St. Petersburg, Florida Airbnb Market Data 2026

Can you buy a home in St. Petersburg, Florida, list it on Airbnb, and make it pay? Inside the city limits, the answer usually turns on one rule before it turns on any number, because St. Petersburg lets a home take only three stays shorter than a month in any 365-day stretch. Past that, the home falls into the same zoning category as a hotel, which you can only run as a licensed hotel or motel or inside a Resort Facilities Overlay, and the city's own 2023 handout says no property had that overlay yet.

Unfortunately for anyone picturing a nightly rental on an ordinary St. Petersburg street, that rule seems to show in BNBCalc's numbers, where the city's share of active listings is small. BNBCalc doesn't give St. Petersburg a market of its own; it folds the city into a Tampa market spread across Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties. St. Petersburg's city limits hold only 4.8% of that market's active listings, while about a third sit in the Gulf beach cities across the causeways. The panel of market figures on this page belongs to the Tampa market as a whole, and so does the St. Petersburg page in BNBCalc Markets, which shows the Tampa market under the city's name, so I built every St. Petersburg number from my own tally of the listings within the city line.

That leaves two lawful lanes: a building zoned for nightly guests, or a home you rent by the month and open to three short stays a year. If one of those fits, the city's active listings at least book about as often as listings elsewhere in the market, and the gap in what they earn comes down to size and location.

How Much Do St. Petersburg Airbnbs Earn in 2026?

In BNBCalc listing data for the 12 months to October 2026, the median active Airbnb or Vrbo listing inside St. Petersburg's city limits brought in $19,730, charging a median $205 a night and booked 29.9% of the year, while a listing in the top quarter took in $27,178 or more. By comparison, the median listing across the rest of the Tampa market earned $28,391, about $8,700 more, and in the Gulf beach cities from St. Pete Beach north to Belleair Shores it reached $33,794.

Those medians come from my own cut of the listings, while the Tampa market page in BNBCalc Markets shows averages for the metro as a whole. Keep in mind what they can't tell you: BNBCalc's data records what each active listing earned, but it can't say which of them are allowed to take nightly guests, so treat these figures as what the city's operating listings made, whatever their zoning. Split by size, the city trails at most sizes, with studios furthest behind, one-bedrooms level and the four-bedroom row ahead.

Bedrooms	St. Petersburg median revenue	St. Petersburg top quarter	St. Petersburg median nightly rate	St. Petersburg median occupancy	Rest of Tampa market median revenue
Studio	$12,698	$15,210	$118	32.1%	$19,819
1 bedroom	$17,090	$22,035	$155	32.6%	$17,533
2 bedrooms	$21,186	$27,428	$239	27.4%	$27,438
3 bedrooms	$28,532	$34,981	$309	28.1%	$34,879
4+ bedrooms	$60,297	$116,314	$602	32.2%	$57,909

Active listings over the past 12 months, BNBCalc listing data as of October 2026. St. Petersburg means inside the Census city boundary; the rest of the market is everything else BNBCalc counts in its Tampa market.

Look at the one-bedroom row first: a St. Petersburg one-bedroom earned within about $450 of one elsewhere in the market, and it booked a little more often. Two- and three-bedrooms trail by more than $6,000 because they charge less a night and fill fewer of those nights: a city two-bedroom charges a median $239 and books 27.4% of the year, against $287 and 30.1% across the rest of the market. Studios trail by the most, about $7,100, though only about one city listing in sixteen is a studio. I'd treat the four-bedroom row, the one size where the city comes out ahead, as a rough sign, since so few homes that size operate inside the city that a handful of strong ones can move the median.

The rest of the gap is mix. About 78% of the city's active listings are one- or two-bedrooms, against about 57% in the rest of the market, so St. Petersburg's overall median leans toward the sizes that earn least. If you're comparing the city with the beach towns, make sure you compare the same size, because the headline medians mostly measure what kind of home each place rents out.

Is the St. Petersburg Airbnb Market Oversaturated?

Is the city crowded? I can only answer that for the whole Tampa market, since BNBCalc measures supply and demand at the market level, and my answer is that its numbers can't settle it yet. Over the 12 months from October 2025 through September 2026, set against the 12 before them, occupancy across the Tampa market fell about 18%, and the average nightly rate climbed by about the same 18%.

Tampa market, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 vs Oct 2024 to Sep 2025	Change
Occupancy	Down about 18%
Average nightly rate	Up about 18%

Market-wide, all listings and bedroom counts. Each change is relative, a percentage of the earlier figure, not percentage points.

Still, the listing count in BNBCalc's data hasn't moved in a clear direction over those months, so the occupancy drop has two readings that point in opposite directions: more competition could be spreading the same guests across more homes, or hosts could be charging more and accepting fewer bookings. Our Tampa market-data post tells the metro's own story in more depth, so I'll keep to what the city's listings add.

