Can you still make money with Airbnb in Warsaw?

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Is Airbnb in Warsaw still making good money?

Yes. Warsaw Airbnb is currently having a strong operating year, with occupancy and revenue per available night improving much faster than nightly prices.

AirDNA’s latest Warsaw data covers 10,957 active short-term rentals. The average listing earns about $19,000 a year, occupancy sits around 65%, the average daily rate is roughly $87, and RevPAR is about $56.

Occupancy is the key figure here. It has risen roughly 14% year on year while the average daily rate has increased by only about 3%. RevPAR is up close to 20%. Hosts are therefore making more money mainly because they are filling more available nights rather than pushing prices much higher.

AirDNA also reports 27% fewer active listings than a year earlier. We should be careful about reading too much into that number because properties can disappear from the active-listing count for several reasons. Still, stronger occupancy combined with fewer available listings is a good environment for hosts currently operating in Warsaw.

The reported 105% jump in average annual revenue deserves more caution. That increase is far larger than the movement in occupancy and nightly rates, so changes in listing availability and the mix of properties being measured are probably influencing it. The 65% occupancy and 20% RevPAR growth tell us much more about the underlying market.

Warsaw short-term rental metric	Current level	Year-on-year change	What we take from it
Active listings	10,957	-27%	Less visible supply
Occupancy	65%	+14%	Available nights are selling much better
Average daily rate	~$87	+3%	Price growth is modest
RevPAR	~$56	+20%	Revenue performance has clearly improved
Average annual revenue	~$19,000	+105% reported	Strong figure, but treat the growth rate cautiously

Are enough people visiting Warsaw to support Airbnb demand?

Yes. Warsaw is currently attracting enough additional visitors to explain why short-term rental occupancy has been improving.

According to the Warsaw Statistical Office, registered tourist accommodation received 5.50 million guests in 2025 and recorded 8.73 million overnight stays. Both numbers were 8.8% higher than a year earlier.

The growth also followed a strong 2024. Overnight stays increased from roughly 7.46 million in 2023 to 8.02 million in 2024 and then 8.73 million in 2025. That works out to about 17% growth in only two years.

Air traffic points in the same direction. Warsaw Chopin Airport handled 24.1 million passengers in 2025, a record and around 13% more than in 2024. Poland’s Civil Aviation Authority also ranked Chopin as the country’s largest airport for scheduled passenger traffic.

Warsaw has another useful advantage for Airbnb owners: demand is relatively steady throughout the year. AirDNA gives the city a seasonality score of 83 out of 100. Warsaw receives leisure tourists, business travellers, conference visitors and domestic travellers, so hosts are less dependent on one short summer season than owners in a resort market.

The recent Airbnb improvement therefore has real demand behind it. Warsaw has been bringing in more visitors for several consecutive years, and those visitors are spread across a fairly broad range of travel reasons.

Warsaw visitor indicator	2023	2024	2025	Change
Registered overnight stays	~7.46m	8.02m	8.73m	~+17% in two years
Registered tourist guests	—	5.06m	5.50m	+8.8% in 2025
Tourist accommodation occupancy	—	53.4%	54.4%	+1.0 pp
Chopin Airport passengers	—	~21.3m	24.1m	+13% in 2025

Does Airbnb still earn more than long-term renting in Warsaw?

Yes, Airbnb currently produces considerably more gross revenue than conventional renting in Warsaw, although much of that advantage disappears once we include the extra work and costs.

AirDNA puts average annual short-term rental revenue at around $19,000. At recent exchange rates, that is roughly PLN 70,000.

The latest Znajdź Najem report, based on more than 33,000 Warsaw rental listings, puts average conventional rent at PLN 3,671 a month and the median at PLN 3,200. The average works out to roughly PLN 44,000 a year.

On that broad comparison, short-term renting generates around 60% more gross revenue.

