Houston, Texas Airbnb Market Data 2026

How much does a Houston Airbnb earn, and now that the city has started registering them, can an out-of-town buyer still walk into this market?

Well, the median listing inside the city limits took in $22,829 over the past twelve months, and yes, you can still walk in, because the registering part is mostly paperwork. Since January 1, 2026 every short-term rental inside the Houston city limits has needed a certificate of registration, which costs $275 a year for each unit you rent out. Beyond that the city asks remarkably little: there's no zoning to satisfy, because Houston doesn't have any, no rule that you live in the property, no ceiling on how many you own, and no occupancy cap, although every listing still has to post a maximum occupancy figure. Operating without a certificate is already an offense that's fined by the day, and from January 1, 2027 the city starts telling the booking platforms to take down listings that show no certificate number.

The gate that does exist is a private one. Since there's no zoning, what decides whether a particular house can be rented by the night is the deed restrictions written into its subdivision, and the city's application has the owner confirm in writing that they allow it. Those are the City of Houston's rules, and they stop at the city line in Harris County, Texas, whereas BNBCalc's Houston market data runs all the way to Galveston and the Gulf coast, where the rules are somebody else's.

How Much Do Houston Airbnbs Earn in 2026?

The median listing inside the Houston city limits took in $22,829 over the past twelve months, while the median one in the rest of the market took in $28,038. Across the whole market, suburbs and coast included, the median came to $25,992.

Area	Median annual revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	75th-percentile revenue
Inside the Houston city limits	$22,829	$223	30%	$35,500
Rest of the Houston market	$28,038	$267	29%	$44,312
Whole market	$25,992	$251	29%	$41,167

BNBCalc 2026 listing data for the trailing twelve months as of September 2026, where "inside the city limits" means inside the City of Houston's official super neighborhood boundaries and the rest of the market runs out through the suburbs to Galveston and the Gulf coast. Revenue, rate and occupancy are medians and the last column is the 75th percentile, each worked out separately, so the columns don't multiply together.

These are medians, the listing halfway down the pack, so expect them to sit below any average you see quoted for this market, since a handful of very strong listings pull an average up. They also cover every size of home, which is why a typical one-bedroom lands below all three and a typical three-bedroom lands above them. The last column is the prize for running a place well: a city listing in the top quarter clears $35,500, more than $12,000 over the city median, although that's a ceiling to aim at rather than a number to underwrite.

Size matters less than you'd think, though. Across the whole market a four-bedroom at the weak end of its range earns roughly what a middling one-bedroom does, so a bigger house lifts your ceiling and leaves your floor about where it was, with location and management explaining most of the rest. Gross yield, meanwhile, favors the small places. One- and two-bedrooms return more against what they cost to buy than the three- and four-bedroom homes do, and studios trail well behind both, so if you were assuming a big house is the obvious Houston play, the yield figures argue the opposite, and the cheaper unit also leaves you less exposed if the calendar disappoints.

Across the market a stay runs closer to a week than a weekend, which means fewer turnovers for every night you sell than a weekend market would give you. A large share of the listings sit with professional hosts, so the operator across the street probably has a pricing tool and a cleaning crew, and the Houston property management roundup is where I'd look if you'd rather not build that yourself.

Is the Houston Airbnb Market Oversaturated?

Mildly, yes, and the past year is how you can tell.

Metric	Year-over-year change
Active supply	Up
Occupancy	Down
Average nightly rate	+20%
Purchase price	−1%

BNBCalc data covering every listing in the market, for September 2025 to August 2026 set against September 2024 to August 2025. Active supply and occupancy carry their direction without a figure, because how big each of those moves was isn't settled enough to print, and any measure whose direction this year's data can't pin down is left out entirely. Purchase price tracks home prices rather than listings.

More listings arrived, and the typical calendar got emptier. That combination is what crowding looks like, and I'd rather say so plainly than dress it up, since the thing you'd be buying into is a market where the competition grew faster than the demand did. I won't put a size on either move, because BNBCalc's two ways of measuring the year agree on which way listings and occupancy went but not on how far.

What keeps me from calling it worse than mild is the nightly rate. Hosts didn't cut their prices, which is usually the first thing that happens when a market floods. They raised them, by about 20% on average, comparing the latest twelve months with the twelve before. Either Houston's guests were willing to pay more, or enough of the new supply arrived at the expensive end to drag the average up, and the yearly figures fit both stories, which is reason enough not to plan on the first one. Home prices, meanwhile, barely moved, ending the year about 1% lower, so the entry price hasn't come down to make up for the thinner calendars.

