Vacation Rental ROI on the Southern Nicoya Peninsula: What the Numbers Actually Say in 2026

Every listing on this coast comes with a rental projection, and almost none of them come with an occupancy rate. That is the tell. A nightly rate without the nights is a wish, and the nights are the number that decides whether a vacation rental on the southern Nicoya Peninsula pays for itself or quietly costs you money in the months nobody photographs. This is the ROI conversation with both halves, using the one dataset that covers the whole Cóbano district, the taxes as Hacienda actually collects them, and our own arithmetic shown so you can change the inputs.

The district average, from the platform data

AirROI aggregates Airbnb and Vrbo performance by market. For the Cóbano district, which is Santa Teresa, Mal País, Montezuma, Cabuya, Delicias and Tambor together, the trailing twelve months to July 30, 2026 show 1,555 active listings, an average nightly rate of $291, an occupancy rate of 35.9 percent and average annual revenue of $29,233 per listing.

Three things about that number. The rate is high by Costa Rican standards because Santa Teresa villas pull it up. The occupancy is low because it is a twelve-month figure that includes September and October, when the road is mud and half the restaurants are shuttered. And the revenue figure is an average across everything from a room in Cóbano to a six-bedroom estate above Playa Hermosa, so the median listing earns less than $29,000, not more. If a broker's projection assumes 70 percent occupancy, they are describing the top of the market in the best months and calling it a year.

Hotel data says the same thing from the other side. The hoteliers' association projected 72 percent occupancy for the Puntarenas coast in the 2025 to 2026 high season, against 88 percent for Guanacaste. High season here is real; it is also five months long.

Demand is growing again, unevenly

The demand side improved this year. Costa Rica closed 2025 with 2,943,991 arrivals by air and sea, up only 0.8 percent, a flat year. Then January and February 2026 brought 653,969 visitors, up 10.4 percent on the same months of 2025, with February air arrivals up 14.1 percent, the United States up 11.7 percent and Canada up 32 percent. That is the best start to a year since the pandemic, and North America, which is this peninsula's market, is driving it.

Growth in arrivals does not translate one for one into occupancy, because supply grows too. The 1,555 listings in the AirROI count are more than the district had two years ago, and the regional MLS shows around 200 properties for sale in Santa Teresa alone, many of them bought to rent. More visitors are arriving to a market with more beds. The houses that win are the ones that stand out, not the ones that exist.

What the government takes

This is the part most projections leave out entirely, and since 2025 it is the part you cannot leave out.

Registration. Under Ley 9742, every short-term rental host must register with the Tourism Institute's non-traditional lodging registry and with Hacienda, issue electronic invoices, and file returns. From 2026 the platforms report host income to Hacienda directly, so the informal era is over.

VAT. Short-term lodging carries the 13 percent value-added tax, charged to the guest on top of the nightly rate and remitted monthly. It does not come out of your revenue, but it makes your listed price 13 percent higher than your competitor's if they are not charging it, which for now some are not.

Income tax. Rental income falls under the capital-income regime created by Law 9635: a flat 15 percent on gross rent after a fixed 15 percent expense allowance, an effective 12.75 percent of gross, declared and paid monthly. There is no deduction for your actual management fee, cleaning or repairs under this regime; the 15 percent allowance is all you get unless you opt into the full profit-based regime with books and an accountant.

Holding taxes. Property tax is 0.25 percent of registered value a year. The solidarity tax on high-value homes applies in 2026 when construction value exceeds ₡143 million, about $319,000, which most purpose-built rental villas do.

Management. A local manager who handles guests, cleaners, the pool and the inevitable water pump at 11 pm charges 20 to 30 percent of gross rental income on this coast, with cleaning, pool service and repairs billed on top. Owners who try to run a house here from Denver or Berlin generally hire one within a year.

The arithmetic, shown

Two scenarios, our numbers, on a house bought for $400,000, which is roughly what a two-bedroom titled ocean-view house in Montezuma costs this month.

The honest reading is that the district average is a subsidy, not an investment, and the well-run case is a real return that requires a house good enough to command it, a manager good enough to fill it, and an owner willing to give up the weeks they most want to be there. Fifty-five percent annual occupancy on this coast is an achievement, not an assumption. Nobody should model higher without twelve months of a comparable property's statements in hand.

Note what is not in the table: financing, because most purchases here are cash; the value of your own use, which for most owners is the actual return; and appreciation, which has been real over the past decade but which nobody can document at the town level, so we do not put a percentage on it.

What actually separates the top quartile

From the properties we have watched perform, not from a survey:

• A pool and a view. The families and retreat groups who pay $350 and up a night do not book without both. A house with one of the two competes with the district average.
• Walkable or driveable. Guests who arrive by shuttle need to walk to a beach and a restaurant, which means Santa Teresa, Playa Carmen or the center of Montezuma. Guests with a rental car will go up a hill for a view. Guests with neither will not come back.
• Fiber, tested, with a backup. The green-season market is remote workers, and they leave one-star reviews about the internet, not the sunset.
• Water that does not stop. A tank, a pump and a maintenance contract. A house with a water availability letter and a registered meter is a house you can legally keep operating; the engineers' college reported in May 2026 that water letters are the single most common thing stalling projects nationally.
• Two units, one deed. A house with a separate rental apartment or a two-home estate lets you live in one and rent the other, which is the arrangement that most reliably covers the running costs of being here.

What to do with this

Buy the house you want to be in during September, in a place you would stay yourself, with title, water and a manager lined up before closing. Then treat the rental income as what the district data says it is: a contribution that, done well, covers the costs of ownership and, done exceptionally, returns high single digits. If the numbers only work at 70 percent occupancy, they do not work.

Our beachfront guide covers why concession property complicates renting, our how-to-buy guide covers the closing costs left out above, and if you want the table re-run on a specific listing, ours or anyone's, send it to us with the manager's quote and we will give you the version with real inputs.

Where these numbers come from

• Rental performance: AirROI, Cóbano market, updated July 30, 2026; Cámara Costarricense de Hoteles, December 16, 2025.
• Arrivals: La Nación, January 15, 2026; La República on ICT figures for January to February 2026.
• Supply: 2 Costa Rica Real Estate, Santa Teresa market insights, August to September 2026.
• Rules and taxes: ERP Lawyers on Ley 9742, July 22, 2025; El Financiero, 2026 Airbnb tax obligations; Delfino.cr, March 2026; Siempre al Día, capital income tax guide 2026; AG Legal, solidarity tax 2026.
• Management fees: Nest Stays, Costa Rica property management fees; Osa Property Management.
• Water: Revista CFIA, May 18, 2026.
• Our shelf: live listings on this site, week of September 8, 2026. The two scenarios in the table are our own arithmetic on those inputs.

Tierra Tropical is a real estate agency based in the Cóbano district of Costa Rica's southern Nicoya Peninsula. We sell property; we do not manage rentals and have no arrangement with anyone who does. Nothing here is tax or investment advice.