San Antonio, Texas Airbnb Market Data 2026

What does a San Antonio Airbnb bring in, and will the city even license one in a house you're never going to sleep in? Well, the median San Antonio listing earned $24,781 over the trailing twelve months of BNBCalc's September 2026 data, and yes, San Antonio will license a rental nobody lives in, although it rations them street by street.

The city issues two kinds of short-term rental permit: Type 1, where the owner or an operator actually lives on the property, and Type 2, where nobody does. Type 2 is the one out-of-town buyers usually want, and it's also most of what the city has handed out, about three in four of its active permits in its 2025 fiscal year. What San Antonio caps is how many can sit together, because in residential zoning districts no more than one-eighth of the single-family, duplex, triplex and quadraplex units on a block face can hold a Type 2 permit, although at least one is always allowed. So whether you can license the house you're looking at depends partly on who got there first along that side of that street.

The market BNBCalc tracks under the name San Antonio also runs well past the city, beyond Bexar County up into Comal and Guadalupe and out to Kendall and Medina, while the ordinance stops at the city limits. About two in five of the market's listings sit outside them, where the rules belong to whichever town or county the address falls in.

How Much Do San Antonio Airbnbs Earn in 2026?

That $24,781 is the median across every listing BNBCalc tracks in the market, and the median inside the city limits barely shifts off it, at $24,682. The middle half of the market ran from about $17,600 to $34,500 over those twelve months.

Bigger homes earn more here, of course, but they also cost more to buy. That's what gross yield measures, a year's revenue set against the property's price, and it barely moves with size. From one bedroom through four-plus, the yields finish less than three points apart, with two-bedrooms narrowly in front, while a studio returns under half what a two-bedroom does. Unless you're weighing a studio, then, I wouldn't let bedroom count decide this purchase on its own.

Location and management are the levers I'd pull instead, and you'll be pulling them against people for whom this is the whole business, since a large share of San Antonio's listings sit with professional hosts. If handing over turnovers and guest messages sounds better than doing it yourself, the San Antonio property management roundup covers the companies working this market.

The gap between an ordinary listing and a strong one is wide, too, since the best tenth of listings here cleared about $51,900, a little over twice the median. Aim for that tier by all means, but I'd never put its figure in front of a lender.

Is the San Antonio Airbnb Market Oversaturated?

How long that gap stays open depends partly on how many new hosts crowd in, and this year I can only answer half of that question.

Metric	Window	Change on a year earlier
Average nightly rate	Jan to Aug 2026	+16%
Booking lead time	Jan to Aug 2026	+9%
Active supply	Jan to Aug 2026	Roughly flat
Purchase price	Sep 2025 to Aug 2026	−1%

BNBCalc data across every listing it tracks in the San Antonio market, with each change rounded to a whole percent. The first three rows compare January through August 2026 with the same months of 2025, eight months rather than twelve, because this market's stored history changes definition at the start of 2025 and an earlier baseline would set two different measurements against each other. Purchase price is the exception: it's a full twelve months, September 2025 to August 2026 against the twelve before, from a separate home-price series that change doesn't touch. Occupancy is left out on purpose, since its direction flips depending on which stretch of 2026 you measure, and active supply reads as roughly flat because it moved less than 2% either way. Each measure carries its own average, so one row won't multiply into another.

So, oversaturated? Not on the listing count, which barely moved, but I can't close the question this year, and I'd rather admit that than invent a verdict. Crowding shows up as more listings chasing the same guests while each one books fewer of its nights, and I can only read the first half of that. The occupancy half is the one that would settle it, and unfortunately that's the row the table has to leave out.

What did move is price. Nightly rates came in about 16% higher than across the same eight months of 2025, which is a lot of ground to cover in a year, and my guess is that a run like that stops instead of repeating. Purchase prices, meanwhile, slipped about 1% in the year to August 2026, so for now a buyer isn't paying more to get at those stronger rates.

Guests also booked a little further out, about 30 days before check-in on average across those eight months, which is roughly 9% earlier than a year before. In days, that's under three, so it's a nudge in how people plan, not a new booking pattern.

