA currently puts Tulum's average daily rate around $125, down 23% year over year. Airbtics' earlier dataset showed a median nightly rate of MXN 1,355, up recently but still slightly below where it had been three years earlier.
Property-level performance shows why simply pushing the nightly rate higher can backfire. In one Airbtics sample of comparable one-bedroom rentals around Aldea Zama, a property charging roughly $150 a night reached 52% occupancy and generated about $29,300 annually. Another charged around $167 but reached only 28% occupancy, leaving annual revenue at approximately $17,700.
A third listing filled about 70% of its nights while charging only around $82 and still produced more than $22,000.
Guests have enough choice these days to punish properties that are priced above what their photos, reviews, location and amenities justify. Revenue management in Tulum now means finding the price that actually converts, not chasing the nicest-looking ADR.
Has Tulum's new airport actually helped Airbnb?
Tulum's new airport has made the destination much easier to reach, but so far it has not created enough extra demand to fix the Airbnb market.
Felipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport opened at the end of 2023 and handled 1.23 million passengers during its first full year, according to official government figures. That is significant infrastructure for a destination that previously depended heavily on Cancún airport and a long road transfer.
International connectivity then expanded quickly. Airlines added direct routes from major US and Canadian cities, giving travelers a much cleaner way to reach Tulum.
Yet the tourism numbers around the airport have been less impressive lately. Mexico's tourism ministry recorded 323,948 foreign tourist arrivals through Tulum airport in 2025, up only 3% from the previous year. During the first four months of the current year, foreign arrivals fell to about 104,000, down 35.2% year over year.
Meanwhile, as seen above, Tulum's hotel occupancy dropped to 66.2% during the first half of the year.
The airport is still a major long-term advantage for Tulum. Its short-term effect has simply been much smaller than the original investment story suggested. Better access helps, but thousands of additional rooms and rentals can soak up that benefit surprisingly fast.
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How much does a normal Tulum Airbnb make now?
A normal Tulum Airbnb currently appears to generate roughly MXN 240,000 to MXN 300,000 a year in gross revenue, although individual properties can land far outside that range.
Airbtics reported median annual revenue of MXN 237,000 in its latest Tulum dataset. AirDNA currently reports average annual revenue of $17,700 per active listing. At an exchange rate around MXN 17 per dollar, that is roughly MXN 301,000.
We prefer using that range instead of pretending one number describes every Tulum Airbnb.
The difference between mediocre and strong properties can easily exceed $10,000 a year. In the Aldea Zama comparison mentioned earlier, one-bedroom annual revenues stretched from roughly $14,100 to more than $29,000.
Buying "a Tulum Airbnb" therefore tells us very little. We need to know the exact unit, exact building, acquisition price, reviews, amenities, competition within a few hundred meters and how well the listing will actually be run.
What Airbnb yield can a Tulum condo realistically produce?
A Tulum condo can still produce a decent gross Airbnb yield today, but the purchase price determines whether the numbers are interesting or mediocre.
Propiedades.com currently puts the average La Veleta apartment around MXN 3.25 million. Aldea Zama is much more expensive at roughly MXN 5.03 million.
Apply annual Airbnb revenue of MXN 237,000 and the difference is immediate. The gross yield is about 7.3% in La Veleta and 4.7% in Aldea Zama.
Using the higher MXN 301,000 revenue implied by AirDNA produces roughly 9.3% and 6.0% respectively.
La Veleta has also behaved better on purchase prices lately. Propiedades.com's data shows its average apartment price up 9.1% since early 2025, while Aldea Zama is down around 0.4% and Tulum overall is down about 2%.
Neighborhood averages are imperfect because the typical La Veleta apartment is smaller and different from the typical Aldea Zama property. Still, the exercise exposes one of the biggest mistakes in Tulum underwriting: obsessing over revenue while treating the acquisition price as secondary.
| Scenario | Purchase price | Gross Airbnb revenue | Gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| La Veleta + Airbtics revenue | MXN 3.25M | MXN 237K | 7.3% |
| La Veleta + AirDNA revenue | MXN 3.25M | ~MXN 301K | 9.3% |
| Aldea Zama + Airbtics revenue | MXN 5.03M | MXN 237K | 4.7% |
| Aldea Zama + AirDNA revenue | MXN 5.03M | ~MXN 301K | 6.0% |
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How much Tulum Airbnb revenue disappears in costs?
Tulum Airbnb costs can eat a surprisingly large part of gross revenue, especially when an overseas owner outsources the entire operation.
One current Tulum management company, Ambar Villas, charges 20% of net rental income. Utilities, insurance, accounting, major repairs, replacement furnishings and platform fees are billed separately.
Airbnb's own host charge also varies depending on the fee structure and how the listing is managed. Professionally managed properties can face a much larger host-side platform fee than owners using the traditional split-fee structure.
Take the MXN 237,000 annual revenue figure. A 20% management charge alone removes MXN 47,400. Add platform costs, electricity, internet, HOA fees, repairs, linen, supplies, furniture replacement, insurance and tax administration and a gross yield that initially looked attractive can shrink quickly.
