Cape Coral, Florida Airbnb Market Data 2026

How much can a Cape Coral Airbnb earn, and will the city actually let you rent it out by the night?

Well, it will, because Florida law doesn't let cities pass new bans on vacation rentals, but Cape Coral's yes comes with two conditions that change the math. Since January 1, 2026, the city has charged $350 a year to register a short-term rental, and its own registration FAQ says those rentals carry a six-night minimum stay. So if you were picturing a calendar full of Friday-to-Sunday bookings, unfortunately that isn't the business you'd be buying here, and you'll want to price the home by the week from the start.

I'm covering Cape Coral in Lee County, Florida, although the market BNBCalc tracks here stretches well beyond the city into the rest of the county, and fewer than half of its listings sit inside Cape Coral itself. Between January and August 2026, measured against the same stretch of 2025, that market's active supply grew about 16% and its nightly rates climbed about 21%, while occupancy stayed roughly flat, so all those new listings haven't left the average calendar noticeably emptier yet.

How Much Do Cape Coral Airbnbs Earn in 2026?

Before I get to the rules, it helps to know what homes here earn, and in this market the bedroom count tells you less than I expected. The strongest one-bedrooms earn more than a middle-of-the-pack three-bedroom, which means location and management can count for more than a whole extra bedroom or two.

I checked gross yield next, and it points the same way. One- and two-bedroom listings tie for the best typical yield, a couple of points ahead of three- and four-bedroom homes, while studios trail well behind all of them. That matters in Cape Coral, because the typical listing inside the city has three bedrooms, so the kind of house you're most likely to tour there already sits in the lower-yielding group.

Who are you up against? BNBCalc counts nearly 6,000 active listings across this market, and professional hosts run a large share of them. Only about 45% of those listings are inside Cape Coral's city limits, though, so for a winter week you're competing with rentals on Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel as well as the house down the street.

BNBCalc also tracks a top performance tier here, and those listings bring in about three times the market's average listing. I'd treat that as the ceiling you're working toward, not a number to build a loan around.

Is the Cape Coral Airbnb Market Oversaturated?

All those listings make for a crowded market, so the fair next question is whether it's become too crowded.

Metric	January to August 2026 vs. the same months of 2025
Average nightly rate	+21%
Occupancy	Roughly flat
Booking lead time	+33%
Active supply	+16%

BNBCalc data across all listings BNBCalc tracks in the market. Figures set January to August 2026 against January to August 2025, so they aren't full-year figures, and they're rounded to a whole percent. If this year's figures can't yet show which way a measure is heading, it stays off the table, and occupancy reads as roughly flat because it moved too little either way to call. Each row is averaged by itself, which is why they won't multiply out.

No, Cape Coral doesn't look oversaturated to me on the latest numbers, although they only cover eight months of the year. You'd usually spot a crowded market by its occupancy sliding as new listings pile in, and that isn't what happened here, because from January through August 2026 active supply grew about 16% over those months of 2025 while occupancy stayed roughly flat.

Cape Coral's pricing looks healthier than I expected, too, with the average nightly rate up about 21% over the same stretch, which means the average listing kept booking about the same share of its nights even as more listings arrived and each night got more expensive. Still, calendars didn't get any fuller, so it's the rates that are doing the heavy lifting, and if they level off while new listings keep arriving, occupancy is where I'd expect crowding to show up first. That's the figure I'd keep checking on the homes you'd be competing with, especially once the autumn months arrive.

Remember, too, that the comparison only runs from January to August, which leaves out September through December, and between September 2025 and August 2026 that stretch held the two emptiest months, September and October, and all three of the lowest-priced ones. Those slow months are the part of the year I can't vouch for yet.

Bookings are also landing about 33% further ahead of the stay than they did between January and August 2025. If a peak-season week is still open a few weeks out, I'd take that more seriously here than in a market where guests book late.

When Is Cape Coral's Peak Airbnb Season?

Knowing which weeks those are matters, then, because Cape Coral's peak Airbnb season runs from February through April, with March the best month of the year.

Month	Occupancy	Avg nightly rate
Sep 2025	13%	$266
Oct 2025	18%	$276
Nov 2025	22%	$301
Dec 2025	29%	$358
Jan 2026	35%	$374
Feb 2026	58%	$445
Mar 2026	59%	$453
Apr 2026	35%	$384
May 2026	22%	$326
Jun 2026	24%	$346
Jul 2026	29%	$360
Aug 2026	18%	$314

One row per month of BNBCalc figures for the whole market, running September 2025 to August 2026, and each month's occupancy and nightly rate are averaged independently.