Since the market-wide read isn't settled, make sure you do the narrow version yourself. Pull up a handful of listings in the same area at the same bedroom count, look at how full their calendars actually run, and come back to that same set every few months. If those calendars thin out while new listings keep appearing on the street, you'll have your answer well before any yearly figure hands it to you.

When Is San Antonio's Peak Airbnb Season?

I'd throw the annual average out for this one, because the year has a shape it hides completely.

Month	Occupancy	Avg nightly rate
Sep 2025	27%	$213
Oct 2025	33%	$221
Nov 2025	31%	$231
Dec 2025	32%	$244
Jan 2026	27%	$199
Feb 2026	30%	$211
Mar 2026	40%	$259
Apr 2026	37%	$240
May 2026	37%	$261
Jun 2026	44%	$308
Jul 2026	50%	$327
Aug 2026	35%	$268

BNBCalc market data across every listing in the market, one row per month from September 2025 through August 2026. Occupancy and nightly rate are each averaged on their own, so read the two columns separately.

San Antonio's peak is short and steep, and it lands in June and July. July is the top month on both counts, filling 50% of its nights at $327, while June is the other half of the peak on price, at $308, about 15% above any month outside those two. On occupancy, though, June's 44% sits only four points above March's 40%, and a gap that narrow between a spring month and a summer one is too small in this data for me to call June the busier of the two.

January is the other end of it, the cheapest month to book at $199, and with 27% of its nights filled it's tied with September for the emptiest in the year. None of the six months from September through February fills even a third of its nights, and every one of them comes in under the year's average nightly rate as well. So if you budget on a yearly average, you'll run short for six months straight and only catch up through the spring and summer, most of all in June and July. Keep that in mind before you sign anything with a monthly payment on it.

The spring is where San Antonio stops behaving like a plain summer market. March fills 40% of its nights at $259, well clear of every winter month on both counts. That gives you a second, smaller season to price for. December, meanwhile, is the odd one out in the cold months, holding $244 a night, the best rate of any month from September through February, on under a third of its nights.

The week splits about as sharply as the year does. Against an ordinary day, BNBCalc's figures across all listings put Saturday 37% higher on occupancy and Friday 32% higher, with Monday down 26% and Tuesday down 20%, while rates lean the same way without moving nearly as far, topping out about 21% above average on Saturday. If I were setting prices here and my weekends were selling out early, that gap is the first thing I'd widen.

Where Should You Buy an Airbnb in San Antonio?

The block-face quota only reaches the three in five listings inside San Antonio's city limits, so work out which side of that line you're shopping on before any street makes your shortlist. The rest of the market is scattered through the Hill Country and the river towns, where the rules belong to somebody else.

The city line is also why the numbers come in two tables, one for the city's own planning areas and one for the towns and county stretches beyond them. The two use different kinds of boundary, so treat a row in one as a rough guide to a row in the other, not a straight match.

Inside the City of San Antonio

San Antonio divides every acre it governs into 30 planning sub-areas, which makes them a clean way to cut the city up. Of the 26 with enough listings to measure, these fifteen post the highest median annual revenue.

Rank	Area	Median annual revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	75th-percentile revenue
1	Far North	$31,306	$276	34%	$62,101
2	Northeast	$31,143	$299	29%	$50,898
3	Greater Airport Area	$30,382	$266	32%	$47,243
4	Stone Oak	$29,398	$280	31%	$37,364
5	UTSA	$28,705	$294	28%	$36,864
6	Port San Antonio	$27,704	$222	34%	$32,922
7	Downtown	$27,573	$220	37%	$39,737
8	Far West	$26,992	$224	33%	$37,033
9	Northwest	$26,210	$238	29%	$39,466
10	West Northwest	$25,767	$226	31%	$35,117
11	Highway 151 and Loop 1604	$24,837	$228	32%	$33,962
12	Rolling Oaks	$24,601	$212	27%	$30,594
13	Midtown	$24,370	$225	32%	$41,158
14	Eastside	$22,799	$180	36%	$29,722
15	Near Northeast	$22,521	$203	31%	$35,564

BNBCalc 2026 listing data inside the City of San Antonio's 30 adopted sub-area plan boundaries, over the trailing twelve months. Revenue, nightly rate and occupancy are all medians, while the last column is the 75th percentile, the point where an area's top quarter of listings starts. Each column is worked out on its own, so they don't multiply together, and areas with too little data to measure reliably are left out.

