Jacksonville, Florida Airbnb Market Data 2026

How much does a Jacksonville Airbnb earn, and whose permission do you need before you list one?

The second half of that comes down to a boundary line more than to anything you do. Jacksonville and Duval County are one consolidated government in Florida. The city adds no short-term rental certificate, no rental permit and no rental zoning district of its own across most of that ground, so if you're renting out a house there, what's left is the state's vacation rental license, two business tax receipts and a tourist tax account. Four small towns kept their own governments through that merger, though, and Jacksonville's charter names them: Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach and the Town of Baldwin. Their rules run from a registration certificate and a fire inspection at one end to a flat bar on renting a home for under 90 days at the other.

As for the money, the past year went the way a lot of Florida's did. Across all the listings BNBCalc follows in this market, nightly rates rose about 16% while occupancy slipped about 7% in relative terms, and the price of the houses themselves hardly moved. Those figures reach past the county line into northern St. Johns and Clay counties too, which write their own rules and set their own tourist tax, so check which government a parcel sits in before you check its comps.

How Much Do Jacksonville Airbnbs Earn in 2026?

The median listing across this market took in $24,710 over the trailing twelve months BNBCalc measured, and one listing in four brought in $37,694 or more. Where a listing sits moves that figure a long way, since the median inside Jacksonville's city limits was $19,847, against $32,739 outside them and $34,220 at Jacksonville Beach. BNBCalc's market page reports averages instead, and those run higher, since a few big, busy houses can drag an average up in a way they can't move a median.

Size matters too, though less neatly than you'd expect. The median one-bedroom here earned $15,535, the median three-bedroom $28,480 and the median house of four or more bedrooms $46,698, yet a two-bedroom at the 75th percentile took $30,027 and out-earned that middling three-bedroom. How well a place is run, and where it stands, can be worth more than an extra bedroom.

Gross yield, a year of bookings set against what the house costs to buy, is where the bedroom question settled for me, since on BNBCalc's figures the sizes between one bedroom and four-plus all land within a couple of points of each other, two-bedrooms just in front, and only studios fall well behind, at a bit over half the yield of the rest. A bigger house earns more here, but it costs about as much more to buy, so don't let bedroom count do your filtering when you're deciding how much house to buy.

People running this as a business hold a large share of the listings, and the average stay runs longer than a weekend, so you'll turn a place over less often than in a two-night city market, though you'll have more calendar to fill between guests. If you'd rather not handle the turnovers and guest messages yourself, the Jacksonville property management roundup goes through the local operators.

Is the Jacksonville Airbnb Market Oversaturated?

With that many professional operators in the mix, it's fair to ask whether the crowd is thickening, and my answer is that BNBCalc's data can't settle it yet. That's because the one measure that would decide it, the count of active listings, comes out positive on one twelve-month window and negative on another, and a figure that can't hold its sign isn't one I'd build an argument on.

Metric	Year-over-year change
Average nightly rate	+16%
Occupancy	−7% (relative)
Booking lead time	Down about 4%
Purchase price	Roughly flat

BNBCalc data across all listings BNBCalc tracks in the market, for September 2025 to August 2026 set against September 2024 to August 2025, with every change rounded. Occupancy fell by about 7% of its own level, not by seven percentage points. Active listings are left out because their direction flips with the window, and purchase price tracks home values rather than listings.

What I can see is a market charging more and filling less. Nightly rates rose while occupancy fell, and unlike the listing count, both held their direction when the window was recut. That fits a market taking in new competition, and it fits one where hosts pushed prices past what the shoulder months would bear, and I can't separate the two from these figures. Anyone telling you Jacksonville is packed, or that it's wide open, is reading more into the data than it can carry.

So rather than wait, this is what I'd do. Pick six or eight listings that really do match the house you're weighing, on the same stretch of beach or the same side of the river, and watch how full their calendars run. Check again in three months. Real competition shows up in your own comparables long before it shows up in a market-wide average, and unlike that average it tells you something about your street.