March leads that table and September sits at the bottom, with 59% of March's nights booked at an average of $453, against 13% of September's at $266. February ran almost level with March, at 58% and $445, whereas April, although it's still third on both counts, dropped back to 35% at $384, so it's February and March that carry the peak.

The summer isn't empty either, because July, its best month, still booked 29% of its nights, at $360 on average, much like December did, so I wouldn't treat the off-season as completely flat.

The week matters far less than the month here. Saturday occupancy sits about 10% above an average day and Tuesday's about 8% below, but nightly rates barely follow, moving only about a fifth as far. That fits a city that expects stays of close to a week, since a guest who has to book six nights can't pick only the weekend, so my own pricing effort here would go into the month-by-month rate long before any weekend premium.

Where Should You Buy an Airbnb in Cape Coral?

Once you know when the money comes in, the next question is where, and the first thing to know is that most of this market isn't Cape Coral.

Only about 45% of the market's listings sit inside Cape Coral's city limits. The rest are spread across Lee County, from Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Captiva out to Bonita Springs and Lehigh Acres, and as a group the listings outside the city earn a higher median than the listings inside it. That's why I've split this section into two tables on different boundaries, Cape Coral's ZIP codes first and then the named places across the market, and they don't line up row for row.

Inside Cape Coral, by ZIP Code

Cape Coral's city mapping portal doesn't offer a neighborhood map I could use, so I sorted each listing inside the city's official limits into its ZIP code and ordered the ZIP codes from the highest median annual revenue down.

Rank	ZIP code (part of the city)	Median annual revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	75th-percentile revenue
1	33914 (southwest)	$26,365	$326	25%	$36,837
2	33991 (central west)	$25,522	$296	26%	$31,924
3	33904 (southeast)	$25,393	$298	25%	$35,282
4	33990 (central east)	$24,547	$276	27%	$33,667
5	33993 (northwest)	$24,222	$288	26%	$33,234
6	33909 (northeast)	$22,215	$265	27%	$32,793

Trailing-twelve-month figures from BNBCalc's 2026 listings within Cape Coral's official city limits, sorted into Census ZIP code areas. The middle three columns are medians, while the final one shows the 75th percentile, the level a listing has to clear to join its ZIP code's top quarter. Because each column stands alone, they won't multiply out, and the direction in brackets shows roughly where the ZIP code sits in the city.

Keep in mind that each occupancy figure belongs to the middle listing in its ZIP code, so it's for comparing one ZIP code with another, not with the market-wide monthly averages.

What struck me is how little separates them. All six ZIP codes land within about $4,200 of each other on median revenue, and at three bedrooms, the typical size inside the city, 33990 edges out 33914. The two southern ZIP codes, 33914 and 33904, hold about two-thirds of the city's listings and post the strongest 75th-percentile revenue, which tells me a well-run home there has a bit more room to pull ahead. Still, I wouldn't pay much of a premium for a ZIP code on these numbers alone.

My guess is that the house itself decides more than its ZIP code does, although this data can't measure that directly, and the best Cape Coral neighborhoods for Airbnb covers the street-level side of the choice.

Across the Rest of the Market

So is it true that the rest of the market earns more? This table covers the Census-defined places that hold the most listings.

Rank	City or area	Median annual revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	75th-percentile revenue
1	Captiva (unincorporated Lee County)	$55,228	$612	26%	$80,727
2	Fort Myers Beach	$41,468	$434	29%	$63,672
3	Sanibel	$38,718	$451	28%	$52,711
4	Bonita Springs	$26,455	$274	27%	$40,185
5	Cape Coral	$25,401	$302	26%	$34,973
6	Iona (unincorporated Lee County)	$17,573	$196	27%	$28,851
7	Lehigh Acres (unincorporated Lee County)	$17,366	$198	27%	$22,910
8	Fort Myers	$13,348	$165	24%	$22,713

Trailing-twelve-month figures from BNBCalc's 2026 listings, assigned to US Census places and limited to the places with the most listings. Every column but the last is a median, each figured separately, and Captiva, Iona and Lehigh Acres are Census-designated areas that belong to no city.

That puts Cape Coral fifth of eight, well behind the three island and beach communities at the top. Those leaders aren't winning on house size, either: the typical listing on Captiva, Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel has two bedrooms against Cape Coral's three, and at three bedrooms the gap gets wider, with a median of $61,014 on Captiva and $53,234 on Fort Myers Beach against $23,385 in Cape Coral. I'd read that as location doing real work. Does that make the islands the better buy? I can't answer that from revenue alone, because what a home costs matters as much as what it earns, and this data doesn't show purchase prices by place.

