Bakersfield, California Airbnb Market Data 2026

So what does an Airbnb in Bakersfield actually earn? Take every measurable listing here and the middle one brought in roughly $22,800 last year, on a typical nightly rate of $218, and those figures are only useful once you know where the market really sits. Fewer than four in ten of the listings behind them are inside the Bakersfield city limits.

That surprises people, and it's the single most important thing to understand before you shop here. The market BNBCalc tracks as Bakersfield runs roughly a hundred miles east across Kern County and over the line into Tulare County.

So it takes in Kernville, Lake Isabella and Wofford Heights along the Kern River, the desert around Ridgecrest, the Tehachapi foothills at Golden Hills, and the cabins in the Sequoia country above Porterville, which puts about 82% of the listings in Kern County and the other 18% in Tulare. A duplex off Truxtun Avenue and a cabin on the river both sit inside these numbers, and they are not the same business.

Those two halves don't even share a rulebook. On June 10, 2026 the Bakersfield City Council adopted the city's first short-term rental ordinance, so a rental inside city limits now needs a permit and pays the city's 12% lodging tax. Step outside those limits into unincorporated Kern County and there's no short-term rental ordinance at all, just a free tax certificate and 6% you collect and file yourself. So before you look at a single number below, find out which jurisdiction the address is in, because that answer changes the paperwork completely.

How Much Do Bakersfield Airbnbs Earn in 2026?

Start with the medians, since that's what the question comes down to. Half the listings in this market earned more than about $22,800 last year and half earned less, and the top quarter cleared roughly $32,400. Inside the city the median lands at about $22,900 and outside it at about $22,700, which look identical until you notice what happens at the top: the top quarter of listings outside the city reached about $35,800 against about $29,600 inside it. The middle of this market is the same everywhere, yet the ceiling clearly isn't.

Most of what's left comes down to size. Here's what each bedroom count earned, computed from the same listings:

Bedrooms	Median revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	Top quarter revenue
Studio	$12,079	$117	31%	$15,678
1 bedroom	$13,827	$133	29%	$17,093
2 bedrooms	$19,128	$185	30%	$24,618
3 bedrooms	$26,480	$245	31%	$35,467
4+ bedrooms	$34,057	$304	30%	$45,965

Medians across every measurable listing in the market, trailing twelve months, as of September 2026. These are medians, not averages, so they won't match the market-wide averages BNBCalc reports on the market page.

Look down the occupancy column and you'll see the thing that makes Bakersfield unusual. Every size lands within two points of 30%. A studio books about as often as a five-bedroom house, which means the almost threefold gap between the studio median and the 4+ bedroom median comes from rate and size alone, not from one type of property being busier than another. Occupancy just isn't the lever here.

Keep that in mind when you're weighing two listings against each other. In most markets you can buy your way to better numbers by picking a property that books more nights, whereas here you mostly can't, and what you're paying for instead is the nightly rate a bigger or better-placed house can hold. Notice too how wide the spread runs inside a single size. The top quarter of three-bedrooms cleared about $35,500 against a $26,500 median, which is a 34% gap between a good three-bedroom and an ordinary one, and that gap is yours to win or lose on presentation, pricing and reviews.

Two more things worth knowing about who you'd be competing with. Hosts who hold more than one property run a large share of this market, so it isn't a place of accidental spare rooms. And fewer than half the listings charge a cleaning fee at all, so if you were planning to recover turnover costs that way, expect guests to compare you against neighbors who don't. To see where Bakersfield sits among California markets generally, the California rankings by gross yield line it up beside its peers.

Is the Bakersfield Airbnb Market Oversaturated?

Not on the evidence available, though I want to be straight with you about what that evidence can and can't settle.

Measure	Change	Direction
Average occupancy	about 8%	down
Average nightly rate	about 17%	up
Booking lead time	about 8%	up

January to August 2026 against the same months of 2025, across all listings in the market. BNBCalc re-ingested every market's monthly history in 2025 and again in 2026, and this market's clean stretch starts in January 2025, so the comparison runs over those eight months rather than a full year. Occupancy and rate are averaged separately and don't multiply together.

You'll notice there's no listings row, and that's deliberate rather than an oversight. The supply trend for Bakersfield points one way on the eight-month window and the other way on the shorter window that avoids the 2026 data reload, so it flips direction depending on which stretch you measure. A number that unstable shouldn't go in a table, and it means the honest answer to the saturation question is that the data can't settle it yet.

What the data does say is clear enough on its own. Occupancy dropped about 8%, and over the same stretch the average nightly rate climbed about 17%, which is the signature of hosts pushing price and giving back nights. Guests are also booking further ahead, by about 8%, and a lengthening booking window usually means demand is holding rather than thinning. Put together, that's a market where the money moved toward rate, not a market drowning in new competition. Homes here got more expensive over the same stretch, by about 7% across the twelve months to August 2026, which comes from a separate home-price series and lines up with the rate story rather than cutting against it.