Careful with that occupancy column, though. What it shows is the occupancy of each area's middle listing, which runs a few points below the monthly figures for the market as a whole, because an average gets pulled up by the busiest few listings, and a median doesn't move for them.

Four of the top five sit out toward the city's northern edge, with the Greater Airport Area the exception, and you'll want to know why before you act on the order. Largely, it's bedroom count: the typical listing in each of those five has three or four bedrooms, against two downtown. Far North's top quarter opens at $62,101, about double its own median, which is what a mix of big and small houses looks like.

So what happens when you hold bedroom count still? I ran the same listings again counting only three-bedroom homes, and the outer edge's lead disappears. Thirteen of the fourteen areas with enough three-bedrooms to measure land between $22,847 and $30,221, close enough that most of their order is noise, and the five that top the full table sit inside that pack. Downtown is the one that pulls away, at a $42,832 median.

Before you read that as what a downtown house earns, look at who's running those listings. About a third of Downtown's three-bedrooms belong to branded suite operators, and those earn roughly twice what the rest do. Take them out and Downtown's three-bedroom median drops to about $37,600, which still leaves it about a quarter above any other area. The one exception is Highway 151 and Loop 1604, the area with the fewest three-bedrooms to measure, where that margin sits inside the noise. So treat the $42,832 as a ceiling, not an expectation.

Even then, bedroom count is the only thing I've held still. Floor area, whether it's a house or a condo, a pool, the condition of the place and, above all, what it costs to buy all differ between a downtown three-bedroom and one in Far North, and none of that shows up in a revenue median. The outer edge wins on house size, then, while bedroom for bedroom Downtown earns more, before you've looked at what that house costs.

Downtown is the row I'd study hardest as a result. It's the part of the city that takes in the Alamo, Market Square, the King William district and the Blue Star complex in Southtown, and it comes seventh across all sizes but first on occupancy, filling 37% of its nights on a typical listing of two bedrooms. It also has the largest sample in the city, so its numbers will drift the least between refreshes. Those branded suites also make up about a third of all its listings, and they're part of why it tops the occupancy column: without them, its median occupancy drops to 33%, and it's no longer the busiest area on the table.

Midtown is the one for anyone who thinks they'll operate better than average. Its median sits near the bottom of the table, at $24,370, and yet the top quarter of its listings opens at $41,158, a wider gap than any other area outside the top five shows. Some of that is size, as it is in Far North, but not all of it. Hold both areas to three bedrooms and Far North's top quarter opens only about 24% above its median, while Midtown's still opens about 35% above. That area covers the Pearl and the St. Mary's Strip, and something besides size is separating its best listings from its middle ones, whether that's the street, the house or the way it's run.

At the other end, the Eastside carries the table's cheapest nightly rate, $180, while filling 36% of its nights, the second-best occupancy on the list. Cheap and busy is a perfectly good business, although I'd call it a volume business, and you'll feel every single turnover.

Two rows in that table, Rolling Oaks and Highway 151 and Loop 1604, rest on the thinnest samples in the city, so they'll move around between refreshes more than the rest will. And none of the fifteen answers the question that actually decides a Type 2 purchase, which is whether the block face you're buying on still has room under the quota. That's an address-by-address check with Development Services, not a neighborhood one.

What no table gives you is the feel of these places at street level, which is what the best San Antonio neighborhoods for Airbnb is for.

Beyond the City Limits

Past the city line, the money improves in places, though not where you'd guess. Apart from one single-site resort cluster, these are the seven places outside San Antonio with the most listings, ranked here by median annual revenue.