The booking window shortened as well, by about 4%, though on an average of roughly 30 days between the reservation and check-in that's a day or so, which I'd note rather than reprice for.

When Is Jacksonville's Peak Airbnb Season?

Watching those comparables through a full year matters because Jacksonville's calendar has two humps rather than one. Keep that in mind before you write a single high-season rule, since one rule can't fit both peaks and the dip between them.

Month	Occupancy	Avg nightly rate
Sep 2025	33%	$224
Oct 2025	36%	$248
Nov 2025	37%	$251
Dec 2025	36%	$257
Jan 2026	38%	$219
Feb 2026	41%	$234
Mar 2026	49%	$302
Apr 2026	48%	$268
May 2026	44%	$276
Jun 2026	46%	$301
Jul 2026	49%	$311
Aug 2026	36%	$250

BNBCalc market data across all listings in the market, one row per month for September 2025 through August 2026. Occupancy and nightly rate are averaged independently, so read each column on its own, and treat two months within a point or so of each other on occupancy as a tie rather than a ranking.

Spring and midsummer are when this market fills, with occupancy in the mid to high forties, and July is the most expensive month on the table at $311 a night, with March and June a shade behind at $302 and $301. Between the two humps sit April and May, when the rate eases to $268 and $276, while January is the cheapest month of all, at $219.

Then comes the autumn drop. September 2025 filled only a third of its nights, at 33%, some 16 points under July, and I don't think that's a fluke of one year. The National Hurricane Center puts the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season at September 10, with most activity between mid-August and mid-October, so the quiet stretch on a northeast Florida calendar arrives on schedule every year. Budget on an average month and you'll flatter the autumn and short-change the spring.

The week has a strong shape too. Across all listings, BNBCalc's current figures put Saturday's occupancy 22% above an ordinary day's and Friday's 21% above, while Monday comes in 17% under and Tuesday 15% under. Rates move far less, peaking about 9% above average on Friday and Saturday. Demand swings more than twice as hard as price does, so if I were pricing a house here, the Friday and Saturday rate is the first thing I'd raise.

Where Should You Buy an Airbnb in Jacksonville?

You can change your pricing after you buy, but not the government your house answers to, so work out which one you'd be buying into before you pick a street.

Jacksonville's own city limits hold a little over half of this market's measurable listings. The rest sit in the beach towns, in northern St. Johns County around Ponte Vedra and in Clay County to the southwest, and on BNBCalc's 2026 medians that's also where the money is. Does that make the edge of the market the automatic buy?

Rank	Place	County	Median annual revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	75th-percentile revenue	Local rental rule
1	Palm Valley	St. Johns	$37,311	$333	32%	$47,198	County registration
2	Jacksonville Beach	Duval	$34,220	$304	32%	$54,833	City certificate
3	Fleming Island	Clay	$32,413	$261	32%	$35,768	None
4	Neptune Beach	Duval	$32,195	$247	36%	$33,712	Banned in residential districts
5	Sawgrass	St. Johns	$31,392	$302	32%	$40,978	County registration
6	Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace	Clay	$30,077	$247	33%	$39,936	None
7	Fruit Cove	St. Johns	$27,102	$264	30%	$42,992	None (west of the Intracoastal)
8	Lakeside	Clay	$25,186	$230	29%	$31,638	None
9	Oakleaf Plantation	Clay	$24,592	$227	33%	$34,389	None
10	Orange Park	Clay	$24,431	$217	29%	$29,240	Town certificate
11	Jacksonville	Duval	$19,847	$182	32%	$28,569	None

BNBCalc 2026 listing data placed inside US Census place boundaries, trailing twelve months, for places with enough measurable listings to rank. Revenue, rate and occupancy are medians, and the 75th-percentile column is the point where a place's strongest quarter of listings begins; each column is worked out separately, so they don't multiply. The smallest places rest on a handful of listings and move between refreshes, so read the top of the list as a range rather than a ranking. The last column shows only the local short-term rental rule as of September 2026, and "None" means I found no local rental ordinance that reaches the place; Florida's vacation rental license and the county's tourist tax apply to every row.

