Mesa, Arizona Airbnb Market Data 2026

How much does an Airbnb in Mesa, Arizona make, and is the city worth buying in when the rest of the Phoenix area sits right next door? A typical short-term rental inside Mesa's city limits takes in about $27,300 a year in BNBCalc's October 2026 data, roughly a tenth below what a typical listing makes elsewhere in the Phoenix market, and the reason surprised me. Mesa homes book about as many nights as homes elsewhere in the Valley, but they charge less for each one.

BNBCalc doesn't track Mesa as a market of its own. It folds the city into the Phoenix market, which spreads across Maricopa County and into Pinal County, and only about 6% of that market's listings sit inside Mesa's city limits, so the market-wide figures BNBCalc shows under Mesa's name describe the whole metro. For the numbers here, I split the market at the city line, built Mesa's medians from its own listings and set them against everyone else's.

Before any of that matters, you'll need a license from the city. Arizona law won't let Mesa ban short-term rentals, so the gate is paperwork rather than a cap: $250 a year for each rental, and the city won't issue it until you hold a state tax license.

How Much Do Mesa Airbnbs Earn in 2026?

Inside Mesa's city limits, the median short-term rental earns about $27,300 a year in BNBCalc market data, on a median nightly rate of $264 and a median occupancy of 30%. Across the rest of the Phoenix market, the median listing earns about $30,500 at $288 a night and 31% occupancy. So both sides keep their calendars about equally full, and the gap is mostly about price, with Mesa charging about 8% less per night at the median.

Is that a mix effect, with Mesa full of smaller homes? I checked, and it isn't, since four-bedroom-plus homes make up about 35% of listings on both sides of the city line and Mesa trails at every size.

Size	Mesa median revenue	Rest of Phoenix market	Mesa median nightly rate	Rest of market nightly rate
Studio	$15,320	$16,995	$137	$137
1 bedroom	$14,835	$16,966	$134	$150
2 bedrooms	$18,424	$22,523	$186	$203
3 bedrooms	$28,821	$32,040	$262	$297
4 or more bedrooms	$43,757	$54,129	$388	$503

Medians across active listings inside and outside the City of Mesa's own boundary, from BNBCalc's October 2026 data.

Read each row as the same size of home on either side of the city line, and by my math Mesa gives up about $3,200 a year at three bedrooms and about $10,400 at four or more, where its median nightly rate is $388 against $503 elsewhere. Occupancy sits at 31% on both sides for those two sizes, which is why I keep coming back to price. Two-bedrooms are the one size where Mesa also books fewer nights, 28% against 32%.

So should you write Mesa off? I wouldn't, because there's plenty of room above the median. A Mesa listing in the top quarter earns at least about $41,300 a year, roughly $14,000 more than the median one and well clear of the rest of the market's median, and that's the distance a well-run listing has to work with before you change anything about the house itself.

You'll be up against seasoned operators for a lot of that, since a large share of the Phoenix market's listings sit with hosts who run more than one. If you'd rather hire one of them than compete with them, our guide to Mesa property managers compares the local companies. And if you want the rest of the metro in more depth, the Phoenix market data post covers it.

Is the Mesa Airbnb Market Oversaturated?

No, not on the evidence I can see in BNBCalc's data. Supply can only be measured for the Phoenix market as a whole, and across it the number of active listings slipped by less than 1% when I compared October 2025 through September 2026 with the twelve months before, so nobody's piling into the market. The catch is occupancy, which fell about 6% over the same stretch while the market's average nightly rate went up about 18%.

Phoenix market, all listings	Change
Active listings	Down less than 1%
Occupancy	Down about 6%
Average nightly rate	Up about 18%

Market-wide trends for the whole Phoenix market, which includes Mesa: October 2025 through September 2026 against October 2024 through September 2025. Each metric is averaged over its own twelve months, and each change is a percentage of the earlier figure, not percentage points.

In other words, hosts across the Valley raised prices faster than guests kept booking, which is a different problem from too many listings. I'd watch that pattern more closely than the listing count, because it's the one that squeezes a new host first.

What can the Mesa numbers add? A sense of proportion, mostly. Mesa holds about 6% of the market's listings, a share that only Phoenix and Scottsdale beat, and its median occupancy sits within a point of the rest of the market's, so nothing suggests the city is more crowded than the Valley around it. What BNBCalc can't give you is a trend for Mesa alone, because it tracks change over time for the Phoenix market as a whole, not city by city.