For you the practical reading is the same either way. Keep in mind that whatever occupancy you'd penciled in for this city probably needs revising down, so pull the recent booked nights of a handful of homes near your address before you commit, then check them again every few months rather than assuming the trend runs one way.

When Is Houston's Peak Airbnb Season?

Houston's year has two busy stretches, and they're busy at very different prices, which the month-by-month figures separate nicely.

Month	Occupancy	Avg nightly rate
Sep 2025	25%	$242
Oct 2025	28%	$245
Nov 2025	27%	$253
Dec 2025	24%	$245
Jan 2026	22%	$221
Feb 2026	24%	$223
Mar 2026	40%	$301
Apr 2026	32%	$263
May 2026	28%	$310
Jun 2026	18%	$434
Jul 2026	43%	$391
Aug 2026	30%	$290

BNBCalc market data across every listing in the market, Gulf coast included, one row per month from September 2025 through August 2026. Occupancy and nightly rate are averaged independently, so read each column on its own.

March and July stand clear of the rest on occupancy, and they sit close enough to each other that you should treat them as joint peaks. March fills its nights at a $301 average rate, whereas July, the height of summer, charges $391 for them. Between September and February, meanwhile, no month gets past 29%, and January and February are also the cheapest nights of the year at $221 and $223.

Then there's June, which is the strangest row in the table and the one I'd study hardest. Its average night went for $434, which no other month came close to, and its calendar sat at 18%, well under the year's busiest months. Houston hosted six FIFA World Cup matches at NRG Stadium that month, with a seventh on July 4, and I'd bet a fair number of owners priced for the tournament and then watched the nights around it go unsold. I can't prove that from monthly averages alone, yet it's the clearest warning in this data: a one-off event doesn't lift a whole month, and pricing as though it will costs you the ordinary bookings you'd otherwise have taken.

The week has a rhythm of its own. Saturday's occupancy runs 38% above the weekly average and Friday's 32% above it, while Monday's sits 22% below and Tuesday's 24% below. Those are gaps against an ordinary day, not occupancy rates, so read a Saturday as more than a third busier than the average night rather than 38% full. Rates move less than half as far, with Saturday 16% and Friday 15% above average, so weekend nights fill far faster than their prices rise, and that gap is the first place I'd push.

Where Should You Buy an Airbnb in Houston?

Work out which market you're shopping in before you shortlist a street, because the Houston market page covers two.

Just over a third of its measurable listings sit inside the Houston city limits, and the rest run out through the suburbs and down to the Gulf. Houston's ordinance only governs that first third, so make sure you know which side of the line an address falls on before you read anything else. The city's neighborhoods and the towns around it are mapped with different boundary sets, so the two tables don't line up row by row.

Inside the Houston City Limits

The city draws 88 official super neighborhoods, so each measurable listing inside the limits went into whichever one contains it, and the ranking below orders the 15 best on median annual revenue, dropping anything too thin to measure reliably.

Rank	Super neighborhood	Median annual revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	75th-percentile revenue
1	Westbury	$34,891	$335	31%	$59,030
2	South Acres / Crestmont Park	$32,504	$273	30%	$37,074
3	Alief	$29,241	$301	29%	$39,227
4	University Place	$28,592	$265	33%	$42,302
5	Central Northwest	$28,357	$264	31%	$36,485
6	Greater Third Ward	$28,001	$282	29%	$44,736
7	Mid West	$27,872	$306	27%	$36,372
8	Washington Avenue Coalition / Memorial Park	$25,687	$256	31%	$41,411
9	Downtown	$25,635	$291	31%	$43,347
10	Sunnyside	$25,304	$251	27%	$37,570
11	Greater OST / South Union	$25,261	$264	30%	$35,854
12	Braeswood	$25,185	$246	29%	$39,107
13	Greater Fifth Ward	$24,837	$261	27%	$31,932
14	Medical Center Area	$23,882	$196	35%	$30,558
15	Fourth Ward	$23,783	$245	32%	$43,887

BNBCalc 2026 listing data inside the City of Houston's official super neighborhood boundaries, trailing twelve months. Revenue, rate and occupancy are medians, and the last column is the 75th percentile, where a neighborhood's top quarter begins. Each column is worked out separately, so they don't multiply together, and neighborhoods with too little data to measure are left out.