These occupancy figures run lower than the monthly table's because each one is the median listing in a single place, not an average over every listing, which makes them better for setting one town beside the next than for budgeting.

Read down that column and it barely moves. Every place fills somewhere between 29% and 36% of its nights, so what separates a $37,311 median from a $19,847 one isn't demand at all. It's what a night costs, and along the coast that seems to track how close the front door sits to the ocean or the Intracoastal. The Clay County places aren't on the coast, though. Their typical listing has three bedrooms, against two inside Jacksonville's limits, and my guess is that size explains much of their lead over the city.

Palm Valley and Sawgrass both sit at the Ponte Vedra end of St. Johns County, east of the Intracoastal Waterway, and of the two I'd study Sawgrass hardest, since its median listing has one bedroom and still books at $302 a night. What a one-bedroom costs to buy there is the thing I'd check before I believed the yield. Jacksonville Beach posts the highest 75th percentile on the list at $54,833, which says a strong operator there pulls well clear of the middle, and no place on the list except Jacksonville itself is measured on more listings.

Jacksonville itself lands eleventh of eleven, which says less about the city than it seems to. That one row covers roughly 750 square miles of land, from riverfront condos in Riverside to subdivisions with no water in sight, so it's the one row a median can't describe. Inside the city, I'd still narrow the search on the water first. For the street-level version, the best Jacksonville neighborhoods for Airbnb takes the city apart in more detail.

Before any of this decides anything, check which rules the parcel answers to, and Neptune Beach shows why. It ranks fourth on revenue, but its code prohibits short-term rentals in all five of its residential districts, lists them as a permitted use in no district at all, and treats any use it doesn't list as prohibited. The nightly lodging it does allow is a hotel or motel in two of its commercial districts or a bed and breakfast in the town center, and a rental of 28 days or more falls outside its definition. The listings BNBCalc tracks there average stays of a few nights, not a month, so I'd read that row as a record of what's listed, not of what you'd be allowed to open. Atlantic Beach has too few measurable listings to rank at all, and its code tells you why.

Which Amenities Make the Most Money in Jacksonville?

Once the town is settled, a short list of features moves revenue more than anything else in the building.

A pool leads, and it leads by a lot, because BNBCalc's current amenity model ties one to about 24% more revenue for a Jacksonville listing pooled across every size. That lift runs strongest in the middle of the range, at roughly 25% for two bedrooms, 28% at three and 26% at four or more.

One-bedrooms are different, though. At that size the pool's figure is one BNBCalc keeps inside Markets, so I can't set the two side by side, but a hot tub carries an open lift of about 11% there, which I'd guess comes down to who books a one-bedroom: a couple more often than a family. Studios show nothing the model will publish beyond a small lift for a barbecue, so I wouldn't spend much chasing amenities in one. If you're weighing a pool against anything else on a three-bedroom here, take the pool.

Across the market as a whole, the model also picks up nine other features without publishing what they're worth: an EV charger, allowing pets, a barbecue, a TV, internet, bikes, lake access, parking and a sauna. BNBCalc keeps the market-wide percentages for those nine inside Markets, which is why you're getting the names on their own. BNBCalc also keeps a few household basics out of the model, because it reads them as table stakes for any guest rather than a spending decision.

Then there's the cleaning fee, which fewer Jacksonville hosts charge than you'd guess. In September 2026 fewer than 44% of them billed one at all, averaging about $149 among those that did, or roughly $1,790 a year per listing across every host, the ones charging nothing included. I'd treat that fee as money that pays for the clean rather than as margin, whereas a pool changes what guests will pay for the night itself.

Is Airbnb Legal in Jacksonville?

Yes, although whose rules you follow depends on the parcel, and inside the consolidated city I've found fewer conditions attached to it than in almost any Florida market I've looked at. I'll take the state first, because its rules follow you across every county line in that buying table, then the consolidated city, the four towns, and St. Johns and Clay.

