Oakland, California Airbnb Market Data 2026

Anyone shopping for a short-term rental in Oakland, California hits the same wall about ten minutes in. The listings are there, thousands of them spread across Alameda County and beyond, and yet there's no Oakland short-term rental permit to apply for. That's not a gap in the paperwork. Oakland's Planning Code has never created a category called short-term rental, so a stay of fewer than 30 days lands in Transient Habitation Commercial Activities, which is where the code files hotels and motels, and every one of Oakland's residential zones prohibits it.

The city doesn't hide this. Its own tax page says that neither the Oakland Municipal Code nor the Planning Code specifically addresses short-term residential rentals, and then tells you to register and collect a 14% occupancy tax on every stay of 30 days or fewer. Oakland has been working on real rules since a 2016 Council direction, and the project page now puts adoption hearings in Fall 2026. So until those hearings happen, you're buying into a market where the tax side runs on rails and the zoning side runs on complaints.

Two things about the numbers before you read any of them. The market tracked as Oakland isn't the city: its listings run from Fremont in the south up past the Carquinez Strait and east beyond Concord, and only about 31% of them sit inside Oakland's city limits, so San Francisco is a separate market with its own numbers and nothing here comes from across the bay. The other thing is that this market has been losing listings rather than gaining them, for years now instead of months, which is why the saturation question below gets a straight no and why the rate gains are worth more attention than the headline revenue.

How Much Do Oakland Airbnbs Earn in 2026?

Line up every listing in the market and the middle one took $25,069 over the trailing twelve months, while the top quartile opened at $36,185. Inside Oakland's city limits the median was $22,991, while the rest of the market ran $26,235. Those are medians from the full listing population as of September 2026, not the averages the module on this page shows, and a median and an average answer different questions: the average tells you what the pool holds, the median tells you what the middle listing did.

That 14% gap between the city and everything around it looks like an indictment of Oakland until you split it by size.

Bedrooms	Median revenue, inside Oakland	Median revenue, rest of the market
Studio	$19,453	$20,252
1	$20,063	$19,972
2	$24,832	$27,478
3	$32,634	$36,527
4+	$56,596	$52,013

Medians of trailing-twelve-month revenue, computed from the market's own listing population as of September 2026 and split on the City of Oakland's own neighborhood polygons, whose union is the city limit. The module on this page reports averages across the market, which sit higher.

A one-bedroom earns much the same money whether it sits inside those city limits or out in the suburbs, and a four-bedroom inside Oakland beats one outside it by about 9%. The city trails on the headline median because half its listings are studios and one-bedrooms, while the suburbs around it lean toward two- and three-bedroom houses. Fix the size and most of the gap goes away.

Size is the strongest lever in this market, and it isn't close. Market-wide, the median one-bedroom cleared $19,994 and the median four-plus cleared $52,749, so the biggest listings cleared roughly 2.6 times what the smallest ones did on the same basis. Going up a bedroom is worth more here than going up a neighborhood, so if you're choosing between a smarter address and an extra room, take the room. Bear in mind, though, that one bedroom count on its own covers enough ground to swallow that lead: the strongest quarter of one-bedrooms opened at $25,894, which is money a mediocre two-bedroom never sees.

Is the Oakland Airbnb Market Oversaturated?

No. Competition here is shrinking, not growing, and the two measures I can put a number on both moved in the host's favor.

Measure	12 months to August 2026 against the 12 months to August 2025
Active listings	Lower, and lower on both windows I checked
Occupancy	About 6% higher
Average nightly rate	About 23% higher

Market-wide, across every bedroom count and performance tier, comparing September 2025 through August 2026 with September 2024 through August 2025. Occupancy and the nightly rate are averaged separately, so you can't multiply them together into a revenue figure.

About that first row. The listing count is down, it's down on both the published window and the shorter window I use as a sanity check, and it has fallen in every twelve-month stretch since this market's history starts on today's definitions, so the direction is about as solid as a trend gets. A percentage is another matter, and I'd rather not print one, because what counts as an Oakland listing turns on where you draw the boundary, and the honest answer swings a long way between the city and the whole East Bay around it. A direction you can act on beats a decimal nobody can defend.