Those occupancy figures don't belong beside the monthly table. Each one describes a single middle listing in its neighborhood instead of the market at large, which makes the column good for ranking neighborhoods against each other and no use for anything else.

The top two rows rest on two of the thinnest samples in the table, so I'd treat Westbury and South Acres as interesting rather than settled. What I'd act on instead is the middle of the table, where Greater Third Ward, Washington Avenue Coalition and Greater OST all land between roughly $25,000 and $28,000 on samples deep enough to mean something. Greater Third Ward reaches from downtown's edge down past Texas Southern University, and its top quarter starts at $44,736, which means a strong operator there clears the median by a wide margin.

Two rows reward a second look. Medical Center Area sits second from the bottom yet posts the best median occupancy on the list, 35%, and does that at the lowest median rate, $196, with one-bedrooms as the typical listing. So near the hospitals you're trading rate for a fuller calendar, which suits an owner who'd rather have steady bookings than big nights. And Neartown, the area most people call Montrose, has more listings than any other Houston neighborhood but a median of only $20,696, which would put it outside the table entirely. Its top quarter starts above $50,000 though, roughly two and a half times its own median and the widest such spread of any deep neighborhood in the city. Somewhere in Montrose a lot of people are doing this badly and a few are doing it very well.

Which of those you'd enjoy owning is a different question from which earns, and the best Houston neighborhoods for Airbnb takes the neighborhood-by-neighborhood view.

The Rest of the Houston Market

Now step over the city line. These are the places carrying the deepest inventory in the rest of the market, mapped by Census place, with Houston's own Census place kept in as a yardstick, and where it lands is the thing to look for.

Rank	City or area	Median annual revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	75th-percentile revenue
1	Jamaica Beach	$46,084	$429	30%	$66,842
2	Bolivar Peninsula	$43,276	$424	28%	$61,556
3	Surfside Beach	$32,280	$308	28%	$46,335
4	Galveston	$29,226	$274	29%	$47,631
5	Atascocita	$27,590	$242	30%	$36,511
6	The Woodlands	$25,742	$264	31%	$41,331
7	Spring	$23,595	$216	30%	$32,952
8	Conroe	$22,955	$221	28%	$29,527
9	San Leon	$22,860	$219	27%	$29,827
10	Houston	$22,785	$222	30%	$35,386
11	Pasadena	$22,011	$192	33%	$29,100
12	Baytown	$21,584	$190	33%	$28,368

BNBCalc 2026 listing data inside US Census place boundaries, trailing twelve months, for the places carrying the most listings, with columns that are medians apart from the 75th percentile, each worked out separately. Bolivar Peninsula, Atascocita, The Woodlands, Spring and San Leon are Census-designated places rather than incorporated cities. Houston's row uses the Census boundary for the city rather than its super neighborhoods, which is why it differs slightly from the city-limits median in the earnings table.

Houston itself lands tenth of twelve, and the four rows above the rest are all beach. Jamaica Beach, Bolivar Peninsula and Surfside Beach charge $308 to $429 a night against Houston's $222, on roughly the same occupancy, and Galveston alone holds more listings than the fifteen city neighborhoods in the first table put together. That's not really the same business. A beach house charges resort rates, and its owner is competing with the next beach house down the road rather than with anyone in Montrose. It also needs coastal storm insurance and a manager who can get there after bad weather.

The legal position changes at the city line too, because Houston's registration rule stops there and each town beyond it sets its own. Galveston County is where most of those coastal listings sit, and the Galveston County short-term rental rules are the ones to read before you assume the beach is the easier option.

Which Amenities Make the Most Money in Houston?

Whichever side of that line you end up on, a few things inside the walls shift revenue more than everything else.

Take the market as a whole and BNBCalc's current amenity model puts about 16% more revenue behind a hot tub on a Houston listing. That pooled figure isn't the answer for your particular unit, though, because the leader changes with the size of the place. The hot tub holds on at two bedrooms, where it's worth about 18%, but a pool takes over at three bedrooms, at about 20%, and at four or more, at about 21%, while one-bedrooms answer to an EV charger, worth about 15%. Studios barely respond at all, since a barbecue is the only amenity the model picks up for them and it's worth about 1%. So if you're fitting out a one-bedroom condo, price the charger before you think about a tub.

The model also finds enough signal in Houston for a sauna, a gym, bicycles, lake access and letting guests bring pets, and BNBCalc Markets holds those figures at each size. A few household basics are kept out of the model on purpose, since something almost every listing already has can't tell you which of two listings will out-earn the other.

