Average Airbnb Occupancy Rates by City in 2026
Your occupancy rate is the clearest signal of how your listing is performing relative to your market. Not your revenue, not your review count. If your market average is 68% and you're sitting at 52%, something in your listing is costing you money. This post gives you the benchmarks to make that comparison.
How We Compiled This Data
This data comes from a combination of AirDNA market reports, Rabbu STR analytics, and aggregated booking data from properties in our audit network. Where sources disagreed by more than 3 percentage points, I used the median across sources and flagged the market as having higher data variance.
A few important caveats before you read the tables:
- Occupancy rates are trailing 12-month averages through Q4 2025, projected with Q1 2026 data where available
- These figures represent the market median, not the top performers. A well-optimized listing in a 55% occupancy market can realistically hit 70%+
- "Occupancy" here means booked nights divided by available nights, not nights divided by 365. Hosts who block their calendars heavily will show artificially low numbers in their personal dashboards
National Average Overview
The national median Airbnb occupancy rate across US markets sits at 57% heading into 2026. That's down slightly from 59% in 2024, which reflects supply growth outpacing demand in several secondary markets.
The spread between top and bottom markets is wide: roughly 40 percentage points between the best-performing beach and mountain markets and the most oversaturated mid-sized cities.
If you're hitting 65% or above in most markets, your listing is performing well. Below 50% warrants a close look at your pricing, photos, or title.
Top 10 Highest Occupancy Markets
These are the markets where strong demand and (in some cases) supply constraints keep occupancy consistently high. In several of these cities, regulatory caps on short-term rentals have kept supply tight, which props up numbers across the board.
| Market | Median Occupancy | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gatlinburg / Smoky Mountains, TN | 74% | Cabin supply tight, year-round demand |
| Outer Banks, NC | 72% | Strong seasonal peak, high summer lock-in |
| Scottsdale, AZ | 71% | Winter snowbird demand + events calendar |
| San Diego, CA | 69% | Regulatory caps limiting supply growth |
| Key West, FL | 68% | Limited inventory by geography |
| Miami Beach, FL | 67% | Festival and snowbird demand |
| Myrtle Beach, SC | 66% | High summer compression, budget-friendly |
| Austin, TX | 65% | Event-driven (SXSW, F1, ACL) |
| Sedona, AZ | 65% | Constrained supply, destination appeal |
| Nashville, TN | 64% | Bachelorette and event tourism holds strong |
Gatlinburg has been consistently near the top of this list for four years. The combination of cabin inventory that can't easily be replicated and a guest base that books months in advance keeps occupancy steady even when other markets soften. I've worked with hosts there who run at 80%+ year-round with well-positioned listings.
Top 10 Lowest Occupancy Markets
Lower occupancy doesn't automatically mean a bad investment. A large property in a low-occupancy market can still generate strong revenue if ADR is high enough. But these markets demand better listing execution because you're competing harder for each booking.
| Market | Median Occupancy | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Phoenix metro (non-Scottsdale), AZ | 48% | Supply overhang from 2022-23 investor surge |
| Las Vegas, NV | 49% | Hotel competition, volatile demand |
| Denver, CO | 50% | Supply growth outpaced post-COVID demand |
| Atlanta, GA | 51% | Large supply base, inconsistent event calendar |
| Houston, TX | 51% | Business travel doesn't convert well to STR |
| Memphis, TN | 52% | Limited leisure demand drivers |
| Cleveland, OH | 53% | Seasonal, short peak windows |
| Detroit, MI | 53% | Improving but demand still concentrated in events |
| Kansas City, MO | 54% | Emerging market, supply still growing |
| Charlotte, NC | 54% | Corporate market, limited leisure conversion |
Las Vegas is worth calling out specifically. The hotel room supply there is enormous and priced aggressively. An Airbnb in Vegas needs a strong differentiation angle (private pool, group-friendly layout, specific location near a venue) to punch above that 49% median.
Seasonal Occupancy Patterns
Markets don't perform evenly across the year, and a single annual average can obscure what's really happening.
Beach markets (Outer Banks, Myrtle Beach, Key West) see summer peaks that push occupancy above 90% in June and July, then drop to 30-40% in January. If you're buying into a beach market for the income, you need to price the shoulder season aggressively or accept that winter will drag your annual average down.
Mountain markets (Gatlinburg, Sedona) tend to have more balanced seasonality. They get summer hikers, fall foliage visitors, and winter cabin-seekers. This is part of why their annual averages are high.
Event-driven markets (Austin, Nashville) have a different pattern: multiple short windows of extreme demand (during SXSW, Formula 1, or major concerts) surrounded by normal baseline occupancy. Hosts who nail dynamic pricing during those spikes can generate 25-30% of their annual revenue in just a few weeks.
Sun Belt winter markets (Scottsdale, Miami Beach) peak October through March and soften in summer. The reverse of most beach markets.
The practical implication: if your occupancy in July is 90% but you're at 30% in November, the problem isn't your listing quality. It's your pricing strategy in the off-peak months.
What Drives Occupancy Differences Between Markets
After auditing hundreds of listings across dozens of markets, I've seen occupancy differences come down to a few consistent factors.
Supply-to-demand ratio. This is the biggest driver at the market level. Gatlinburg has physical geography limiting how many cabins can be built. Phoenix doesn't. When investor capital flooded secondary markets in 2021-2022, supply in cities like Phoenix and Denver grew faster than demand, and occupancy rates fell.
Regulatory environment. San Diego has some of the tightest STR regulations in the country, which caps total supply and keeps occupancy elevated for hosts who do have permits. Markets with permissive regulations attract more supply and tend to have lower median occupancy.
Demand type. Leisure demand converts better to STR than business demand. Houston is a large city with decent hotel demand from the energy sector, but business travelers book hotels. Markets that attract leisure groups (Nashville, Key West, Sedona) fill Airbnbs more consistently.
Listing quality. This is the factor you can actually control. In any market, the top quartile of listings by quality runs 10-15 percentage points above the market median. That gap exists in Nashville just as much as it does in Cleveland.
How to Benchmark Your Property
Knowing the market median is only useful if you compare it correctly to your own numbers.
Here's how to do it properly:
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Pull your occupancy from your Airbnb host dashboard for the last 12 months. Use "nights booked divided by nights available" not nights booked divided by 365, unless you genuinely had your listing available every night.
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Check how many nights you blocked for personal use or maintenance. If you blocked 30+ nights, your "real" availability-adjusted occupancy may look better than your raw number.
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Compare your number to the market median from the tables above. If you're within 5 points of the median, your listing is performing normally. If you're more than 10 points below it, something specific is holding you back.
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Look at your occupancy by month, not just annually. Being 15 points below market in December might be a pricing issue. Being 15 points below in peak season is usually a listing quality issue (photos, title, reviews, or positioning).
The most common pattern I see in underperforming listings: good occupancy in peak months, terrible occupancy in shoulder months. That usually means the listing is strong enough to get booked when demand is high, but it loses out to competitors when guests have more options. Fixing that typically means improving the listing's perceived value rather than dropping price.
Benchmarks tell you where you stand. They don't tell you what to fix.
If your occupancy is below your market average, the cause could be your cover photo, your title, your pricing strategy, your description, or your review response patterns. Usually it's a combination of two or three things working against each other.
For $49, STRAudits will review your specific listing against your specific market and tell you exactly what's dragging your numbers down. You get a full written report covering photos, title, description, pricing, and positioning, delivered within 48 hours. If you're 10 points below your market average, that $49 is almost certainly the highest-ROI thing you can do this month.