What you can act on is the shape of it, because fewer listings alongside slightly fuller calendars and rates up about 23% is the pattern of a market where supply walked out faster than demand did, and whoever stayed is collecting the difference. If you're underwriting a purchase here, the risk you should be pricing isn't a flood of new competition, since there isn't one; it's whether the rate gains hold once the city finally writes rules and some of the sidelined supply decides it's safe to come back.

To keep an eye on it yourself, don't wait on a trend line. Take half a dozen listings that genuinely compete with yours, same size and the same few streets, see how full they're running, then repeat every few months. It reads the market faster than any annual figure does.

When Is Oakland's Peak Airbnb Season?

June, and it isn't subtle: occupancy across the market ran 53.6% that month against 37.0% in December 2025, the softest of the same twelve. Rates, though, peak a month later than the calendars do.

Month	Occupancy	Average nightly rate
September 2025	40.7%	$207
October 2025	43.0%	$214
November 2025	39.5%	$218
December 2025	37.0%	$220
January 2026	37.8%	$205
February 2026	38.9%	$220
March 2026	44.6%	$217
April 2026	43.6%	$219
May 2026	46.9%	$239
June 2026	53.6%	$255
July 2026	52.2%	$256
August 2026	51.6%	$242

Market-wide monthly figures for September 2025 through August 2026. Compare months within this window only.

The rate line is the one to work from, since July topped out at $256 while January bottomed at $205, a quarter apart, which is a narrow seasonal band by the standards of a leisure market. Oakland doesn't empty out in the winter the way a beach town does, and my read is that a lot of what fills these calendars is work travel, family visits and people who looked at San Francisco hotel rates across the bay and kept scrolling. That's a comfort if you're nervous about carrying a mortgage through a dead season, since Oakland doesn't really have one.

Within the week, Saturday and Friday carry the market on both measures at once, running about 10% above the weekly average on occupancy and on price together. Monday is the emptiest night and Tuesday the cheapest. Do make sure your minimum-stay rules don't quietly block the Friday-to-Sunday bookings that pay for the rest of the week, which is the single most common self-inflicted wound I see on midweek-soft markets like this one.

Where Should You Buy an Airbnb in Oakland?

There are two tables here, because one won't do the job, and merging them would be dishonest. One is built on the City of Oakland's own neighborhood polygons; the other on Census city and town boundaries covering the rest of the East Bay. Two boundary methods at two different geographic levels, so read down a table and never across from one to the other.

Inside the city first:

Oakland neighborhood	Median revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	Top quartile revenue
Bushrod	$31,396	$236	39%	$59,696
Grand Lake	$29,375	$227	37%	$56,539
Fairview Park	$29,042	$220	37%	$34,998
Rockridge	$28,484	$192	39%	$34,921
Mosswood	$28,346	$209	39%	$42,670
Prescott	$27,271	$209	37%	$34,129
Montclair	$27,130	$219	33%	$31,901
Clawson	$26,491	$185	37%	$45,846
Oakmore	$25,905	$182	39%	$28,088
Cleveland Heights	$24,703	$189	38%	$26,938
Temescal	$24,204	$198	39%	$28,294
Longfellow	$23,441	$182	38%	$27,307

Medians of trailing-twelve-month revenue, nightly rate and occupancy as of September 2026, for neighborhoods with enough listings to measure. Thin rows move between refreshes, so treat the order as a guide rather than a league table.

Below those, the measurable neighborhoods run down to about $13,500 in Hoover/Foster, so the spread inside one city is more than two to one. Read the top-quartile column before you read the median, because it tells you something the median can't: Bushrod and Grand Lake both have upper quartiles near $57,000 to $60,000, which means a well-run listing there has real headroom, while Oakmore and Cleveland Heights sit tight around their medians and offer you very little for trying harder. If your plan depends on outperforming, buy where outperformance is visibly happening.