Cleaning fees are worth a decision rather than a default. As of September 2026, 40.3% of listings across the Houston market charged one, and where they did the fee averaged about $147. Almost none of that stays with you, since the cleaner takes it, which makes a cleaning fee a recovered cost rather than margin, whereas every dollar you add to a Saturday rate stays yours, as long as the night still books.

Is Airbnb Legal in Houston?

Yes, and for a city this size Houston is about as open as it gets, so the registration rule that arrived in 2026 is nearly the whole of the paperwork story.

The ordinance took effect at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2026, after City Council adopted it on April 16, 2025. In its wording a short-term rental is any home, or any part of one, that's rented out or offered for rent for any stay shorter than 30 days, and running, renting or advertising one without a valid certificate breaks the law. Notice that advertising sits in the same sentence as running it, which means the listing alone puts you in violation and you don't need a guest to get there. A certificate costs $275 and covers one unit at one address. The ordinance makes it good for one year from the date of issue, with renewal inside the 90 days before it lapses, but go by the expiry date printed on your own certificate rather than counting from the day you applied. The city adds a small administrative charge on top that it resets each year with inflation.

What Houston doesn't ask of you is the more interesting half, starting with zoning, which the city doesn't have. Its Planning and Development Department says as plainly as a government can that the city codes don't address land use. The city sets no occupancy cap, asks for no insurance, doesn't require you to live in the property and puts no ceiling on how many certificates one owner can hold, although every single unit needs its own, apartments and condos in a shared building included.

So what does stop a Houston deal? Unfortunately it's the one thing the city can't tell you over the phone. Because there's no zoning, the restrictions written into your subdivision's deeds are what govern whether a house may be rented by the night, and the application makes the owner acknowledge that the use breaks no covenant, homeowner association rule, deed restriction or condominium term. The city takes the owner's signature on a form as proof rather than asking for the deeds themselves, yet Houston's Legal Department enforces deed restrictions itself, by suit for injunction, and a false acknowledgement is grounds to revoke the certificate you paid for. Read those documents before you write an offer, not after.

Day to day the operating rules are light and specific. Every public listing has to show your certificate number and the property's maximum permitted occupancy, even though the city sets no cap of its own, so have that figure ready before the listing goes live. You can't rent for less than a single night, you can't advertise the place as an event or party venue, a copy of the certificate goes up inside the front door, and you need a named emergency contact who's reachable by phone at any hour and responds to a problem within an hour of being called.

Hotel tax goes on top of your rate rather than coming out of it, although making sure it's paid stays your responsibility. A Houston stay carries 17% in hotel occupancy tax: 6% to the State of Texas, 7% to the City of Houston through Houston First Corporation, 2% to Harris County and 2% to the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. Texas law won't let a city or county propose a new venue tax, the kind that pays for stadiums and convention centers, if it would push the combined hotel tax past 17% (Local Government Code Section 334.254), so Houston already sits at that ceiling. Airbnb collects all four and pays them over on bookings of 29 nights or fewer, which is why the city lets an Airbnb-only host tick a box at registration instead of showing any tax paperwork. List anywhere else as well and you'll need proof that you've paid the city's hotel tax or registered with Houston First to pay it, while BNBCalc's rundown of how Texas taxes short-term rentals covers the state side.

Enforcement is where Houston is still holding back, and where the calendar matters. Operating unregistered is an offense carrying $100 to $500 per violation, with every day counting separately, so a quiet month of it runs into thousands against a $275 certificate. The heavier lever is delisting: platforms may not list a Houston rental without a certificate number, and once the city notifies them they have ten business days to pull it down. The city has said it will begin sending those notices on January 1, 2027, and its own public registry held 5,476 live certificates as of mid-September 2026. There's one more clause that portfolio owners should read twice, since three revocations inside any 24-month period let the director move against every remaining certificate that owner holds.

Applications, documents, tax registrations and the offices that handle each piece are all laid out in the Houston short-term rental regulation guide.

How Does BNBCalc Track the Houston Airbnb Market?

Those forms belong to that guide, and the figures you've been reading come from BNBCalc Markets, which is where BNBCalc does its market research. It follows the Airbnb and Vrbo listings in each short-term rental market month by month and shows how each market's nightly rates have shifted across the last twelve months. In Houston that's the history I'd read first, since rates climbed about 20% in a year when calendars got emptier, and I'd pull up the same year for any other Texas city on your list before choosing between them.