So if you want an early warning for Mesa itself, pick a few listings like the house you're considering, write down their occupancy, and make sure to look again every few months. The comps the BNBCalc Calculator pulls for an address show each one's occupancy, so that list is the easy place to start. If their occupancy keeps sliding while their rates hold, the crowding has reached your part of town.

When Is Mesa's Peak Airbnb Season?

Late winter and early spring, by a wide margin. Across the Phoenix market, March was the busiest month of the latest twelve, filling 58% of its open nights at an average nightly rate of $522, and February came next at 53% and $485. August was the low point at 29% and $241, so the best month filled twice the share of nights the worst one did, at more than double the price.

Month	Occupancy	Average nightly rate
October 2025	37%	$287
November 2025	40%	$332
December 2025	37%	$338
January 2026	41%	$349
February 2026	53%	$485
March 2026	58%	$522
April 2026	42%	$399
May 2026	35%	$325
June 2026	31%	$273
July 2026	31%	$258
August 2026	29%	$241
September 2026	32%	$260

Market-wide monthly figures for the whole Phoenix market, October 2025 through September 2026. Occupancy and nightly rate are averaged separately for each month.

Keep in mind that each month's figure only counts the nights listings were open to book, while the 30% and 31% medians earlier count booked nights across the whole year, including nights hosts blocked off, so the monthly numbers run higher. Within the year, the calendar splits in two. February and March carry it, with January and April well above the summer on both counts, and from June through September every month sat between 29% and 32% occupancy at the year's lowest rates. That long summer is the part of the calendar a Mesa budget has to survive, so I'd plan the year's cash flow around four slow months rather than one.

The weekly rhythm matters too. Across the Phoenix market, Friday and Saturday nights book about a fifth above the weekly norm and cost about 14% more than the average night, while Monday and Tuesday book roughly 16 to 17% below it, with Tuesday the cheapest night of the week. Early in the week, then, is where I'd expect the gaps in your calendar to show up. If you'd like to see those patterns laid out, BNBCalc Markets keeps the current levels and the day-of-week charts on its Phoenix market page.

Where Should You Buy an Airbnb in Mesa?

So where does a Mesa rental keep up with the metro? In a handful of ZIP codes, it turns out. I mapped every in-city listing to the City of Mesa's own ZIP code boundaries, so each row below is Mesa's part of that ZIP and nothing across the city line.

ZIP code	Part of Mesa	Typical size	Median revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	Top-quartile revenue
85213	Northeast of downtown	4 bedrooms	$48,881	$441	31%	$61,751
85210	South of downtown	4 bedrooms	$33,483	$285	33%	$43,665
85203	North of downtown	3 bedrooms	$33,369	$298	30%	$45,329
85212	Far southeast	3 bedrooms	$31,762	$291	31%	$40,771
85215	Far northeast	3 bedrooms	$30,842	$308	31%	$42,424
85202	Southwest	3 bedrooms	$28,842	$251	32%	$46,865
85204	Southeast of downtown	3 bedrooms	$28,022	$276	30%	$42,992
85207	Far east	3 bedrooms	$25,564	$279	32%	$54,546
85205	East	3 bedrooms	$25,485	$263	30%	$41,651
85209	Far east, south side	3 bedrooms	$25,123	$271	28%	$37,900
85206	East, south side	2 to 3 bedrooms	$22,184	$235	27%	$31,591
85208	Far east	3 bedrooms	$21,941	$225	27%	$28,335
85201	Downtown and northwest	2 bedrooms	$20,057	$192	30%	$28,395

Medians and 75th percentiles for listings inside the City of Mesa's boundary, grouped by the city's own ZIP code layer, from BNBCalc's October 2026 data; typical size is the median bedroom count, and each ZIP is placed relative to downtown Mesa.

I read the median column first and the top-quartile column second, because the gap between them tells you how much the specific house and its host matter in that ZIP. Five Mesa ZIPs beat the rest of the Phoenix market's median of about $30,500, led by 85213 at about $48,900, though a four-bedroom is the typical listing there, so compare it with homes your own size before you read too much into the lead. The two ZIPs hugging downtown come next, 85210 to the south at about $33,500 with a typical four-bedroom and 85203 to the north at about $33,400 with a typical three-bedroom.

At the other end sits 85201, the ZIP that takes in downtown itself. Its median is the city's lowest at about $20,100, and I think size accounts for most of it, since its typical listing has two bedrooms while its occupancy is right in line with the city's. 85207, out on the far east side, is the one I'd study most closely. Its top quarter starts at about $54,500, more than twice its median and the widest spread in the city, so two homes a few streets apart there can land a long way from each other.