Now the wider market, using the cities a buyer would actually search:

City or town	Median revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	Top quartile revenue
Discovery Bay	$47,393	$503	27%	$60,341
Union City	$44,535	$372	35%	$53,513
Dublin	$35,122	$371	35%	$47,779
Emeryville	$33,725	$269	34%	$41,382
Walnut Creek	$33,405	$250	38%	$42,786
Hayward	$33,067	$260	35%	$41,913
Fremont	$30,269	$299	32%	$41,927
Concord	$28,955	$225	35%	$45,600
Albany	$28,784	$226	37%	$38,977
Alameda	$25,895	$209	37%	$31,848
Berkeley	$24,375	$195	39%	$33,012
Livermore	$23,919	$215	31%	$35,669
Castro Valley	$23,303	$210	34%	$37,156
Oakland	$22,978	$186	36%	$30,780
Richmond	$21,937	$188	31%	$29,670
San Leandro	$21,367	$199	33%	$29,473

A selection of the market's cities and towns, chosen for depth and name recognition, ordered by median trailing-twelve-month revenue as of September 2026. Census place boundaries here, so the Oakland row is the city proper; it lands within $20 of the $22,991 figure earlier in this article, which came off the city's own neighborhood polygons.

Oakland sits low on that list, and by now you know why: size mix, not weak demand. Its median occupancy of 36% is respectable, and Berkeley runs the highest occupancy here, 39%, off one of the lowest nightly rates on the list. Those two are the same trade in different packaging. You rent quickly and cheaply, you turn over often, and your cleaning bill eats the difference unless you push minimum stays up.

The outliers are worth naming. Discovery Bay is an unincorporated waterfront community out east past Brentwood, built on man-made Delta waterways where most homes come with a dock, and a $503 median nightly rate does the work there while 27% occupancy undoes most of it. That's a seasonal boating pattern, not a city one. Union City, Dublin and Fremont are all selling bigger houses to groups, since the typical listing in each runs three bedrooms or more, so their medians are really a statement about square footage. If you want the East Bay version of a safe bet, Alameda and Walnut Creek are the two that pair decent occupancy with rates that hold up, and Walnut Creek's upper quartile near $43,000 says the ceiling is real.

The character behind these numbers is a separate job. Which streets feel like what, and who they'd suit, is what the Oakland neighborhoods guide has room for.

Which Amenities Make the Most Money in Oakland?

An EV charger, which is the most East Bay answer imaginable and also the only amenity in this market whose value BNBCalc publishes openly. It carries a 16% revenue lift market-wide, and unusually, it holds up at almost every size:

Property size	Amenity with the published lift	Lift
1 bedroom	EV charger	+15%
2 bedrooms	EV charger	+17%
3 bedrooms	EV charger	+17%
4+ bedrooms	Pool	+23%

The openly published amenity value at each bedroom count, from the September 2026 regression run. Studios return too little signal to rank.

Most markets have one amenity that leads the pooled figure and something else entirely leading the individual bedroom counts. Oakland doesn't, until you get to four-plus bedrooms, where a pool takes over at 23% and the charger's value moves behind the paywall. That flip makes sense if you picture the guests: a couple in a one-bedroom near a BART station probably showed up in a rental EV for a conference, while a family of eight in a Livermore house wants somewhere to put the kids in July.

A longer list of amenities does show measurable value in Oakland without BNBCalc printing what that value is, and since guessing at those numbers would help nobody, I'll just name them: a hot tub, a pool, a gym, a sauna, a TV, a barbecue, lake access, pets allowed and internet. Meanwhile the regression drops anything that turns up in practically every Oakland listing, the logic being that a feature shared by all of them tells a guest nothing about which to book. Remember that the next time a checklist tells you to advertise a washing machine.

Cleaning fees are the quieter lever, and since they're easier to change than any fixture, they're where I'd look first. Among the listings that charge one, the average sat near $129 as of September 2026 on the Oakland market page, climbing from roughly $77 on a studio up to about $248 on a four-plus. On a two-bedroom that works out at about $139 a turn, so a shorter minimum stay buys you more turns and more of that fee landing as sticker shock at checkout. Unfortunately those two pull against each other, which is why I'd test a two-night minimum before testing a lower rate on a calendar that's soft midweek.

Is Airbnb Legal in Oakland?