Florida Statute 509.032(7)(b) bars a local law from banning vacation rentals outright or setting rules on how long or how often they go out, unless the local government adopted it on or before June 1, 2011. Jacksonville has no short-term rental rule of any vintage, so it can't shut short stays down or impose a minimum, while a few miles east the beach towns enforce rules Jacksonville couldn't adopt today.

By the state's definitions, your unit becomes a vacation rental once you rent a whole house, condo or unit in a one-to-four-family building to guests on more than three occasions in a calendar year for under 30 consecutive days, or hold it out publicly as regularly available on those terms. From then on, Florida Statute 509.241 requires a license from the Division of Hotels and Restaurants, the lodging arm of the state's business regulator, renewed every year. The fee scales with the number of units, but the license doesn't have to multiply with them, since Section 509.251 lets one licensed agent put units at separate addresses on a single license application.

So what does the consolidated city itself ask of you? Less than the internet thinks. The Ordinance Code carries no short-term rental certificate and no rental-specific zoning district, and the Planning Department's zoning FAQ said nothing about short-term rentals when I read it in September 2026. The zoning code does want a certificate of use before premises are put to a new use, although Section 656.151 exempts a single-family residence or duplex. That exemption stops at the duplex, and the same section wants a certificate for each business and each multi-family building, so if you're buying a condo or an apartment inside the city to rent by the night, ask the Planning Department whether your unit needs one before you list it.

You'll also owe two business tax receipts from the Duval County Tax Collector, both renewed each year by September 30. The city's costs $1.88 a room under Section 772.304, and the county's $0.94 a room with a $9.38 minimum under Section 770.303. The city's receipt stops at the four towns, which the charter treats as separate urban services districts, while the county's covers all of Duval.

On the guest's bill, three charges ride on any stay in Duval: the state's 6% sales tax on transient rentals, a 1.5% Duval County discretionary sales surtax, and a 6% tourist development tax the county levies in two pieces under Chapters 666 and 764 of the Ordinance Code. That comes to 13.5% on your nightly rate and cleaning fee anywhere in the county, the four towns included, and BNBCalc's Florida tax guide for short-term rentals goes through the filings.

The county's 6% is the one that trips people up. Airbnb collects the state's 6% and the surtax for you, and the county's own guidance says Vrbo may do the same, so check your channel's tax page before you assume it. Duval's 6% is nobody's job but yours, though: the Duval County Tax Collector's tourist tax guidance says no hosting platform pays it on an owner's behalf, and Duval still doesn't appear on Airbnb's Florida tax page, which I read again in September 2026. So you open a tourist development tax account with the Tax Collector, charge the 6% yourself against everything the guest is billed, cleaning and pet fees included, and file it by the 20th of the month after you collect it. Make sure that account exists before your first guest checks in, and keep in mind that hiring a property manager doesn't move that obligation off you.

And the four towns? Jacksonville Beach holds close to a third of this market's measurable listings, and it permits short-term rentals wherever residential use is allowed, provided you hold its own registration certificate. That certificate costs $150 a property, renews by October 1 each year, and is first issued only after a fire marshal has been through the place. Put that date somewhere you'll see it, since it doesn't line up with anything the state asks of you. The city charges its own business tax receipt of $79.20 a property in place of Jacksonville's, and its code caps occupancy at two people per bedroom plus two, never more than twelve. It also sets off-street parking at one space per four occupants with four cars at most, and wants a named responsible party.

Condominium units, homes under a homeowners association's covenants and owner-occupied homes renting out half or less sit outside that scheme altogether. They don't need the city's certificate and the caps don't apply, although the state license and Duval's taxes still do, and an association's own documents can still forbid short stays.

Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach go the other way, since Atlantic Beach bars renting, leasing, offering or advertising any private home, condos included, for under 90 days, while Neptune Beach defines a short-term rental as one under 28 days, treats it as a commercial use and prohibits it in all five of its residential districts. Baldwin, the fourth town, has too few listings to rank and no short-term rental section in its code of ordinances that I could find. BNBCalc's Duval County guide lays the whole county out town by town.