Rank by revenue	City or area	Median annual revenue	Median nightly rate	Median occupancy	75th-percentile revenue
1	Canyon Lake	$48,753	$491	28%	$59,177
2	Lake Dunlap	$35,182	$354	28%	$56,808
3	Boerne	$25,464	$244	31%	$32,059
4	Converse	$24,710	$214	32%	$29,895
5	New Braunfels	$24,155	$276	26%	$31,615
6	Schertz	$22,821	$197	31%	$29,077
7	Seguin	$22,296	$245	28%	$36,157

BNBCalc 2026 listing data inside US Census place boundaries, over the trailing twelve months, for the seven places outside San Antonio with the most listings, ranked by median annual revenue. These columns are medians except the 75th percentile, each calculated separately, and occupancy is the middle listing's own, as in the city table. One cluster of studio and one-bedroom units built on a single site in Guadalupe County is left out, because it describes a resort rather than anywhere you could buy into. Lake Dunlap rests on the thinnest sample in the table.

Water explains the top of that table, since Canyon Lake and Lake Dunlap both sit on the Guadalupe River system northeast of the city, and their median nightly rates run well above any area's inside San Antonio. Neither sample is deep, Lake Dunlap's least of all, so take those two rows as a direction and not a number you can underwrite.

New Braunfels is the one to understand properly, because it holds more listings than anywhere else outside San Antonio while its rulebook looks nothing like the city's. It doesn't allow short-term rentals in any residential zoning district. Outside those, three commercial districts allow them without a special use permit and the rest need one, and the fire marshal inspects each one for life safety every year. So a $24,155 median tells me very little until you've checked the zoning on the lot, because in a residential district the answer is no.

That's why I'd settle the jurisdiction first. The Texas Municipal League puts the state's position plainly: no Texas statute either stops a city from regulating these rentals or expressly lets it, which is why every town writes its own rules. For any address beyond San Antonio, start with BNBCalc's Texas short-term rental guide.

Which Amenities Make the Most Money in San Antonio?

Once the address is settled, what goes inside it?

BNBCalc's current amenity model ties a pool to about 22% more revenue for a San Antonio listing, and it's the one amenity whose figure the market page shows publicly. In a South Texas summer, that's about the least surprising number you'll see. If the place already has one, make sure it turns up in the opening photographs instead of halfway down the set, because that's where the decision gets made.

Nine other features carry enough of a signal for the model to track here, although the public page doesn't show their San Antonio figures: a hot tub, lake access, an EV charger, a gym, internet, a TV, a sauna, a barbecue and bikes. The model also leaves out a few basics on purpose, on the view that guests assume them and don't book because of them.

Size changes the answer more than that all-sizes figure suggests, because once you ask the model about each bedroom count separately, one-bedrooms answer strongest to an EV charger, two-bedrooms to a gym, three-bedrooms to a pool, and four-plus-bedroom homes to a hot tub.

My read is that the pattern follows who rents what. A couple in a small unit is choosing on convenience, whereas a group that's taken a whole house wants somewhere to sit outside once it cools down.

The cleaning fee is the one charge on a guest's bill that barely reaches your margin. Where a San Antonio host charges one, it averages about $130 a stay, and averaged over every listing, the no-fee ones included, cleaning brings in roughly $1,795 a year per listing. The two figures won't multiply into each other, since not every listing charges a fee, and nearly all of that money leaves again once the cleaner's been paid.

Is Airbnb Legal in San Antonio?

Yes, with a permit, and for an investor that permit is most of the story.

As the code reads in September 2026, a short-term rental means any home, apartment, condo or accessory dwelling whose sleeping areas are rented for under 30 consecutive days, and for at least 12 hours, and none of them may operate inside San Antonio without a current permit from the Development Services Department. From there the code splits them in two, depending on who sleeps in the place the rest of the time. Type 1 covers the case where the owner, or an operator on a valid lease, keeps their legal residence at that same property, shown by a homestead exemption, voter registration or similar proof. Everything else is a Type 2, which is what most people picture when they say they want to buy an Airbnb.

Type 1 carries no density limit. In residential zoning districts, though, Type 2 is capped at one-eighth, or 12.5%, of the single-family, duplex, triplex and quadraplex units on a block face, which the code defines as one side of a street between intersections. At least one Type 2 permit is allowed on every block face regardless, however that arithmetic falls, and bed and breakfasts already operating count toward the same total.