Inside St. Petersburg, median occupancy (29.9%) is less than a point below the rest of the market's (30.6%), so the listings that do operate in the city aren't sitting empty while the beach towns fill up. My read is that the three-stay rule does more to limit how many city homes can compete for nightly guests than any metro trend does. Whichever reading turns out right, the number I'd keep returning to is how often the half-dozen listings nearest yours in size and setting get booked, checked again every three or four months.

When Is St. Petersburg's Peak Airbnb Season?

Whatever the long-run answer on crowding, the calendar question has a clear one. Across the Tampa market, March is the peak, with 60% occupancy at an average of $400 a night, while September and October are the slowest months at around 28 to 30% occupancy, and October's $238 average rate is the lowest of the year.

Month	Occupancy, Tampa market	Average nightly rate, Tampa market
October 2025	30%	$238
November 2025	32%	$253
December 2025	34%	$278
January 2026	38%	$270
February 2026	52%	$338
March 2026	60%	$400
April 2026	51%	$339
May 2026	40%	$300
June 2026	34%	$344
July 2026	45%	$336
August 2026	33%	$275
September 2026	28%	$247

Market-wide monthly figures for the Tampa market, all listings and bedroom counts, October 2025 to September 2026.

Most of these monthly figures run higher than the 29.9% listing median in the earnings section, September's 28% being the exception, since the occupancy behind each listing median is booked nights as a share of all 365 days, blocked days included. February through April is the season that matters, with every one of those months above 50% occupancy, and March's average rate sits about two-thirds above October's. July brings a second, smaller lift, and June charges more a night than July while booking fewer of them.

The week has its own shape too. Across the Tampa market, Saturday nights book about 39% more often than Tuesdays, while rates on Friday and Saturday nights come in about 12% higher than on a Tuesday or Wednesday.

So what does that calendar mean for a home under the three-stay limit? With only three short stays a year to spend, I'd place them between February and April and rent by the month the rest of the time, since stays of a month or longer don't count against the limit.

Where Should You Buy an Airbnb in St. Petersburg?

Location matters as much as timing, and inside the city the best-earning ZIP codes sit on the west side and downtown, though none of them catches the rest of the market. The table keeps to listings inside St. Petersburg's city limits, grouped by Census ZIP code area, and the neighborhood names come from the city's own neighborhood-association map, so a ZIP can cover more ground than the names suggest.

ZIP code	Includes parts of	Median revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	Top-quarter revenue
33707	Westminster Heights, Pasadena Bear Creek Estates	$25,813	$229	29.5%	$32,450
33701	Downtown, Old Northeast, Uptown	$22,089	$195	32.9%	$28,552
33715	Isla del Sol	$21,443	$263	24.1%	$28,804
33703	Shore Acres, Edgemoor	$19,891	$210	27.0%	$31,843
33711	Twin Brooks, Childs Park, Central Oak Park	$18,622	$189	30.9%	$23,782
33702	Gateway, Fossil Park, Meadowlawn	$17,452	$164	29.4%	$29,311
33705	Euclid-St. Paul, Coquina Key, Old Southeast	$17,082	$183	28.6%	$26,106
33713	Kenwood, Central Oak Park, Disston Heights	$16,937	$163	32.4%	$23,026
33704	Euclid-St. Paul, Crescent Lake, Crescent Heights	$16,846	$171	32.5%	$24,930
33710	Disston Heights, Park Street, Live Oaks	$16,687	$148	30.6%	$20,800
33712	Palmetto Park, Melrose Mercy, Lake Maggiore Shores	$15,167	$163	25.9%	$22,898

Active listings inside St. Petersburg's Census city boundary, past 12 months, BNBCalc listing data as of October 2026. ZIP areas too thin to measure reliably are left out, and the thinnest rows here will still move between data updates.

So even 33707, at the top, earns less than the median listing across the rest of the Tampa market ($28,391). Downtown's 33701 is the deepest part of the city's short-term rental scene and books most often of any ZIP code, so it's where your comparisons will be most solid. Isla del Sol in 33715 charges the most a night but fills the fewest nights. Shore Acres and Edgemoor in 33703 show one of the widest spreads, with the top quarter earning about 60% more than the median, which tells me a well-run listing there has room to pull ahead.

For a buyer chasing a building zoned for nightly guests, or a home to rent by the month with three spring stays, where would I look first? Downtown, because it gives you the most comps to check a projection against and the steadiest bookings, even though the west side's median runs higher.