Everything after the state's rules stops at the Duval line, though, and eight of the eleven places in that buying table sit beyond it. Palm Valley, Sawgrass and Fruit Cove are unincorporated parts of St. Johns County, so the county's land development code applies. It allows short-term rentals in every residential district, but since November 2021 it has required each unit to be registered with the county and renewed every 12 months, with occupancy capped at two guests per bedroom or common area and ten at most, not counting children 12 and under. That registration only reaches unincorporated land east of the Intracoastal Waterway, which takes in Palm Valley and Sawgrass but not Fruit Cove. It also skips a homesteaded home the owner lives in, and any multi-family unit run by an association or with on-site management, which matters in Sawgrass, where the median listing has one bedroom.

The guest's bill in St. Johns comes to 11.5%, made up of the state's 6%, a 0.5% surtax and a 5% county tourist tax. Airbnb doesn't list St. Johns among the counties where it collects that 5%, so plan on filing it yourself with the St. Johns County Tax Collector every month, since the county wants a return even for a month with no tax due.

Clay County has no rental ordinance of its own that I could find for Fleming Island, Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace, Lakeside or Oakleaf Plantation, and the county's own vacation rental page points only to Orange Park and Green Cove Springs for local rules. Its land development code does class a three-plus-unit building that rents for less than a week as a tourist home, motel or hotel, so check the zoning before you buy an apartment there to rent by the night. Orange Park, a town of its own, allows short-term rentals of houses and duplexes in its residential districts on a town certificate, with a $50 application fee and a $50 annual certificate fee, issued after an inspection and renewed by October 1. A Clay guest pays 12.5% in all, made up of the state's 6%, a 1.5% surtax and a 5% county tourist tax, and Airbnb lists Clay among the counties where it collects that county tax for you.

Enforcement inside the consolidated city has a short and unusual history, because Jacksonville long treated a stay of under seven nights as a hotel or motel use and lost that argument in circuit court. A judge threw out the city's case against a host, finding its code in conflict with state law, and ordered it to pay close to $50,000 of his legal costs, as reported in July 2024. That doesn't leave you untouchable, though. A neighbor's complaint still goes to the city's Municipal Code Compliance Division, as that one did, your association can still enforce its own covenants, and the tax rules apply whatever a zoning court decides.

The step-by-step applications, the phone numbers and the full court history sit in the Jacksonville short-term rental regulation guide.

Where Does BNBCalc Get Its Jacksonville Airbnb Data?

Filings and fees are the guide's business, while the market figures I've used all come from BNBCalc Markets, where the research is done on whole markets rather than on one house at a time. In the US it ranks markets by gross yield, the same bookings-against-purchase-price measure that barely moved with bedroom count here, and that's the ranking I'd check before settling on this coast over another.

How Do You Estimate Airbnb Revenue for a Jacksonville Property?

Each of those market figures describes thousands of houses at once, so what carries you the rest of the way, down to the one in front of you?

Open the Jacksonville market page to watch its revenue, its occupancy and its seasonal curve refresh on their own, and if you're not fixed on this coast, Florida's gross yield ranking sets it beside the rest of the state. When there's an actual address, give BNBCalc the price you'd pay, the financing you'd use and the bills you'd carry, then trust what comes back over any market average.

Hold that number up against four Jacksonville realities. Which government the parcel sits in comes first, because a Neptune Beach house in a residential district can only take stays of 28 days or more, and an Atlantic Beach home stays of 90 days or more. Then add the right tax to what the guest pays: 13.5% in Duval, where you file the county's 6% yourself, 11.5% in St. Johns, where you file the county's 5% yourself, and 12.5% in Clay, where Airbnb collects the county's share on its own bookings. After that, price the autumn honestly, since September filled only a third of its nights at $224. And don't count on another jump in nightly rates like last year's, because it came alongside a slide in occupancy and I wouldn't plan on a repeat.

Wherever one market spans several governments, its averages blend places that never shared a rulebook, so the first thing I ask of any city's numbers is which of its addresses would let me in at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Average Airbnb Income in Jacksonville?