How Do You Estimate Airbnb Revenue for a Houston Property?

All of that describes thousands of homes in one go, while your problem is a single address, so how do you get from one to the other?

I'd open the Houston market page first, for its current revenue, occupancy and seasonality. Should another city still be in the running, BNBCalc's ranking of Texas markets by gross yield sets Houston beside the rest of the state. With a real address in hand, the asking price, the financing and the monthly costs go into BNBCalc, and you read the number it returns.

Then hold that answer up against Houston before you believe it. Start with whether the address sits inside the city limits, because that decides both which rulebook applies to you and which of Houston's two markets you're buying into. The deed restrictions come next, since they're the only thing here that can stop you outright. Be careful with occupancy as well, because no month in the past year filled even half its nights, so a model built on 60% is describing some other city. And don't assume another 20% on rates, because that already happened once while calendars were emptying, and I wouldn't budget on it twice.

When a city writes its first rulebook for nightly rentals, it's tempting to read the rules as the whole story. They only tell you who's allowed in, though, and it's the occupancy column that tells you whether getting in was worth it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Average Airbnb Income in Houston?

The median is the fairer measure here, because a few very strong listings pull an average up. Inside Houston's city limits the median listing earned $22,829 over the past twelve months in 2026 BNBCalc listing data, and a listing in the top quarter earned $35,500 or more. Out in the rest of this market, which runs down to Galveston and the Gulf coast, the median was $28,038. Across the whole market, suburbs and coast included, it was $25,992.

Is Airbnb Still Profitable in Houston in 2026?

It can be, but the past year got harder rather than easier. Counting every listing here, supply grew while occupancy sank, which is how crowding shows up, offset by a rise of about 20% in the average nightly rate. Whether one particular house makes money still turns on what it costs to buy, what it costs to keep running, and whether its deed restrictions permit nightly stays at all.

What Is the Best Month for Airbnb in Houston?

March and July were the two strongest months for occupancy in the year to August 2026, at 40% and 43%, and they're close enough that neither clearly beats the other. July charged more, at a $391 average nightly rate against March's $301. From September through February no month cleared 29% occupancy, and January was the cheapest at $221 a night. Friday and Saturday are comfortably the strongest nights.

Do You Need a License to Run an Airbnb in Houston?

Yes. Since January 1, 2026 every short-term rental inside the Houston city limits needs a certificate of registration from the Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department, costing $275 a year plus a small city administrative fee. Each unit needs its own, including individual apartments and condos in one building. Operating, renting or advertising without one carries a fine of $100 to $500, and each day counts as a separate violation.

Can You Buy an Investment Property in Houston and Run It as an Airbnb?

Yes. Houston sets no owner-occupancy requirement, no cap on how many short-term rentals one owner may hold and no zoning restriction, since the city has no zoning. You register each unit and you're in business. The real constraint is private: deed restrictions and homeowner association rules decide whether a specific address may be rented by the night, the owner has to acknowledge on the application that they allow it, and Houston's Legal Department enforces those restrictions by injunction.

Which Houston Neighborhood Is Best for Short-Term Rentals?

It depends on what you want from it. In 2026 BNBCalc listing data mapped onto the city's official super neighborhoods, Westbury holds the highest median, $34,891, on a thin sample. Greater Third Ward, Washington Avenue Coalition and Greater OST sit between roughly $25,000 and $28,000 on far deeper samples. Medical Center Area holds the best median occupancy of the city's top 15, at 35%, though at the lowest median rate on that list, $196.

How Much Is the Airbnb Tax in Houston?

Guests on a Houston short-term rental pay 17% in hotel occupancy tax on top of the booking, made up of 6% to the State of Texas, 7% to the City of Houston through Houston First Corporation, 2% to Harris County and 2% to the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. Airbnb collects and remits all four on stays of 29 nights or fewer, so the city doesn't ask an Airbnb-only host for tax paperwork at registration. A host listing anywhere else has to show proof of payment or of registration with Houston First.

What Happens to Houston Airbnbs Without a Registration Certificate?

Operating one is already an offence, with a fine of $100 to $500 for each violation and every day of unregistered operation counting as its own. From January 1, 2027 the City of Houston says it will also start notifying the booking platforms to remove listings that show no certificate number, and a platform has ten business days to take a listing down once it's notified. The city's public registry held 5,476 certificates as of mid-September 2026.