What Vacation Rental Income Really Looks Like in Guanacaste

Quick answer: A well-located, well-managed 3-bedroom home in a prime Guanacaste beach town can gross roughly $40,000 to $90,000 per year in short-term rental income, with high season running December through April. Net returns are meaningfully lower after 15 to 25 percent management fees, cleaning, tropical-climate maintenance, utilities, and insurance. Legally, you must register with the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) and collect the 13 percent tourism VAT (IVA).

Short-term rentals are a big part of why people buy in Guanacaste — the idea of a home that pays for itself while you are not using it. The opportunity is real, but the headline numbers you see online rarely tell the whole story. Here is the realistic version.

Demand Is Strong and Seasonal

Guanacaste's high season runs through the dry months, roughly December to April, when occupancy and nightly rates peak. The green season fills in around it, and the best-located properties increasingly rent year-round. Surf, weddings, family vacations, yoga retreats, and remote workers all feed the demand.

What Drives Your Return

Location and view. A walkable location and a real ocean view command premium rates and higher occupancy. The same house a few streets back from the action earns meaningfully less.

Bedrooms and groups. Properties that comfortably sleep larger groups — think families or friends traveling together — often earn the best returns because they capture higher nightly rates across more guests. This is part of what makes a property like El Chante, with eight private villas, so effective as a rental.

Presentation and reviews. Professional photography, thoughtful furnishing, and a strong review history directly raise both your rate and your occupancy. This is a marketing business as much as a real estate one.

The Expenses People Forget

Gross rental income is not what you keep. Budget for professional property management (commonly 15 to 25 percent of revenue for full-service short-term management), cleaning, maintenance — which runs higher in a salt-air tropical climate — utilities, insurance, HOA or condo fees, and restocking. A realistic net is well below the gross, and any honest projection should show you both.

The Rules You Have to Follow

Costa Rica regulates short-term tourism rentals. You are generally required to register with the Costa Rican Tourism Board (the ICT) and to collect and remit the 13 percent value-added tax (IVA) on tourism services. Staying compliant is straightforward when you set it up correctly from the start, and it protects you. Your attorney and accountant will get you registered.

How to Think About It

The smartest buyers treat strong rental income as what makes a lifestyle purchase financially sensible — not as a pure yield play that beats a stock index. You get a place you love in a country you want to be in, it offsets a real portion of the cost of ownership, and it sits on an appreciating asset.

If you tell me how you plan to use the property and how often, I can give you a grounded, conservative estimate of what it might earn the rest of the year — and point you toward the locations and layouts that rent best.