The median listing inside Jacksonville's city limits took in $19,847 over the trailing twelve months BNBCalc measured for 2026, against $24,710 across the whole market and $34,220 at Jacksonville Beach. One listing in four across the market took $37,694 or more. By size, the market's medians run from $15,535 for a one-bedroom to $28,480 for a three-bedroom and $46,698 for four bedrooms or more. BNBCalc's market page reports averages, which run higher than these medians.

Is Airbnb Still Profitable in Jacksonville in 2026?

It can be, though the market moved in two directions at once over the year. Market-wide, nightly rates rose about 16%, occupancy fell about 7% in relative terms, and purchase prices held roughly level. Whether one house works depends on the price you pay, the bills it carries and the town it stands in, because the median at Jacksonville Beach sits well clear of the median inside Jacksonville's own limits.

What Is the Best Month for Airbnb in Jacksonville?

July 2026 was the priciest month of the twelve across all listings, averaging $311 a night. March and June sit just behind on rate, at $302 and $301, with April at $268. Occupancy runs in the mid to high forties across spring and midsummer, close enough between those months to read as a tie. September 2025 filled just 33% of its nights at $224, 16 points under July, which lines up with the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. Friday and Saturday carry the week.

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

You need a state one everywhere in this market. Once a whole unit is rented to guests on more than three occasions in a calendar year, each time for less than 30 days, it needs a vacation rental license from the Division of Hotels and Restaurants. The consolidated City of Jacksonville adds no short-term rental certificate, and its zoning code exempts a single-family residence or duplex from the certificate of use, though a condo or apartment may need one. Jacksonville Beach requires its own $150 registration certificate, renewed by October 1. St. Johns County requires registration east of the Intracoastal Waterway, and Orange Park requires its own town certificate. Inside the consolidated city you'll also need city and county business tax receipts from the Duval County Tax Collector.

How Much Is the Airbnb Tax in Jacksonville?

A guest booking a short-term stay anywhere in Duval County, the beach towns included, pays 13.5% on top of the booking: 6% state sales tax on transient rentals, a 1.5% Duval discretionary sales surtax, and Duval's 6% tourist development tax. Airbnb remits the first two to the Florida Department of Revenue, and the county's guidance says Vrbo may. No platform pays Duval's 6%, so the owner registers with the Duval County Tax Collector and files it by the 20th of the month after collecting it. The total is 11.5% in St. Johns County and 12.5% in Clay County.

Can You Run an Airbnb at Jacksonville Beach or Atlantic Beach?

They're separate city governments inside Duval County, and they give different answers. Jacksonville Beach allows short-term rentals where residential use is allowed, on a registration certificate that costs $150 a property, renews by October 1 and needs a fire marshal inspection before it's first issued. Condo units, homes under homeowners association covenants and owner-occupied homes renting out half or less don't need that certificate. Atlantic Beach bars renting or advertising any private home, condos included, for under 90 days. Neptune Beach prohibits short-term rentals in all of its residential districts. Baldwin's code of ordinances has no short-term rental section.

Which Part of the Jacksonville Market Pays Best?

The places at its edges. Palm Valley in St. Johns County posts the highest median annual revenue at $37,311, followed by Jacksonville Beach at $34,220 and Fleming Island in Clay County at $32,413, while the area inside Jacksonville's own city limits shows $19,847. Median occupancy barely differs between them, running from 29% to 36%, so the gap is almost entirely nightly rate. Those medians are 2026 figures, built by placing BNBCalc listing data inside US Census place boundaries, and the smaller places move between refreshes.

Do Airbnb Hosts in Jacksonville Have to Live in the Property?

Not inside the consolidated City of Jacksonville, which attaches no residency condition to a vacation rental, so an owner who lives elsewhere can license and run one there. Elsewhere in the market, living in the home only matters as an exemption. Jacksonville Beach leaves owner-occupied homes renting out half or less outside its certificate, and St. Johns County leaves a homesteaded home the owner lives in outside its registration. In Neptune Beach's residential districts and in Atlantic Beach, living there doesn't open the door to short stays at all. Homeowner and condominium association documents can restrict rentals where a city does not.