Buildings of five or more units run on their own scale instead: five to seven units get one Type 2 rental between them, and eight or more get 12.5% of the units. Don't assume a corner lot buys you two chances either, because a property can't claim multiple block faces, and the street your unit is addressed on decides which one you're on.

If the block face is full, the way through is a special exception from the Board of Adjustment, at $400 with a homestead exemption and $600 without one. Go in with your eyes open. Through the city's 2025 fiscal year, the Board had heard 87 of those cases under the rules adopted in 2018, and approved about a quarter of them.

Zoning is usually the quick part, since short-term rentals are allowed in every residential zoning district, and in other districts where there's already an established residential use, except C-3, L, I-1 and I-2.

Your HOA is a separate problem. The city says plainly that it doesn't enforce covenants and deed restrictions, so a subdivision can ban what the city would happily permit, and Texas courts have upheld deed restrictions doing exactly that.

The permit's cheap next to a closing: $300 for Type 1 and $450 for Type 2, then the same again at renewal. It runs three years, covers one unit, and can't be transferred to another owner, operator or address, so a duplex needs two of them. The listing has to carry your permit number, and platforms have to insist on one. If the city tells a platform that a listing's number is missing, invalid, expired or revoked, the platform has 10 business days to take it down.

Lodging taxes get added to the guest's bill, so your nightly rate stays whole, although filing them is your job. A San Antonio booking carries 16.75% on top: 9% to the city, which is a 7% general occupancy tax plus 2% for the convention center expansion, 1.75% for Bexar County, and 6% to the State of Texas. Airbnb and Vrbo were already paying the state's share, and since March 10, 2025, they've paid the city's directly too. The county's 1.75% is still yours to report and pay to the City of San Antonio, which collects it for Bexar County, and you file a return with the city every month, even when you owe nothing. How the state administers its own slice is covered in the Texas lodging tax guide for hosts. The county share follows you past the city line, too, because a rental anywhere in Bexar County reports and pays it to the City of San Antonio, whether it sits inside the city or not.

The city's published enforcement path starts with a complaint, and it bites in stages. A report through 311 goes to Code Enforcement, which sends an inspector out within three days, and where there's a violation the city issues a 14-day notice, then asks the platform to pull the listing if a reinspection finds the same problem still sitting there. Breaking the terms of a permit costs between $200 and $500 per occurrence, and every day a violation continues counts as its own offense, which is how a slow fix turns expensive. Running a rental with no permit at all is an offense in its own right, a Class C misdemeanor that doesn't need any proof you meant to break the rule, and every day a guest occupies the unit counts separately, at up to $500 a day. Three confirmed citations at one property inside a rolling three-year window revoke a permit, and so does letting an unpaid tax bill sit 90 days past a delinquency notice. Lose the permit and, unfortunately, you can't reapply at that address for 12 months.

For the application itself, the documents behind it, the tax accounts and who to call, see the San Antonio short-term rental regulation guide.

Where Does BNBCalc Get Its San Antonio Airbnb Data?

Permits and filing dates belong to that guide, while the market figures I've quoted all trace back to BNBCalc Markets, BNBCalc's tool for reading a whole market instead of costing out one address. It also ranks a market's ZIP codes on gross yield at each bedroom count, setting a year's earnings beside what property costs there, and San Antonio has that ranking. Once you know you're shopping inside the city limits, I'd use it to narrow the ZIP codes first, then check each address's block face before you model it.

How Do You Estimate Airbnb Revenue for a San Antonio Property?

Every market figure here, median or average, describes a crowd of homes at once. How, then, do you get down to the single address you're weighing?

Start at the San Antonio market page for revenue, occupancy and the seasonal shape as they stand today. Then, if San Antonio is still competing with other Texas cities on your shortlist, the Texas rankings by gross yield line the whole state up, San Antonio included. Once you've got an actual address inside the city, check its block face with Development Services before anything else, because a Type 2 permit you can't get makes the rest of the arithmetic academic. After that, put the purchase price, the loan and the operating costs into BNBCalc.