One caution before you trust a row: the listings behind it book regularly, so before you treat one as your benchmark, check whether its building can legally host nightly guests at all. A comp operating under hotel or motel zoning tells you little about a house a few blocks away that can't. For the case for each neighborhood beyond the numbers, our St. Petersburg city guide for investors is the companion to this table.

If the numbers you need only appear across the causeways in St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island or Madeira Beach, remember that each one writes its own rules, so nothing in St. Petersburg's code, strict or lenient, follows you over the bridge.

Which Amenities Make the Most Money in St. Petersburg?

Amenities are one place where a city home can stand out, and BNBCalc's amenity model publishes one value openly for the Tampa market: a pool, which lifts revenue by about 20% across the metro. What makes that figure interesting in St. Petersburg is how rare pools are inside the city. About 29% of the city's active listings have one, against about 54% in the rest of the Tampa market and about 68% in the Gulf beach cities, so for a property that can legally take nightly guests, a pool is something most of its in-city competition doesn't have. A home limited to three short stays a year gets far less out of one.

The same model tracks a revenue value in this market for an EV charger, a grill, bicycles, a gym, pet-friendly stays, a hot tub and a sauna. BNBCalc keeps those values for Markets subscribers, so I won't guess at them, but the list tells you which features the model has found a signal for.

Cleaning fees run lower inside the city, too. The median St. Petersburg listing charges $100 to clean, against $150 elsewhere in the Tampa market, and that fits a city full of smaller units. If you're pricing a two-bedroom here, that lower local fee is the number guests will compare yours against, whatever a beach-town house across the causeway charges.

Is Airbnb Legal in St. Petersburg?

Yes, inside a narrow lane, and the lane is the three-stay rule, which St. Petersburg writes into its Land Development Regulations as a definition: a transient accommodation use is one where the right to occupy is for a term less than monthly and is available more than three times in any consecutive 365-day period (Section 16.90.020.3). The code also counts a home that's offered or advertised for those stays, so as I read it, a listing left open to short stays all year could cross the line before a fourth guest ever arrives. Kept inside the limit, an ordinary house or condo can take up to three of those stays a year without becoming that use, and the city's planning handout says anything past the allowance has to run as a licensed hotel or motel or sit inside an approved Resort Facilities Overlay. The same handout, updated in October 2023, says no location in the city had that overlay yet, that getting one takes four to five public hearings and about six months, and that the application fee is $2,400.

The rule survives because Florida law grandfathered it. Section 509.032(7)(b) of the Florida Statutes bars local laws that prohibit vacation rentals or regulate how often they're rented, but it exempts any rule a local government had in place by June 1, 2011, and the city's handout says its transient accommodation rules are grandfathered for that reason. The handout also says the city has no plans to add a separate short-term rental use, because its attorney's office is concerned that doing so could run into the state's preemption.

The state adds a layer, with its own test in Section 509.013 of the Florida Statutes: a unit counts as a transient public lodging establishment once a calendar year brings it more than three bookings shorter than 30 days, or once it's advertised as a place regularly rented for stays that short. A house or condo that qualifies is a vacation rental under Section 509.242, and Section 509.241 requires it to hold a license from the state's hotels and restaurants division. That state license doesn't get a home past the city's limit, though, because the city's route beyond three short stays is hotel or motel use or the overlay, and a vacation rental is a separate license class from a hotel or motel. Keep in mind that the state counts by calendar year and the city by any rolling 365 days, so the two limits don't always fall on the same booking.

Lodging taxes go on the guest's bill. Guests in Pinellas County pay 13% on top of the rent: Florida's 6% transient rental tax, the county's 1% discretionary sales surtax, plus a 6% tourist development tax that Pinellas administers itself. Airbnb collects all three on its bookings, and the Pinellas County Tax Collector lists Airbnb and Vrbo among the platforms that collect its tourist tax, though the owner is still responsible when a platform doesn't. Our Florida lodging tax guide covers how the state side works.

Outside the city line, the rules change again. Pinellas County's own short-term rental ordinance requires a certificate of use, but only in the unincorporated parts of the county, which our Pinellas County regulation guide walks through. The beach cities write their own codes, so check the one your address answers to.

Enforcement, the city's contacts and the paperwork in order are all in our St. Petersburg short-term rental regulation guide.

How Does BNBCalc Track the St. Petersburg Airbnb Market?

Every Tampa-wide occupancy and rate figure in my tables counts all of the market's listings, from the market data underneath BNBCalc Markets, the BNBCalc product built to compare one rental market with another, and the St. Petersburg medians are my own cut of that data at the city line. Markets opens its Tampa view on typical earners, so its default numbers differ from mine, while the day-of-week pattern and the pool value match what it shows. You can make a rough version of that cut yourself, since you can pan the Tampa market's listing map over the peninsula and read the revenue, occupancy and nightly rate of whatever listings sit in view beside the market's average. Because a city line does this much work here, that map is where I'd start before shortlisting a street.