The owner does not keep anything close to a 60% profit premium. Airbnb owners generally cover utilities, internet, linen, consumables, furnishing wear, frequent cleaning and platform-related costs. A long-term tenant usually absorbs much more of the day-to-day running cost.

The difference becomes especially important for investors who outsource the operation. Warsaw property managers commonly quote total short-term management and operating burdens that can reach roughly 25–35% of booking revenue, depending on what the contract includes.

Take PLN 70,000 of annual Airbnb revenue. Removing 25% leaves PLN 52,500. Removing 35% leaves PLN 45,500. Those figures come before income tax, financing and some ownership costs.

A hands-on host can still capture a useful premium. A passive owner paying a management company may end up surprisingly close to long-term rental economics.

Broad Warsaw comparison	Airbnb / short-term	Long-term
Approx. gross annual revenue	~PLN 70,000	~PLN 44,000
Approx. monthly equivalent	~PLN 5,830	PLN 3,671
Owner usually pays utilities	Yes	Often largely passed to tenant
Turnover and cleaning costs	High	Low
Management intensity	High	Low
Income stability	Lower	Higher

How expensive does a Warsaw apartment need to be before Airbnb stops making sense?

Purchase price can kill a Warsaw Airbnb deal surprisingly quickly because central apartments now cost enough to absorb much of the short-term rental premium.

Gratka’s latest asking-price data puts the Warsaw median at PLN 17,150 per square metre and the median apartment price at PLN 850,000. Prices have barely moved lately, but they remain very high relative to rental income.

The areas that naturally attract Airbnb investors cost considerably more. Śródmieście sits around PLN 23,500/m² and Wola around PLN 22,200/m². Mokotów is close to PLN 20,000/m². Białołęka, by comparison, is around PLN 14,200/m².

A hypothetical 35 m² apartment at the citywide median costs about PLN 600,000 before transaction costs and furnishing. At the Śródmieście median, the same floor area costs roughly PLN 823,000.

That is a PLN 223,000 difference for 35 m².

The central apartment clearly has stronger tourist appeal, but it does not automatically generate 37% more annual Airbnb income to match its 37% higher purchase cost. An investor can therefore achieve great occupancy in Śródmieście and still get an ordinary return on the money invested.

This is where Warsaw Airbnb has become harder. Location remains extremely important, but paying any price for a prime postcode no longer works.

Illustrative 35 m² apartment	Asking price per m²	Approx. purchase price	Premium to Warsaw median
Białołęka	PLN 14,200	PLN 497,000	-17%
Warsaw median	PLN 17,150	PLN 600,250	—
Mokotów	PLN 19,985	PLN 699,475	+17%
Wola	PLN 22,200	PLN 777,000	+29%
Śródmieście	PLN 23,500	PLN 822,500	+37%

Is Śródmieście really the best place to buy an Airbnb in Warsaw?

No. Śródmieście is one of the easiest places to attract Warsaw visitors, but its high apartment prices make it much less obvious as the best investment.

Guests naturally value the centre. They get easier access to restaurants, nightlife, cultural attractions, offices and major transport connections. A central apartment can usually command better nightly rates and should be easier to keep occupied.

Investors have to pay heavily for those advantages. Śródmieście currently costs around PLN 23,500/m², compared with roughly PLN 17,150 across Warsaw.

That roughly 37% acquisition premium sets a high bar. If a nearby neighbourhood gives up 10% in nightly revenue but costs 20–25% less to buy, the cheaper property can produce a better return.

Warsaw’s metro and tram system makes this trade-off especially interesting. Guests do not need to sleep beside the Old Town to reach central Warsaw quickly.

We care more about the relationship between purchase price and achievable guest revenue than the prestige of the district itself. Wola, parts of Mokotów, Praga close to the centre and well-connected locations around major transport nodes can make more sense when the entry price is right.

How much occupancy does a Warsaw Airbnb need to make money?

A decent Warsaw Airbnb should still work below today’s 65% market occupancy; if the numbers only look good at 65% or more, the investment is too fragile.