Then I'd hold that answer against three San Antonio facts before believing it. The winter comes first, since January fills 27% of its nights at $199 and a yearly average will flatter September through February badly. Price with the 16.75% in mind as well, because the guest sees it added to both the nightly rate and the cleaning fee. And don't count on another 16% year for nightly rates, since I wouldn't expect a jump that size to repeat.

The numbers in any market only describe the hosts a city already let in, so wherever you buy, the first figure worth finding isn't a revenue number. Inside San Antonio it's how many Type 2 permits already sit on that block face, which is a question for Development Services, and outside it, it's whatever that town's own code says about renting by the night.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Average Airbnb Income in San Antonio?

The median listing here took $24,781 over the trailing twelve months in BNBCalc's September 2026 data, and the median inside the city limits was $24,682. The middle half of listings earned between about $17,600 and $34,500.

Is Airbnb Still Profitable in San Antonio in 2026?

The market-wide data can't settle that this year. Set January through August 2026 against the same months of 2025 and nightly rates are up about 16% while the listing count hardly moved, and purchase prices eased about 1% across the year to August 2026. Occupancy is the missing piece, because it points in opposite directions depending on which part of 2026 you measure. Profit on one specific home still comes down to its price, its running costs, and whether its block face has room for a Type 2 permit.

What Is the Best Month for Airbnb in San Antonio?

July led every other month on both counts across all listings, filling 50% of its nights, at $327 a night on average, and June was the other peak on price, at $308. January was the weakest on both counts, at 27% occupancy and a $199 average rate, tied with September on occupancy. Across the week, Friday and Saturday run well ahead of every other night.

Do You Need a Permit to Run an Airbnb in San Antonio?

Yes. Inside the city limits, anything rented for under 30 consecutive days needs a permit, which Development Services issues at $300 for a Type 1 and $450 for a Type 2. A permit lasts three years, covers one unit, and can't be transferred to another owner, operator or address. The permit number has to appear in the listing, and platforms must require one.

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

Yes, as a Type 2 rental, subject to a density limit. In residential zoning districts, Type 2 permits are capped at 12.5% of the single-family, duplex, triplex and quadraplex units on a block face, with at least one always allowed per block face. Buildings of five to seven units get one, and larger buildings get 12.5% of their units. Past that cap you need a Board of Adjustment special exception, which costs $400 with a homestead exemption and $600 without, and about a quarter of the cases heard through the city's 2025 fiscal year were approved.

Which San Antonio Area Is Best for Short-Term Rentals?

It depends on the home. Across all sizes, Far North, Northeast, the Greater Airport Area, Stone Oak and UTSA hold the five highest median revenues, between $28,705 and $31,306, mostly on three- and four-bedroom houses. Among three-bedroom listings only, Downtown is the one area that pulls clear, at a $42,832 median, although about a third of those belong to branded suite operators earning roughly twice what the rest do, and without them Downtown's three-bedroom median is about $37,600. The other measurable areas land between $22,847 and $30,221 at three bedrooms, too close together to rank reliably. These are medians from BNBCalc's 2026 listing data inside the city's adopted sub-area plan boundaries.

How Much Is the Airbnb Tax in San Antonio?

Guests pay 16.75% on top of a San Antonio booking: 9% to the city, made up of a 7% general occupancy tax and 2% for the convention center expansion, 1.75% for Bexar County, and 6% to the State of Texas. Airbnb and Vrbo have paid the city's share directly since March 10, 2025, but hosts still file a monthly return with the city, even at zero, and still owe the county's 1.75% themselves.

What Happens if You Run an Airbnb in San Antonio Without a Permit?

Operating without a valid permit is an offense under the city code, a Class C misdemeanor that doesn't require proof of intent, and each day a unit is occupied in violation counts as a separate offense, with fines of up to $500 a day. The city can also tell the platform that the listing lacks a valid permit number, and the platform then has 10 business days to take it down. Complaints go through 311 to Code Enforcement, which inspects within three days.