So how should you actually check before you buy?

Don't wait for a trend line to tell you, is my advice. Pull up five or six listings that genuinely look like the house you're considering, same size, same part of the market, and watch their calendars over a couple of months. If those calendars are filling at rates near the medians above, the spot works. If they're sitting empty at prices you'd need to hit, it doesn't, and you'll know that long before any market-wide figure moves. Recheck every few months, because this is the kind of market where one summer changes the picture.

When Is Bakersfield's Peak Airbnb Season?

Summer, and by a wider margin than the city's reputation suggests. Bakersfield itself is a working city whose weekday demand comes from people traveling in for work, yet the market's seasonal shape is set by the recreation half of it: the Kern River runs hardest from late spring into early summer, Lake Isabella fills up, and the mountain communities up in the pines become the reason anyone drives out of the valley heat at all.

Month (2026)	Average occupancy	Average nightly rate
January	24%	$219
February	28%	$226
March	29%	$224
April	32%	$234
May	34%	$256
June	37%	$262
July	39%	$273
August	31%	$259

Market-wide monthly figures for January to August 2026, the months inside the current comparison window. Occupancy and rate are averaged separately.

Both measures top out in July, at about 39% occupancy and roughly $273 a night, while January is the floor at about 24% and $219. That's a 15-point occupancy swing, and the nightly rate moves by about $55 over the same months, which is enough to matter but nowhere near the collapse you'd see in a pure ski or beach market. Even in January, roughly a quarter of the market's nights still sell. August is the interesting month: occupancy drops sharply back toward 31% while the rate holds near $259, because the river season ends before the heat does.

Within the week the pattern is sharper still. Saturday occupancy runs about 29% above a typical night, and Saturday rates about 17% above, while Monday is the quietest night of the week and Tuesday the cheapest. Weekends carry this market, which tells you something about your minimum-stay settings: a strict three-night minimum here will cost you real bookings outside July, because the demand you're turning away is a two-night weekend.

If you're buying for the summer, make sure to price the shoulder honestly. A property underwritten on July's numbers and left at July's prices through October will sit empty, and the fix is a rate calendar that drops with the water level.

Where Should You Buy an Airbnb in Bakersfield?

Here's where that geography starts paying rent. Because most of the market isn't in the city, the first decision isn't a neighborhood, it's which of two businesses you want to be in: a city rental serving Bakersfield's own visitors, or a recreation rental serving people leaving the valley.

Community	Median revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	Top quarter revenue
Camp Nelson	$42,814	$382	30%	$67,554
Rosedale	$41,430	$405	29%	$52,739
Kernville	$36,683	$285	32%	$54,635
Porterville	$26,459	$240	33%	$34,374
Bakersfield	$22,886	$213	30%	$29,598
Wofford Heights	$21,048	$200	29%	$25,322
Lake Isabella	$19,815	$237	31%	$35,227
Ridgecrest	$19,791	$178	30%	$26,582
Shafter	$18,302	$186	28%	$22,268
Golden Hills	$15,840	$128	30%	$30,441

Communities with enough measurable listings to report, ranked by median trailing-twelve-month revenue, as of September 2026. Boundaries come from US Census incorporated places and census designated places, one method for every row, and the thinnest rows here will move between refreshes.

Read that table for the rate column rather than the revenue column, because occupancy barely varies and rate is doing all the work. Kernville is the row I'd trust most: it's the deepest of the recreation communities, it sits right where the Kern River meets the lake, and a $285 median nightly rate against Bakersfield's $213 is the premium people pay to be at the water rather than an hour from it. Camp Nelson and Rosedale post higher medians still, and both are thin enough that I'd treat them as a signal about property type rather than a ranking you can bank: Camp Nelson is forest cabins up in Tulare County, and Rosedale is higher-end housing immediately west of the city.

At the other end, Golden Hills and Ridgecrest are cheap to buy into and priced accordingly. Ridgecrest is a naval air weapons station town, so its demand is contractors and visiting families rather than vacationers, and it books about as often as anywhere else at a $178 median rate. That's a perfectly respectable yield business on a low purchase price. It just isn't a vacation-rental business, and buying it expecting one is how people get disappointed.

Inside the city itself, the ranking runs from the northwest down to the south-central core:

Bakersfield ZIP area	Median revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	Top quarter revenue
93312 (northwest)	$28,278	$266	31%	$36,202
93313 (south)	$24,214	$226	32%	$34,472
93311 (southwest)	$23,100	$241	30%	$32,237
93314 (west, toward Rosedale)	$22,976	$242	28%	$28,624
93305 (east)	$22,244	$197	30%	$24,627
93309 (southwest central)	$20,227	$197	31%	$28,104
93301 (downtown)	$19,587	$177	30%	$25,888
93304 (south central)	$13,796	$140	28%	$16,405

ZIP code tabulation areas inside the Bakersfield city limits with enough measurable listings to report, September 2026. Census ZCTA boundaries throughout, which is a different method at a different geographic level from the community ranking, so the two rankings shouldn't be merged.