At an average daily rate around $87, a property occupied 65% of available nights sells roughly 237 nights a year. At 55%, that falls to about 201 nights. At 45%, it is only 164.

A drop from 65% to 55% reduces booked nights and theoretical accommodation revenue by about 15%. Falling to 45% cuts them by roughly 31%.

Many costs do not fall by 31%. Building charges, internet, insurance, mortgage payments and furnishing depreciation keep running. Cleaning falls with fewer bookings, but the fixed part of the cost base remains.

Meanwhile, long-term rent gives the owner a useful alternative. The latest Warsaw market data puts average studio rent around PLN 2,650 a month and two-room apartments around PLN 3,567.

For a new purchase, we’d underwrite something closer to 50–55% Airbnb occupancy and then see whether the deal still beats a normal tenant. Today’s 65% should be upside, rather than the minimum assumption required to make the spreadsheet work.

Can a normal Warsaw Airbnb still produce a high rental yield?

Yes, a good Warsaw Airbnb can still show an attractive yield, but citywide averages make the opportunity look easier than it really is.

Consider a small apartment costing around PLN 600,000, roughly what 35 m² would cost at Warsaw’s overall asking-price median. If that apartment somehow matched AirDNA’s citywide average of roughly PLN 70,000 in annual revenue, the gross revenue yield would approach 12%.

We should not use 12% as an expected market yield. The two figures come from different datasets: AirDNA averages properties of many sizes and locations, while the PLN 600,000 apartment is a constructed example.

Still, the calculation shows why Airbnb continues to attract investors.

Now take out the operating costs. If 25% of revenue disappears into management and short-term rental expenses, the rough yield before tax, financing and certain ownership costs drops below 9%. At a 35% burden, it moves closer to 7.5%.

The purchase also needs furniture and equipment, and acquisition costs raise the actual capital invested.

A strong single-digit return before financing is still possible. A reliable double-digit net yield on an ordinary Warsaw apartment would require an unusually good purchase price, unusually strong revenue, efficient self-management, or some combination of the three.

Can you still make money with a mortgage-backed Warsaw Airbnb?

Yes, but a mortgage now makes property selection much less forgiving because the spread between Airbnb returns and borrowing costs can become thin.

Polish housing-loan rates have come down significantly from their earlier highs. Recent market data derived from National Bank of Poland figures has put average floating mortgage rates around the mid-to-high 5% range.

That helps enormously compared with borrowing above 7%, but it still leaves little room for an average Airbnb deal.

Suppose the property produces an operating return somewhere around 7–9% before tax and financing. Debt costing close to 6% can consume much of the margin, especially once the owner finances a large share of the purchase.

Monthly mortgage payments also include principal. That principal builds equity, but the cash still has to leave the owner’s bank account every month.

A cash buyer can survive a bad quarter without much drama. A heavily leveraged investor who pays a prime Warsaw price, outsources management and experiences weaker occupancy can quickly end up feeding cash into the property.

For financed purchases, we would want a noticeably better-than-average deal rather than simply an average Warsaw Airbnb.

Are Warsaw Airbnb taxes low enough to keep the business profitable?

Usually yes for a small operator, although the tax treatment becomes more complicated as the activity starts looking like a professional accommodation business.

Poland’s Ministry of Finance sets the lump-sum private-rental tax at 8.5% of revenue up to PLN 100,000 and 12.5% on the amount above that threshold.

Recent tax rulings have shown that limited short-term renting can still qualify as private rental under certain circumstances. Scale, regularity and the services provided matter when authorities determine how the activity should be treated.

This distinction becomes important when an owner moves from one apartment to several units managed systematically for tourists.

VAT can also enter the picture for accommodation businesses, with accommodation services generally falling under an 8% rate where VAT applies.

Taxes alone do not ruin the Warsaw Airbnb model. Investors simply should not assume that the easiest private-rental treatment will remain identical as they build a larger and more professional operation.