As pointed out above, MXN 237,000 represents only a 4.7% gross yield on the average Aldea Zama apartment before any of those costs. There is not much room for expensive management at that starting point.
Self-managing changes the picture considerably. So does buying at a steep discount. Two owners with the same Airbnb revenue can end up with completely different returns.
Does Airbnb still beat long-term renting in Tulum?
Airbnb can still beat long-term renting in Tulum, but the advantage is much smaller once we compare net income instead of headline revenue.
Propiedades.com currently estimates average apartment rent in La Veleta at roughly MXN 16,700 a month. That works out to about MXN 201,000 per year if the property remains occupied for twelve months.
Against the neighborhood's roughly MXN 3.25 million average apartment price, the simple gross long-term yield is about 6.2%.
Compare that with the MXN 237,000 Airbtics Airbnb revenue estimate. Short-term renting produces about MXN 36,000 more gross revenue over a full year.
That difference is not huge. A professional manager charging 20% can consume more than the entire gap before we even get to Airbnb platform costs, heavier utility bills, linen, guest supplies or extra wear and tear.
The comparison becomes much more favorable when an Airbnb performs above the market average. A unit making MXN 350,000 or MXN 400,000 has enough extra revenue to justify the extra work and volatility. Around the market median, long-term renting has become surprisingly competitive.
| La Veleta example | Long-term rent | Typical Airbnb |
|---|---|---|
| Annual gross revenue | ~MXN 201K | MXN 237K |
| Purchase price | MXN 3.25M | MXN 3.25M |
| Gross yield | ~6.2% | ~7.3% |
| Guest turnover | Low | High |
| Revenue volatility | Lower | Higher |
| Management intensity | Lower | Much higher |
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Can a great Tulum Airbnb still outperform the market?
Yes, a genuinely good Tulum Airbnb can still outperform the market by a lot.
Comparable properties show how wide the gap is. In one Airbtics Aldea Zama sample, six broadly similar one-bedroom rentals generated between roughly $14,100 and $29,300 annually.
The strongest unit earned more than twice as much as the weakest. Occupancy ranged from 28% to 70%, while nightly rates ranged from roughly $77 to $167.
Those are not small differences around the edges. They can decide whether the same type of real estate feels like a bad investment or a very good one.
The winning properties tend to combine several advantages: a price guests accept, strong photography, good review history, attractive private or shared spaces, dependable Wi-Fi and utilities, responsive hosting and an experience that does not look identical to another 50 listings in the search results.
Tulum rewards good operators much more than it used to. Passive owners have less protection when they get the property or management company wrong.
| Comparable 1BR | Occupancy | ADR | Annual revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property A | 47% | $80 | $14,125 |
| Property B | 70% | $82 | $22,262 |
| Property C | 52% | $150 | $29,256 |
| Property D | 55% | $77 | $15,982 |
| Property E | 59% | $90 | $19,742 |
| Property F | 28% | $167 | $17,699 |
Is buying a new presale condo for Airbnb still smart in Tulum?
Buying a generic Tulum presale for Airbnb looks hard to justify today unless the price is clearly better than comparable finished properties.
Tulum already has a huge amount of investor-oriented housing. Propiedades.com currently shows more than 1,700 apartments for sale in Aldea Zama, more than 1,000 in La Veleta and nearly 4,000 in Aldea Tulum alone.
Buyers have options. There is little reason to accept construction risk, delivery risk and optimistic rental assumptions simply because a development has attractive renderings.
The neighborhood numbers make this even clearer. Aldea Zama apartments average about MXN 5.03 million and have been roughly flat to slightly down since early 2025. La Veleta averages closer to MXN 3.25 million. Lúum Zama has fallen more sharply, with Propiedades.com showing an 11.4% decline over the comparable period.
A good presale can still work when the discount is real, the development is genuinely differentiated or the unit gives guests something scarce. A private pool, unusually large terrace, walkable location or low-density design can make a meaningful difference.
What looks much weaker these days is paying a premium for another small one-bedroom condo whose projected return requires 70% occupancy. Independent market data gives us no reason to underwrite that casually.
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Is Airbnb regulation becoming a serious problem in Tulum?
Airbnb regulation in Tulum is manageable today, but owners should now treat short-term rentals like a real hospitality business rather than an informal side income.
Quintana Roo requires vacation rentals offered through digital platforms to operate within the state's tourism and tax framework. The state also applies a lodging tax to short-term accommodation, while Airbnb collects applicable lodging taxes from guests on qualifying stays.
Mexican federal tax rules add another layer. VAT and income-tax obligations can apply depending on the owner's structure, residency and how the platform processes payments.
None of this automatically ruins the investment. Properly modeled taxes and compliance costs are simply part of operating in Tulum.
We would become uncomfortable with an investment pitch that only works because the owner expects to stay invisible, avoid registration or ignore tax obligations. Authorities and platforms now share far more transaction information than during Airbnb's early years.
Regulation currently looks more like an operating hurdle than an existential threat to Tulum Airbnb.