The city's spread is wider than its flat occupancy column makes it look: the northwest median is more than double the south-central one, on an occupancy difference of three points. Northwest Bakersfield, the 93312 and 93314 side out toward Rosedale, is where the newer four-bedroom stock sits and where the nightly rates hold, while the southwest around 93311 and Seven Oaks does nearly as well on rate with a slightly softer ceiling. Downtown at 93301 earns less than you might expect for a walkable address, which is worth pausing on if you were planning to pay a premium for it.

Don't read any of this as a verdict on a specific street. It's a starting shortlist, and the Bakersfield neighborhood guide goes into what each part of the city is actually like to own in.

Which Amenities Make the Most Money in Bakersfield?

With an area picked, the spending question comes next, and Bakersfield answers it in a way that runs against instinct. In a city where summer afternoons routinely pass 100 degrees you'd expect the pool to be the amenity that prints money, yet across the market as a whole it's the hot tub, associated with about 21% more revenue in BNBCalc's current amenity model.

It holds up at almost every size, too, which is the part that convinced me:

• One-bedroom listings: hot tub, about 13% more revenue
• Two-bedroom listings: hot tub, about 13%
• Three-bedroom listings: hot tub, about 22%
• Four-plus bedroom listings: pool, about 18%

So the hot tub leads at every size up to three bedrooms and peaks there, and the pool only takes the lead once you get to four bedrooms and beyond. That ordering makes sense once you think about who books what. A couple or a small group driving up for a river weekend wants somewhere to sit outside after dark; a family of eight in July wants somewhere to swim in the afternoon. If you're buying a three-bedroom, a hot tub runs a few thousand dollars and it's the best-evidenced upgrade I can point to in this market. If you're buying a big house for summer groups, the pool is the one that pays.

BNBCalc tracks several other amenities here with a measurable effect on revenue but keeps their figures behind Markets, so I'll name them without numbers: a barbecue, an EV charger, allowing pets, a sauna, a gym, bicycles, parking and a television all register. At four bedrooms and up the hot tub's own figure moves behind that wall as well, which is worth knowing if you go looking for it.

One local wrinkle before you order the spa. If your property is inside the Bakersfield city limits, the new ordinance bans outdoor pool and spa use overnight, so the amenity with the strongest revenue signal in this market comes with a curfew attached across the whole city. That doesn't cancel the effect, since guests use a hot tub in the evening anyway, but you'll want it in the house rules and on the listing before a guest finds out at eleven at night.

Is Airbnb Legal in Bakersfield?

Yes, and that's a newer answer than most sources will tell you. For years Bakersfield had no short-term rental category at all, which left several hundred properties operating in a gap rather than under a rule. The City Council closed it on June 10, 2026, adopting the city's first short-term rental ordinance by a 6-1 vote, and the ordinance took effect thirty days after that.

So inside the city, the shape of it is straightforward enough. You need a city permit, it runs for a year, and renewal depends on paying the fee and staying under two citations during the term. Beyond that, you'll need an emergency contact reachable around the clock by guests or by police, keep occupancy to two people per bedroom, close the outdoor pool or spa overnight, and carry $500,000 in liability insurance.

Then there's the city's 12% transient lodging tax, which now applies to short-term stays. Guests pay that on top of your nightly rate, which means it isn't money coming out of your side of the ledger, and on most bookings the platform collects it and sends it in for you.

Cross the city line, though, which is where most of this market lives, and the picture changes completely. Kern County's zoning ordinance, as revised in February 2026, runs to roughly 181,000 words and doesn't contain the phrase "short-term rental" or "vacation rental" once. There's no county permit, no cap on nights, no residency requirement and no annual license, because unincorporated Kern County has never written a short-term rental ordinance. What the county does want is a tax certificate, one for each unit or bedroom you advertise on its own. It's free, the rate is 6%, and you file quarterly with the Treasurer-Tax Collector even in a quarter with no bookings at all. Unlike the city's 12%, nobody collects this one for you, which catches out plenty of first-time hosts along the river.

Be careful with that silence, though. Kern's zoning works by listing the uses each district allows and prohibiting everything else, so a use the code never names isn't a use the code has approved. It's an absence rather than a permission, and absences get filled. Kern has already brought in an outside firm to register short-term rentals and collect the tax, and my guess is that's the step that comes before rules rather than instead of them.