Legal is the wrong frame here. Oakland's Planning Code sorts rentals by length of stay rather than by platform, and nothing in it is named after Airbnb. Rent for 30 days or longer, with nothing else on the lot let for less, and you're a Permanent Residential Activity under OPC 17.10.110, which the residential zones permit. Rent for fewer than 30 days and you're in Transient Habitation Commercial Activities under OPC 17.10.440, where the code files hotels and motels. The hillside zones bar commercial activity outright, and the detached-unit, mixed-housing-type and urban residential tables each print a dash against Transient Habitation, which the code's own legend defines as prohibited. Where Oakland does allow it, across the neighborhood, community and regional commercial zones, the housing-and-business mix zone and several downtown districts, the tables mark it C, and C means you get it only by winning a conditional use permit first.

Two narrow exceptions exist, though neither one describes a normal listing. A Bed and Breakfast under OPC 17.10.125 has to occupy a one- to four-family dwelling, cap itself at 12 adult paying guests across no more than six guest units, be owner occupied, and stand on a property carrying an A through D historic rating or Landmark status from the city's Office of Historic Preservation, while a Semi-Transient Residential Activity under OPC 17.10.120 only bites when under 30% of the units on a lot are short-term, and the city says that one generally needs a permit too and is barred outright in most residential zones. Accessory dwelling units get the flattest answer of all, since the code's ADU section, 17.103.080(A)(2), is headed "No Short-Term Rental of ADUs" and allows a rental only for a term longer than 30 consecutive days, which kills the ADU-as-Airbnb plan in Oakland before it starts.

Unfortunately for most people reading this, that's where the good news about zoning ends. What doesn't depend on your zoning is the money the city expects. Every Oakland property owner who rents anything, including someone renting a room in their own house, has to register for a business tax certificate within 30 days of starting, at $109 to apply and $13.95 per $1,000 of annual gross rental income after that, renewed every March 1. Separately from that, Chapter 4.24 of the Municipal Code sets a transient occupancy tax of 14% of the rent wherever a stay lasts 30 consecutive days or less. The bill for that goes to the guest and not to your revenue: they pay it, you collect it, and it moves on to the Finance Department's Revenue Bureau. Airbnb adds Oakland's 14% to bookings of 30 nights and shorter and pays it over for you, so if Airbnb is your only channel that piece is handled, but do check every other platform's tax settings yourself rather than assuming the same arrangement carries over. Every city in this market sets its own rate, so the number changes the moment you cross a line on the map. What that looks like elsewhere in California is laid out in the California short-term rental tax guide.

Enforcement is the other half of this, and it's lopsided. The tax side runs whether or not your zoning is legal, because the same city page that tells you to register and hand the money over also says its codes don't address short-term rentals at all. The zoning side plainly doesn't run at that pace, because Oakland's own planning staff told stakeholders in April 2023 that roughly 2,500 Airbnb listings were operating illegally in the city, and that isn't a number you reach under a code anyone is policing. I'd treat the gap as temporary rather than permanent, though: the city contracted for licensing and enforcement software back in December 2023, the council's own record shows no short-term rental ordinance introduced or passed since, and adoption hearings are now anticipated in Fall 2026. Once a licensing system exists, a rule nobody enforces turns into a rule somebody does.

And remember that most of this market isn't Oakland at all. Berkeley, Alameda, Walnut Creek, Hayward and the rest each write their own rules, so a property two miles away can sit under a completely different regime; Berkeley in particular runs its own rules, and they look nothing like those of a city that hasn't written any. Before you make an offer anywhere in the East Bay, check the address against the right city's code, and for Oakland itself the Oakland short-term rental regulations guide tracks the ordinance as it moves.

Where Do These Oakland Airbnb Numbers Come From?

While that guide follows the rulemaking, the figures you've just read were built on BNBCalc Markets, BNBCalc's research arm, built to measure short-term rental markets and hold them up against one another. Amenities are the part that pulls its weight here, since a single headline lift per market hides the fact that the winner changes with property size. Open a market there and the lift attaches to a bedroom count, which matters in Oakland because somewhere between a three-bedroom and a four-bedroom a pool overtakes the charger, and you'd want to know that before you commit to either.

How Do You Estimate Airbnb Revenue for an Oakland Property?