How Do You Estimate Airbnb Revenue for a St. Petersburg Property?

Once you've found a street, the quickest check on a specific home is the BNBCalc Calculator. It pulls up to 50 lookalike listings from around the address and turns them into a forecast of the home's nightly rate, occupancy and yearly revenue, then carries those numbers through your costs, the mortgage and the return. You can also let the AI Underwriter pick the comps, which it does for US homes with four comps or more. In this city, make sure to open its picks and see which side of the city line each one sits on, because a Treasure Island condo isn't living under St. Petersburg's rules.

Before I'd trust any nightly-rental projection, I'd settle whether the home can legally take more than three short stays a year. If it can't, the realistic model is monthly rent for most of the year plus three short stays in the spring, and the earnings section's medians aren't your benchmark at all. If it can, set the projection against the city's own figures by size, $17,090 for a one-bedroom or $28,532 for a three-bedroom at the median, and ask what would put your home in the top quarter. The 13% in lodging taxes stays out of that math, because the guest pays it and Airbnb collects it.

Two other BNBCalc products fit narrower jobs. A host with a listing already live in the city can have the Airbnb Listing Optimizer audit it: the tool goes through the listing's guest reviews, capped at a hundred, sizes it up against nearby listings and ranks the fixes to tackle first, which helps when your rate has to hold up against beach-town listings a causeway away. Lenders and funds screening long lists of Pinellas addresses can plug into the BNBCalc API. Each address comes back with the Calculator's numbers, comps and cash flow among them, delivered straight into their own systems and billed by usage.

If St. Petersburg's rules take it off your list, BNBCalc's ranking of Florida's markets by gross yield is a faster way to find somewhere else in the state worth running numbers on.

Is an Airbnb in St. Petersburg, Florida a Good Investment?

For a nightly rental on an ordinary street, usually not, because the three-stay rule closes that door before the numbers start. Even the listings that operate inside the city earn a median of $19,730 a year, against $28,391 across the rest of the Tampa market and $33,794 in the Gulf beach cities. It can still work for a home zoned for nightly guests, or one you'd rent by the month with three short stays in the spring peak. The next step is the BNBCalc Calculator with your address in it, plus a call to the city about zoning before you make an offer.

A city can book about as often as the market around it and still earn roughly 30% less, which is why I'd always compare the same size of home on the same side of the line before calling any place a weak market.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does an Airbnb make in St. Petersburg, Florida?

BNBCalc listing data puts the median active listing inside St. Petersburg's city limits at $19,730 for the 12 months to October 2026, with a $205 median nightly rate and 29.9% occupancy. A top-quarter listing earned $27,178 or more, and the median one-bedroom $17,090. Those are earnings of listings already operating: inside city limits, an ordinary home can take only three stays shorter than a month in any 365 days unless it's zoned for hotel use, and BNBCalc's data can't tell which listings are. The BNBCalc Calculator projects a specific address from its own comps.

Does BNBCalc have a separate Airbnb market for St. Petersburg?

No. BNBCalc Markets tracks St. Petersburg inside its Tampa market, which covers Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties. St. Petersburg's city limits hold about 4.8% of that market's active listings, and the Gulf beach cities to the west hold about a third. The St. Petersburg page in BNBCalc Markets shows the Tampa market's figures under the city's name, so treat its averages as metro-wide.

Which St. Petersburg ZIP code earns the most on Airbnb?

In BNBCalc listing data, 33707 on the city's west side has the highest median inside St. Petersburg, at $25,813 for the 12 months to October 2026. Downtown's 33701 follows at $22,089, and it books more often than any other ZIP code in the city, at 32.9% median occupancy. Isla del Sol's 33715 is third at $21,443. Every in-city ZIP code still trails the $28,391 median for the rest of the Tampa market, and these figures only apply to homes that can legally take nightly guests.

What is the busiest month for Airbnbs around St. Petersburg?

BNBCalc's market data for the whole Tampa market, counting every listing, puts March first: between October 2025 and September 2026, occupancy reached 60% that month and the average nightly rate hit $400. February and April also topped 50% occupancy. September and October were the slowest months, at around 28 to 30%, and October's $238 average rate was the year's lowest.

Can BNBCalc estimate what my St. Petersburg home would earn?

Yes. Enter the address in the BNBCalc Calculator and it forecasts nightly rate, occupancy and revenue for that home from as many as 50 nearby comparable listings, then runs your costs, financing and return on top. Picking the comps can be left to the AI Underwriter on a US home with four comps or more. In St. Petersburg, check that the comps sit inside the city line and that your home can legally take nightly guests before you rely on a nightly projection.