Two more jurisdiction notes are worth carrying with you, since about 18% of this market's listings fall in Tulare County, and those answer to that county or to Porterville rather than to anything above. An address inside Ridgecrest, Shafter or Tehachapi then comes with that city's own requirements on top. For what applies where, the Bakersfield short-term rental guide takes the city in detail, the Kern County guide handles everything outside it, and California's short-term rental tax rules explain what the state wants on top of both.

Where Does This Bakersfield Airbnb Data Come From?

Those guides handle the paperwork, while every figure in this article comes out of BNBCalc Markets, the research side of the product, built for weighing rental markets against each other before any money moves. Since the seasonal swing above is the thing that decides your underwriting here, that's where I'd start: open Bakersfield there and you can walk through the market's month-by-month pattern yourself, rather than taking my read of July and January on trust.

How Do You Estimate Airbnb Revenue for a Bakersfield Property?

Reading the market is the easy half. Getting to a number for one specific address takes three passes, and the order matters.

First, open the Bakersfield market page and find the bedroom count you're buying. That gives you the band a typical property of that size lands in, which is your sanity check before you look at anything else. Second, compare that band against the California gross-yield rankings linked earlier, to see whether the return you're modeling is normal for the state or wishful. Third, put the specific address into BNBCalc using the real purchase price, the real property tax, an actual insurance quote and a realistic cleaning cost, because a market median won't tell you whether a specific house on a specific street clears its own mortgage.

Then hold the result against three thresholds that are specific to this market:

Does it work at 30% occupancy? Every bedroom count here lands near that figure, and so will yours. If your model only works at 45%, it's a model of some other market.

Which rulebook is the address under? A city address means a permit, $500,000 of liability cover and 12% on the guest's bill. An unincorporated address means a free certificate and 6% you file yourself. Getting this wrong doesn't change the revenue line, but it changes your setup cost and your compliance calendar.

Can the property hold a summer rate? July's nightly rate ran about 25% above January's across this market. A house that can't command a premium when the river's running is a house earning January money all year.

If you want the comparison a level up, Los Angeles is the market most Bakersfield buyers price against, and the two work in almost opposite ways.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does an Airbnb make in Bakersfield?

The middle listing here brought in roughly $22,800 across the trailing twelve months, on a typical nightly rate of $218 and typical occupancy of 30%, as of September 2026. It scales with size: studios sit near $12,100, two-bedrooms near $19,100, and four-bedroom-plus properties near $34,100. The top quarter of listings cleared about $32,400. Figures are medians across every measurable listing, so they differ from the market-wide averages shown on the market page.

Do you need a permit to run an Airbnb in Bakersfield?

Inside the Bakersfield city limits, yes. The City Council adopted the city's first short-term rental ordinance on June 10, 2026, effective thirty days later, and it requires a city permit renewed annually, an emergency contact available around the clock, $500,000 in liability insurance, two guests per bedroom at most, and no outdoor pool or spa use at night. Outside the city, unincorporated Kern County has no short-term rental ordinance and requires only a free tax certificate.

What is the short-term rental tax in Bakersfield?

The City of Bakersfield levies a 12% transient lodging tax on stays inside the city limits. Unincorporated Kern County charges 6%, authorized under California Revenue and Taxation Code section 7280 and the county ordinance code, and requires a separate certificate for each unit or bedroom advertised on its own. Guests carry both charges above your nightly rate, so neither one is deducted from what you keep. The county's 6% is filed quarterly by the host, every quarter, whether or not anything was booked.

When is the busiest month for Airbnbs in Bakersfield?

July, on both occupancy and nightly rate. Across the market, July 2026 averaged about 39% occupancy at roughly $273 a night, against January's 24% and $219. The pattern follows the Kern River and Lake Isabella season rather than the city itself, which is why August falls back to about 31% even though the weather hasn't changed. Within the week, Saturday carries the most demand and Monday the least.

Is Bakersfield a good place to buy an Airbnb?

It suits a buyer who wants yield from an affordable purchase price rather than high occupancy. Occupancy sits near 30% for every property size here, so returns come from nightly rate and square footage, and purchase prices across the market rose about 7% over the twelve months to August 2026. The catch is that most of this market is outside the city, in recreation communities with different demand and a different rulebook, so the decision comes down to which of those two businesses you want.

What part of Bakersfield earns the most on Airbnb?

Inside the city limits, the northwest around ZIP 93312 leads with a median of about $28,300 and a $266 median nightly rate, followed by the south at 93313 and the southwest at 93311. South-central Bakersfield at 93304 is the weakest at about $13,800. Across the wider market, the Kern River communities beat every city ZIP: Kernville's median runs near $36,700, well above the city's $22,900.

A market that spreads across a hundred miles and two counties isn't really one market, and the number on the label is an average of things that don't belong together. That's worth remembering wherever you invest, because the geography a data provider draws is a convenience for them, not a description of your property. Find the line that actually matters, whether it's a county boundary, a river or a city limit, and price each side of it separately.