Could Warsaw apartment buildings start banning Airbnb?

Yes. This has become one of the most important risks for anyone buying a Warsaw apartment specifically for Airbnb today.

Poland’s government has now backed an amendment giving housing communities and housing cooperatives greater control over short-term accommodation inside their properties. Under the latest proposal, a community or cooperative could adopt a resolution prohibiting short-term accommodation in a particular building.

The legislation is already in the Sejm process. It also forms part of a broader overhaul that would define short-term accommodation more clearly and create a central register of tourist accommodation properties.

The final rules still have to pass through the legislative process, so a building-level ban should not yet be treated as an automatic restriction on every Warsaw Airbnb.

For a new buyer, however, the risk is concrete enough to affect what we would pay.

Two similar apartments on the same street could eventually have different Airbnb prospects because their buildings have different owners, residents and voting dynamics. A property with repeated noise complaints and hostile neighbours deserves a different valuation from a building where short-term rentals have operated peacefully for years.

Building due diligence now belongs alongside location, purchase price and expected nightly revenue.

What happens if your Warsaw Airbnb gets forced into long-term renting?

A Warsaw Airbnb with a decent long-term rental fallback is much safer to buy today because future building restrictions could remove the short-term option from a specific property.

This gives us a simple downside test.

Gratka currently estimates a Warsaw-wide gross long-term rental yield of about 5.9% from its asking-price and asking-rent data. Another large rental dataset puts average rent at PLN 3,671, while studios average PLN 2,650 and two-room units PLN 3,567.

Those numbers will vary enormously by apartment, but they give us a baseline.

Imagine two Airbnb investments. Property A earns excellent short-term revenue but would produce a weak 3% long-term yield because the investor massively overpaid for its tourist location. Property B earns slightly less on Airbnb but could still produce around 5–6% gross with an ordinary tenant.

Property B now deserves more attention than it did before the latest regulatory proposals.

We would not buy an apartment whose valuation only makes sense if short-term letting remains permanently available. A normal rental exit gives the owner both income protection and another pool of potential buyers when the property is eventually sold.

Is competition among Warsaw Airbnbs getting worse?

No, competition has actually eased lately according to AirDNA, although we would not assume the recent supply contraction will continue.

AirDNA currently counts 10,957 active Warsaw short-term rentals, around 27% fewer than a year earlier. At the same time, occupancy has risen sharply.

Those two movements together help explain why existing hosts are filling more nights. Fewer active properties are chasing a visitor market that has continued to grow.

The exact 27% figure needs some caution. Listings can become inactive, change availability, move between platforms or fall outside a data provider’s methodology without permanently disappearing from the accommodation market.

The broader picture is more convincing than the exact supply figure. As seen above, AirDNA shows occupancy around 65%, while official Warsaw statistics show another year of strong growth in registered overnight stays. The city currently has healthy accommodation demand.

Competition could easily increase again if strong revenue pulls owners back into short-term renting. The current supply environment is helpful, but we would not build a purchase case around it lasting forever.

Is Airbnb growing faster than normal renting in Warsaw right now?

Yes. Warsaw short-term rentals currently have much stronger revenue momentum than the conventional rental market.

The latest Znajdź Najem data shows an average Warsaw long-term rent of PLN 3,671 and a median of PLN 3,200. More interestingly, the median fell about 3% while the number of active offers rose more than 50% in its dataset.

AirDNA, meanwhile, shows short-term RevPAR up roughly 20% year on year.

The comparison is imperfect because the two datasets measure different types of properties, but the direction is clear. Short-term accommodation has recently benefited from improving occupancy while ordinary rental tenants have gained more choice.

That gives existing Airbnb operators a stronger position today than landlords relying on conventional rent growth.

That gap probably will not last forever. A strong short-term market attracts supply, while a softer long-term market can eventually pull owners away from Airbnb. For now, though, the short-term side has the stronger momentum.