One caution before you shortlist a street: the city's licensing page tells you to confirm the address on its Explore Mesa map, since a rental on a Maricopa County island isn't subject to the city license, and a listing like that isn't in these rows either. The rows give you the numbers, while our Mesa neighborhood guide covers how each area feels to own a rental in, which is the half of the decision a median can't make for you.

Which Amenities Make the Most Money in Mesa?

A pool, going by the one figure BNBCalc publishes openly for the Phoenix market: listings with one bring in about 12% more revenue than listings without. In the Phoenix market, where summer occupancy hovers around 30%, I'd treat a pool less as a luxury and more as the thing that keeps a June booking from going to the house down the street.

What about the rest of the amenity list? BNBCalc measures a revenue effect for six more across the market, a sauna, a hot tub, EV charging, bicycles, a barbecue and a pet-friendly listing, but those figures are reserved for BNBCalc Markets members, so I can say they register without saying by how much. BNBCalc doesn't publish a figure for the basics nearly every home already has.

One more thing to keep in mind before you set prices: fewer than half the listings across the Phoenix market charge a separate cleaning fee, and that holds at every bedroom count. A guest comparing totals will notice a large fee, so I'd fold most of it into a nightly rate that still sits near Mesa's median for your size.

Is Airbnb Legal in Mesa?

Yes, and Arizona law keeps it that way. Under A.R.S. § 9-500.39, a city or town "may not prohibit vacation rentals or short-term rentals," and the same statute limits what a city can demand from hosts: a license whose fee can't exceed the actual cost of issuing it or $250, whichever is less, plus a short list of conditions such as an emergency contact, notice to neighbors and liability insurance. Mesa wrote its rules inside those limits in Ordinance No. 5734, adopted October 17, 2022, which became Chapter 15 of Title 5 of the city code, and the city began licensing on February 1, 2023.

Chapter 15's requirements, in the order you'll meet them:

• One license per rental, renewed yearly. The city charges $250 to apply and $250 to renew, the license lasts one year and can't be transferred, and a renewal has to reach the city at least 45 days before the old license expires or you start over with a new application.
• A state tax license first. The application needs your Arizona transaction privilege tax (TPT) license number, along with owner details and an emergency contact.
• Notice to the neighbors before you list. For a house, that means the homes beside you and directly and diagonally across the street (or everyone within 200 feet); in a multi-unit building, the units on your floor.
• Your license number on every ad, and your emergency contact posted where guests see it when they walk in.
• A contact who answers fast. Within one hour when police or fire are dispatched, and within 24 hours for anything else.
• $500,000 of liability insurance, unless you rent through a platform whose coverage matches it, plus your rental's registration with the Maricopa County Assessor.

The penalties are real if you skip a step. An owner faces $500 for a first violation, $1,000 for a second and $2,000 for a third involving the same rental within 12 months. Three violations in that window, not counting minor parking, trash or appearance problems, can also suspend the license for up to a year, and a host who still hasn't applied 30 days after written notice can be charged $250 for the first month, rising to $900 a month from the fourth. Mesa's licensing page also tells you to check with your HOA before applying, because the city's license doesn't settle whether your community allows rentals.

Lodging taxes are added to what the guest pays, on top of your rate, and the total depends on how the stay is booked. On a stay a guest books directly with you, Arizona and Maricopa County together charge 7.27% (Arizona's own share is 5.5% under A.R.S. § 42-5010), and Mesa adds 7.0%, a 2.0% hotel tax plus a 5.0% additional hotel and motel tax, for 14.27% in all. Bookings made through Airbnb and other online lodging marketplaces fall under a separate state class with a 5.72% state and county share, so the same Mesa stay booked on Airbnb carries 12.72%, going by the Department of Revenue's rate table effective October 1, 2026. Since 2019, state law has required those platforms to register and pay the state, county and city tax due on the stays they handle, yet Mesa still wants your own TPT license number before it will license you. For the application itself, step by step, with the city's contacts, read our Mesa short-term rental regulation guide.

How Does BNBCalc Track the Mesa Airbnb Market?

With the license sorted, the next question is who you'll be pricing against, and that's what BNBCalc Markets is for: it's where BNBCalc sizes up one short-term rental market against another, and it follows Mesa as part of the Phoenix market. Its Operators tab ranks the hosts and management companies running more than one listing there by the revenue they bring in, and each operator's profile sets their occupancy and nightly rate against the market average. With a large share of the market in operators' hands, I'd study how the biggest ones price before settling on a rate of my own.