Fort Myers surprised me in the other direction. It sits last mostly since the typical listing there has one bedroom, and among three-bedroom homes it comes out slightly ahead of Cape Coral at $25,836, although on a much thinner sample. The table also leaves out listings in unincorporated Lee County that no Census place covers, and as a group those post a median close to Fort Myers Beach's, so strong medians aren't limited to the three places at the top.

The rules change as you move down that table, too. Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, Bonita Springs and Fort Myers are each an incorporated town or city with local rules of their own, while Captiva, Iona and Lehigh Acres sit in unincorporated Lee County, and none of Cape Coral's own rules follow you over the city line. If a property outside Cape Coral is on your list, BNBCalc's Lee County short-term rental guide is the place to start.

Which Amenities Make the Most Money in Cape Coral?

Location sets the ceiling, so which features inside the home are worth paying for?

In BNBCalc's current amenity model, a TV is linked to about 11% more revenue market-wide, and no other amenity gets a published percentage on the public Cape Coral market page. At one bedroom the model puts it higher still, at about 17%. I'd take that as a cheap box to tick rather than a reason to buy a bigger screen.

Seven other amenities carry a signal here: a pool, a gym, a barbecue, internet, a hot tub, bicycles and a sauna. Their Cape Coral percentages aren't shown publicly, so I can name them without the figures, and since a pool is on that list, it's worth checking its figure before you decide a pool home isn't worth the premium. A handful of basic utilities are kept out of the model deliberately, since BNBCalc counts them as things guests take for granted rather than upgrades an owner decides on.

Cleaning fees work differently here as well. In BNBCalc's current data, only about a third of listings in this market charge one, averaging roughly $228 where they do, or about $1,550 a year when averaged over every listing, including the ones with no fee. With the city expecting six-night stays, a single fee covers a lot of nights, so I'd count it as paying for the turnover rather than as extra income.

Is Airbnb Legal in Cape Coral?

I read through Florida's statutes and Cape Coral's own pages for this, and the answer is yes, although the city still decides a good deal about how you run one.

Under Section 509.032 of the Florida Statutes, cities and counties aren't allowed to ban vacation rentals or to limit the length or frequency of stays, although local rules adopted by June 1, 2011 are exempt. The state handles its own licensing, too. A home that takes guests for under 30 days at a time more than three times a year, or is advertised that way, counts as a transient public lodging establishment, so Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation has to license it as a vacation rental, and running one unlicensed is a second-degree misdemeanor.

Cape Coral's own layer got more expensive this year. Since January 1, 2026, every residential rental in the city has to be registered with the City Clerk each year, and the fee depends on the rental term: $35 for a rental of more than six months and $350 for a short-term rental of six months or less. The renewal is due on your registration's anniversary rather than on January 1, and a $50 late fee applies once you're more than 30 days past it. The city also requires a local business tax receipt for any vacation rental, at $5.50 for each bedroom you offer, and if the home sits in a condo or community association, the application asks for proof the association has given written consent.

Then there's the minimum stay, which is the rule I'd plan the whole business around. The city's rental registration FAQ says short-term rentals in Cape Coral have a six-night minimum stay, and its land development code describes a housing unit as a home for its owner or one rented by the week, the month or longer. I couldn't find the ordinance that sets the six-night figure or confirm when it was adopted, which matters because of that 2011 cutoff, so make sure to get the City Clerk's answer in writing before you list anything shorter.

The penalties are steep enough that I'd take them seriously. Running a short-term rental without registering it, or registering it as a long-term rental, costs $1,000 for a first violation and $2,000 for a repeat within 36 months, while a short-term owner who lets a registration lapse faces $500 and then $1,000. Under the code, each day an unregistered or lapsed rental keeps going counts as a separate offense, and the special magistrate can't reduce those amounts. If the home carries a homestead exemption, check with the Lee County Property Appraiser before you rent it out, because the city tells that office when it finds a violating property still claiming one.

The tax is added to the guest's total instead of being taken out of what you earn per night, and for stays of six months or less it comes to 11.5% in all: Florida's 6% transient rental tax, Lee County's 0.5% sales surtax and Lee County's 5% tourist development tax. According to Airbnb's help page on Florida occupancy tax, the platform collects all three for Lee County stays of up to 182 nights. When you take a booking directly, though, collecting it is your job, with the tourist development tax going to the Lee County Clerk of Court and the sales tax and surtax going to the Florida Department of Revenue.

The registration steps, tax accounts and city contacts are all laid out in the Cape Coral short-term rental regulation guide.

Where Do These Cape Coral Airbnb Numbers Come From?