What kind of Warsaw Airbnb is most likely to make money now?

A small, well-connected apartment bought at a sensible price currently gives an investor the best chance of making Warsaw Airbnb work.

The recent market data tells us something useful about the winning strategy. Occupancy has improved much faster than nightly rates, so reliably filling nights matters more today than chasing luxury pricing.

A compact one-bedroom or studio can fit couples, solo visitors and many business travellers while keeping the purchase price manageable. It also has a deep long-term rental market if the Airbnb strategy stops working.

Location still matters enormously, although the best location does not have to mean the most expensive part of Śródmieście. Fast access to the centre, metro or tram connections, railway stations, office clusters, conference venues and nightlife can create demand without requiring the highest purchase price in Warsaw.

The numbers become much harder when the apartment is expensive, large, heavily financed and dependent on outsourced management.

The better setup is an apartment with several ways to make money: tourists today, business visitors during quieter periods and a normal tenant if regulations or market conditions change.

What would make a Warsaw Airbnb investment lose money?

Overpaying for the apartment is currently the easiest way to turn a healthy Warsaw Airbnb market into a bad investment.

The risky version is easy to recognize. The investor pays more than PLN 20,000/m² for a central property, takes a large mortgage, assumes occupancy will stay around today’s strong level and hands 25–35% of booking revenue to an operator.

Each assumption can work on its own. Put them together and the margin becomes thin.

We would stress-test the purchase with short-term revenue 20% below expectations. Then we would include the real management bill, utilities, platform costs, furnishing wear, tax and the actual mortgage payment.

Finally, we would calculate what the apartment earns with a normal tenant.

If a 20% revenue drop wipes out the investment return or the long-term fallback looks terrible, the asking price is too high for the risk being taken.

This is especially important now because Warsaw Airbnb demand itself looks healthy. When the market is performing well and the deal still produces weak numbers under a modest stress test, the property is the problem.

So can you still make money with Airbnb in Warsaw?

Yes. You can still make good money with Airbnb in Warsaw today, but the easiest profits now belong to owners who buy well, keep costs under control and choose apartments that still work as ordinary rentals.

The operating backdrop is genuinely strong. AirDNA currently puts average occupancy around 65% and RevPAR around $56, with RevPAR almost 20% higher year on year. Official statistics show Warsaw overnight stays rising about 17% in two years, while Chopin Airport handled a record 24.1 million passengers in 2025.

Airbnb also continues to generate substantially more gross revenue than average conventional renting. That leaves room for a skilled owner-operator to earn a meaningful premium.

Purchase prices are where the story gets difficult. Warsaw apartments cost around PLN 17,150/m² at the broad market median, and prime districts easily exceed PLN 20,000. Outsourced management can consume another 25–35% of booking revenue. Mortgage rates have improved but remain high enough to punish weak deals.

Regulation now deserves equal attention. Poland’s latest government proposal would allow housing communities and cooperatives to prohibit short-term accommodation inside individual buildings. We cannot yet assume every proposed restriction will become law exactly as written, but buying an Airbnb-only apartment without checking its long-term rental economics has become much harder to justify.

So the conclusion is clear. Warsaw Airbnb still works, and current demand is good enough that strong properties can produce attractive returns. Existing owners with suitable apartments are in a particularly good position. New cash buyers can also find worthwhile deals when the purchase price is sensible.

The weakest strategy today is buying an expensive central apartment with a large mortgage and outsourcing almost everything. The booking revenue may still look impressive, but little of the Airbnb premium can survive once the full cost structure is included.

Warsaw remains a profitable Airbnb market for selective investors. The city has stopped being a forgiving one.

Who is the author of this content?

INVESTROPA

A team specialized in real estate investing in European countries

We are a team of financial experts, legal professionals, developers, and local real estate specialists dedicated to helping people like you avoid mistakes when investing in real estate in a foreign place, particularly in Warsaw. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can check our presentation page.