What kind of Tulum Airbnb would we avoid today?
We would avoid an expensive, interchangeable Tulum condo whose return depends on aggressive occupancy and outsourced management.
The combination matters more than any individual red flag. Paying MXN 5 million for a standard one-bedroom, then giving roughly 20% of rental income to a manager, is hard to defend if the property is competing mainly on a rooftop pool and generic jungle décor.
We would be especially cautious when the unit also has high HOA fees, construction nearby, awkward beach access, unreliable road infrastructure or dozens of close substitutes inside the same development area.
Buying cheaply can rescue an otherwise ordinary property. Imagine two Airbnbs each generating MXN 275,000 a year. An owner who paid MXN 3 million starts with a 9.2% gross yield. Someone paying MXN 5 million for the same revenue starts at 5.5%.
If operating costs consume 35% of revenue, both properties produce around MXN 179,000 before owner-level taxes. The first buyer earns roughly 6.0% on the purchase price. The second earns about 3.6%.
That gap is much harder to fix through clever pricing than many investors assume.
Tulum's huge property inventory can actually help buyers here. With thousands of units competing for capital, we would rather negotiate hard on an existing property than pay full price because a developer's spreadsheet promises double-digit returns.
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So, is Airbnb still worth it in Tulum?
Yes, Airbnb is still worth it in Tulum for the right property, but we would pass on a generic condo bought at full price and handed completely to a management company.
The market has become much more selective. Tulum still attracts a large international tourism base and now has direct air connectivity that did not exist a few years ago. Strong properties can still generate excellent revenue, and some one-bedroom units are earning roughly twice as much as weaker nearby competitors.
The average investment is harder to defend. Occupancy currently sits around the mid-40s, nightly-rate pressure remains visible, official hotel occupancy has weakened sharply, and buyers have thousands of competing residential units to choose from.
AirDNA's current average annual revenue is about $17,700 per active Tulum listing. As seen previously, Airbtics puts its median closer to MXN 237,000. Those revenues can create an attractive return on a well-bought MXN 3 million property. They look considerably less exciting on a MXN 5 million condo once management, platform fees, HOA charges, utilities, maintenance and taxes are deducted.
Long-term renting has also become a more serious alternative than many Airbnb sales pitches admit. In La Veleta, current asking rents imply a gross long-term yield around 6%, which leaves relatively little room for a mediocre Airbnb to compensate for its additional work and volatility.
We would still buy a Tulum Airbnb when the acquisition price is low enough for the numbers to work around 45% to 50% occupancy, the property stands out from nearby inventory, and operating costs remain controlled.
We would avoid deals that need 65% to 70% occupancy, endless nightly-rate growth or developer projections to look attractive.
Tulum Airbnb still has good investments. There are just far fewer properties today that deserve to be called one.
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis tests whether Airbnb is still worth it in Tulum by breaking the investment into the forces that actually determine the result: tourism demand, short-term-rental supply, occupancy, nightly rates, acquisition prices, operating costs, long-term-rental alternatives, airport connectivity and regulation.
We prioritized recent observable market data rather than developer return projections. For short-term-rental performance, we used AirDNA's Tulum market data and Airbtics' Tulum Airbnb dataset. The two providers use different definitions and listing universes, so we did not force their inventory figures into agreement. We paid more attention to areas where independently constructed datasets pointed in the same direction, such as occupancy around the mid-40s.
Broader tourism demand was checked against official sources rather than Airbnb data alone. We used the Quintana Roo Tourism Information System for hotel occupancy and tourism trends, together with Mexico's DataTur 2025 foreign-arrival data, its January-April 2026 update, and the DataTur/AFAC aviation database for Tulum airport traffic.
Property economics were built from current asking-market evidence. We used Propiedades.com data for La Veleta apartments for sale, Aldea Zama apartments for sale, Aldea Tulum inventory, and La Veleta apartments for rent. Dollar-denominated Airbnb revenue was converted using the approximate current peso-dollar level supported by Banco de México exchange-rate data.
We translated those market figures into investment economics rather than stopping at gross Airbnb revenue. Management costs were anchored with the published pricing of Ambar Villas, while Airbnb's own documentation was used for host service fees. This lets us compare short-term and long-term renting on a more realistic basis and test how much room remains after management, platform charges and recurring operating expenses.
Regulation and tax treatment were checked against first-hand sources. These include Airbnb's guidance on taxes for Mexican hosts and tax collection in Mexico, Quintana Roo's Lodging Tax Law, official SATQ guidance for digital accommodation platforms, and Mexico SAT's rules covering technological-platform taxation, income-tax withholding under Article 113-A, and RFC registration for platform hosts.
The final judgment does not depend on one market average. We compared independent STR datasets, official tourism and aviation data, neighborhood purchase prices, long-term rents and operating costs, then tested whether a property still works around observed occupancy rather than the unusually strong performance sometimes shown in sales material. That is why the conclusion is deliberately property-specific: Tulum Airbnb can still work, but the acquisition price and the exact unit now matter much more than the destination name alone.
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