How Do You Estimate Airbnb Revenue for a Mesa Property?

I'd start with the BNBCalc Calculator, because the market-wide figures you'll see for Mesa describe the whole Valley, and Mesa sits below it. Type in an address, anywhere in the US or abroad, and the Calculator builds its revenue, occupancy and nightly-rate projection out of as many as 50 similar listings around it before working through expenses, the loan and your return. On a US property with four or more comps, you can let the AI Underwriter choose the most similar ones, so the estimate rests on nearby homes like yours rather than on the metro's averages.

Then hold the projection up against three Mesa-specific checks:

1. The median for your size. Set the Calculator's number beside Mesa's own median for the same bedroom count, about $28,800 for a three-bedroom or about $43,800 for four or more, and you'll see how far above typical the house has to perform.
2. The nightly rate in any seller's pro forma. If a seller or agent prices a Mesa four-bedroom at around $500 a night, I'd push back, because that's the rest of the market's median, not Mesa's, which is $388.
3. The fixed costs Mesa adds. Budget the $250 license every year and the liability cover, and remember the summer, when occupancy across the Phoenix market sits near 30% for four months running.

If you already have a Mesa listing live, give its link to the Airbnb Listing Optimizer. It works through as many as 100 guest reviews and 50 neighboring listings, then puts the fixes in the order you should make them, which is a quicker way to close a nightly-rate gap than buying a different house. Lenders and investors who screen addresses in bulk inside their own systems can call the BNBCalc API instead, a REST API billed by usage that hands back the same property analysis the Calculator produces: revenue, occupancy, nightly rate, comps and cash flow. And if you're still weighing Phoenix against the rest of the state, Arizona's markets ranked by gross yield show where the metro sits.

Is Mesa, Arizona a Good Place to Buy an Airbnb?

Yes, provided the purchase works on Mesa's own numbers. In BNBCalc's data, the median Mesa listing earns about $27,300 a year against about $30,500 across the rest of the Phoenix market, yet the city's top quarter starts at about $41,300 and five of its ZIP codes beat that rest-of-market median. Before you bid on a house, put its address into the BNBCalc Calculator and set its projection beside Mesa's median for your bedroom count.

Mesa shares the Phoenix market's calendar but not its prices, which is why the number worth chasing here is what homes on your side of the city line earn, and not what the metro earns.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a three-bedroom Airbnb make in Mesa?

BNBCalc's market data puts the median three-bedroom short-term rental inside Mesa's city limits at about $28,800 a year, on a median nightly rate of $262 and 31% occupancy, as of the October 2026 data. The same size elsewhere in the Phoenix market has a median of about $32,000 at $297 a night with the same occupancy, so a Mesa three-bedroom earns about 10% less because it charges less per night. The BNBCalc Calculator projects the figure for a specific address.

Do Mesa Airbnbs earn less than the rest of the Phoenix area?

Yes, at every bedroom count in BNBCalc's market data. The median Mesa listing earns about $27,300 a year against about $30,500 for the rest of the Phoenix market, roughly 11% less, and the gap widens to about 19% for homes with four or more bedrooms. Occupancy runs about level on both sides of the city line, while Mesa's median nightly rate runs about 8% lower, so the difference comes mostly from price.

Which Mesa ZIP code earns the most on Airbnb?

In BNBCalc's market data, 85213, northeast of downtown, has the highest median at about $48,900 a year, and its typical listing has four bedrooms. 85210 and 85203, just south and just north of downtown, come next at about $33,500 and $33,400. 85201, which takes in downtown, sits last at about $20,100, with a typical listing of two bedrooms. Compare a ZIP's median with homes your own size before you read much into its rank.

What's the slowest month for Airbnbs around Mesa?

August, in BNBCalc's data for the Phoenix market that Mesa belongs to, when 29% of open nights were booked at an average nightly rate of $241, against 58% at $522 in March, the peak. June through September all ran between 29% and 32% occupancy, so a Mesa budget should plan for four slow months in a row. BNBCalc Markets shows the market's current levels.

Is there a tool that projects Airbnb income for a Mesa address?

Yes, the BNBCalc Calculator. It takes a single address, estimates the home's revenue, occupancy and nightly rate from nearby comparable listings, up to 50 of them, and then layers the costs, the financing and your return over it. Once a US home has four or more comps to draw on, the AI Underwriter can narrow them down to the closest matches. Set its projection beside Mesa's median for the same size, about $28,800 for a three-bedroom, to see how far above typical the home needs to perform.