Cash flow
Also called profit, Profit (Cash Flow), net cash flow, monthly cash flow. Last reviewed Oct 21, 2026 by Jeremy Werden
Cash flow is what a rental leaves you after its running costs and your mortgage or rent are paid. In BNBCalc it's the Profit (Cash Flow) line: operating income minus Mortgage & Taxes on Buy and Own analyses, or revenue minus operating expenses and rent on a Rent analysis.
Cash flow = operating income − Mortgage & Taxes
How does BNBCalc calculate cash flow?
The Profit (Cash Flow) line at the bottom of an analysis's Profit box depends on the analysis type:
| Analysis type | Profit (Cash Flow) |
|---|---|
| Buy and Own | Operating income − Mortgage & Taxes |
| Rent (arbitrage) | Revenue − operating expenses − net effective rent |
| Cohost | No cash flow line; the box shows the Owner payout instead |
Operating income is revenue minus operating expenses, and Mortgage & Taxes is your loan payments plus property tax, plus mortgage insurance if you put down less than 20%. On an Own analysis, the mortgage stops once the years left on your loan run out.
Take a $400,000 home with $60,000 of revenue, $27,780 of operating expenses and BNBCalc's default loan of 20% down at 6% over 30 years. Its operating income is $32,220 and its Mortgage & Taxes come to $26,983 a year, so the cash flow is $5,237 a year, or about $436 a month.
You can switch the Profit box between 1m, 1y, 5y and 10y. One year is the default and one month is a twelfth of it, while the 5- and 10-year views multiply the yearly figure without adding any growth.
What is a good cash flow for an Airbnb?
In a BNBCalc analysis, any positive Profit (Cash Flow) means the home pays for itself after its loan, but a thin one won't survive much. So make sure the cash flow still holds up after realistic costs, then check the analysis's Seasonality chart, because a home that's positive over the year can still run short for several months in a row. To compare cash flow across homes with different prices, look at cash-on-cash return, which divides it by the cash you'd put in.
What does cash flow leave out?
BNBCalc's cash flow is before income tax, and it doesn't set money aside for big replacements like a roof or HVAC system, so add those to Repairs or Other if you plan for them. It also leaves out the home's rise in value and the loan principal you pay down, both of which count in Return on Investment instead.