Work from the outside in. Start on the Oakland market page for where current levels and seasonality sit, check where California ranks against everywhere else on gross yield, then take the address itself to BNBCalc and feed it a real purchase price, real financing and a real cleaning bill rather than round numbers. Treat a market median as somewhere to begin and never as the answer, since even within one bedroom count the spread is wide: the strongest quarter of one-bedrooms opened at $25,894, about 30% above that size's $19,994 median.

Three thresholds specific to Oakland are worth holding onto while you do it.

Check the zoning classification before anything else, and treat it as a go or no-go rather than a detail to sort out later. A property that can't host a stay under 30 days without a conditional use permit isn't a short-term rental deal; it's a long-term rental deal with an optimistic spreadsheet attached.

Underwrite a city one-bedroom near $20,000 a year, not near the top quartile. That's the median, so half of them did worse, and I think a one-bedroom condo is the easiest thing in this market for a first-time host to talk themselves into. If the deal only works at $26,000, you're betting on being in the top quarter of operators from day one.

Your revenue line shouldn't carry the 14% occupancy tax at all. It gets added to the rent and the booker pays it, so a projection that deducts it understates the deal by a quarter and talks you out of properties that work. What does come out of your line is the business tax on gross rental receipts, which is small but real and gets forgotten far more often.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need a license to run an Airbnb in Oakland?

No short-term rental license exists in Oakland, because the city has never created the category. A business tax certificate is required instead, of every Oakland property owner who rents anything, filed within 30 days of your rental start date and renewed each March 1. On top of that you register with the Finance Department and collect the 14% transient occupancy tax whenever a stay runs 30 days or less. Neither of those authorizes the use under the Planning Code; they're tax obligations that apply regardless.

Are short-term rentals allowed in Oakland's residential zones?

No, not in any of them. Oakland's Planning Code classifies a stay under 30 days as Transient Habitation Commercial Activities under OPC 17.10.440, and the activity table in every residential zone chapter, hillside, detached-unit, mixed-housing-type and urban, marks it prohibited. The zones that do allow it, mostly commercial and downtown districts, allow it only with a conditional use permit. Rentals of 30 days or longer are Permanent Residential Activities under OPC 17.10.110, which the residential zones permit, and an accessory dwelling unit is capped separately, since Planning Code 17.103.080(A)(2) allows its rental only for a term longer than 30 consecutive days.

Is Oakland about to legalize short-term rentals?

The City of Oakland has been working on short-term residential rental regulations since a 2016 Council direction, and its project page anticipates formal adoption hearings in Fall 2026. As of late September 2026, the council's legislative record shows no short-term rental ordinance introduced or adopted, so nothing has changed yet. The city contracted for licensing and enforcement software in December 2023, which suggests a permitting system is being built ahead of the rules it would enforce.

What is the occupancy tax rate in Oakland?

Oakland's transient occupancy tax is 14% of the rent charged, under Chapter 4.24 of the Oakland Municipal Code, and it covers every stay lasting 30 consecutive days or less. The guest pays it, the operator collects it, and the operator remits it to the Finance Department's Revenue Bureau. Airbnb collects and remits it automatically on Oakland bookings of 30 nights and shorter. Other platforms may not, so check each one's tax settings rather than assuming.

Which East Bay city earns the most on Airbnb?

Discovery Bay tops the ranking on median annual revenue as of September 2026, near $47,400, though a $503 median nightly rate against 27% occupancy makes it a seasonal boating market rather than a city one. Union City and Dublin follow, both on larger houses rather than fuller calendars, and Vallejo and Hercules rank high too but are thin enough that their order will move between refreshes. Oakland itself sits lower than most of its neighbors, largely because its typical listing is smaller.

How much does an Oakland Airbnb make in a year?

The median listing inside Oakland's city limits took in about $22,991 over the trailing twelve months as of September 2026, against $26,235 for the rest of the market around it. Size drives most of that difference: a city one-bedroom's median was about $20,063 while a four-bedroom's was $56,596. Treat the median as your underwriting case, and the top quartile inside the city, which opens near $30,893, as the upside.

Oakland is an unusual case, but the lesson it teaches travels. Any time a market's rules haven't caught up with its reality, the numbers you find will look better than the position you'd actually be buying, because they're measuring people who took a risk the spreadsheet never priced. Work out what the rules are going to be before you decide what the property is worth.