Those rules and forms are the guide's job, whereas the numbers throughout this article are pulled from BNBCalc Markets, which is the corner of BNBCalc designed for weighing up a whole market before you put money into it. Since Cape Coral expects stays of six nights or more, you'll want to open Cape Coral there and look at how long guests typically stay at each bedroom count, because a home size that guests already book for a week or longer fits that rule far better than one they tend to book for a couple of nights.

How Do You Estimate Airbnb Revenue for a Cape Coral Property?

A market average blends thousands of homes together, so what's the route from that to the one house you're looking at?

Your first stop is the Cape Coral market page, where revenue, occupancy and seasonality update as the market moves. If Cape Coral isn't settled yet, Florida's top Airbnb markets ranked by gross yield will show you where it ranks in the state. Once there's an actual address in mind, put the purchase price, mortgage details and operating costs into BNBCalc to get a projection for that home.

After that, I'd hold the projection up against the way Cape Coral works. Price it in stays of six nights or more, because I don't think a model built on weekend bookings survives the rule the city states. Budget the $350 registration and the per-bedroom tax receipt as yearly costs, and remember that the 11.5% in taxes is added on top of your rate for guests to pay. Plan for an autumn when only 13% of September's nights booked. And before you make an offer, confirm which town or county rules apply to the address and whether a homestead exemption is attached to it.

Wherever a city sets a floor on how long guests stay, the calendar you're buying is a set of weeks rather than a string of nights, and a forecast built on nights is answering a question the rules never asked.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Average Airbnb Income in Cape Coral?

In BNBCalc's 2026 listing data, Cape Coral's median listing, counting only homes inside the city limits, brought in $25,401 over the trailing twelve months. Income varies widely within each home size, and across the market the strongest one-bedrooms earn more than a middle-of-the-pack three-bedroom. The top performance tier BNBCalc tracks earns about three times the market's average listing, and Captiva, Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel all post higher medians than Cape Coral.

Is Airbnb Still Profitable in Cape Coral in 2026?

Yes for some homes, but a given property only profits if its purchase price and running costs leave room. Across every listing tracked, active supply rose about 16% from January through August 2026 compared with January through August 2025, while occupancy held roughly flat and the average nightly rate climbed about 21%. Short-term rentals also carry a $350 annual city registration and, according to the city, a six-night minimum stay.

What Is the Best Month for Airbnb in Cape Coral?

March 2026 was the strongest month market-wide, with 59% occupancy and a $453 average nightly rate, and February came close behind at 58% occupancy and $445. April ranked third on both measures, at 35% occupancy and $384. The weakest month was September 2025, at 13% occupancy and a $266 average rate. Within the week, Saturday books best of any night.

Do You Need a License to Run an Airbnb in Cape Coral?

Yes. A home let out for stays shorter than 30 days on more than three occasions a year needs a vacation rental license from Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Cape Coral requires an annual rental registration, $350 a year for rentals of six months or less since January 1, 2026, plus a local business tax receipt at $5.50 per bedroom offered. Homes in a condo or community association need the association's written consent for the tax receipt.

Is There a Minimum Stay for Airbnbs in Cape Coral?

Cape Coral's rental registration FAQ states a six-night minimum stay for short-term rentals, and the city's land development code describes a housing unit as a home for its owner or one rented by the week, the month or longer. Florida law blocks local limits on how long guests stay, except for rules adopted by June 1, 2011. Hosts should confirm the current requirement with the City Clerk before listing stays shorter than six nights.

How Much Is the Airbnb Tax in Cape Coral?

Guests pay 11.5% on top of a Cape Coral stay of six months or less: Florida's 6% transient rental tax, Lee County's 0.5% discretionary sales surtax and Lee County's 5% tourist development tax. Airbnb states that it collects all three taxes on Lee County reservations lasting 182 nights or fewer. On direct bookings, the host collects the tax and sends the tourist development tax to the Lee County Clerk of Court and the sales tax to the Florida Department of Revenue.

Do Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Airbnbs Earn More Than Cape Coral?

Yes, at the median. In 2026 BNBCalc listing data, the median listing earned $41,468 on Fort Myers Beach and $38,718 on Sanibel, against $25,401 in Cape Coral, and Captiva led the market at $55,228. The gap holds at the same size, with three-bedroom medians of $53,234 on Fort Myers Beach and $44,446 on Sanibel against $23,385 in Cape Coral. Local rules differ between each of these jurisdictions.

How Many Airbnbs Are There in Cape Coral?

BNBCalc counts nearly 6,000 active short-term rentals in the Cape Coral market, which reaches well beyond the city into the rest of Lee County, and professional hosts run a large share of them. About 45% of those listings sit inside Cape Coral's city limits. Across all listings, active supply for January to August 2026 ran about 16% above its level in those months of 2025.