Is Airbnb Worth It in 2026? What Our Manchester Homes Actually Earned

Yes, Airbnb is still worth it in 2026 for the right home, run properly, but it isn't passive income. The 54 homes we managed in and around Manchester for the whole year to September 2026 were booked 74% of the nights they were open, and the typical one earned £31,500 in accommodation revenue, before costs.

We're Matt and Steph, the husband and wife who run City Superhost, and we've been hosting in Manchester since we welcomed our first Airbnb guests in May 2017. We manage other people's homes for a living, so you'd expect us to say yes. Sometimes we don't: on a valuation call we tell owners when a tenancy would serve them better. Here's the honest version, with our own numbers.

Is Airbnb worth it in 2026? The short answer

Airbnb is usually worth it in 2026 when all of these are true:

• Your lease, mortgage and insurance allow short lets. This is the check that stops the most homes, and it has nothing to do with Airbnb. Our guide can I Airbnb my flat? walks through it.
• The home is somewhere guests want to stay, near the city centre, the stadiums, the airport, good transport or a busy town centre.
• Somebody runs it properly: prices that move every day, good photos, quick replies at any hour and a spotless clean after every stay. That's either your evenings or a manager's fee.

It's usually not worth it if your lease or lender says no, if nightly demand where you are is thin, or if a month-to-month income would worry you more than a fixed rent would bore you.

What Airbnb homes actually earned in Manchester

These are our own booking records, not estimates. They cover the 54 homes we managed for the whole 12 months from October 2025 to September 2026, and the full method is on our Manchester short-let data page.

Revenue here is the accommodation price, excluding cleaning fees and before our management fee. Size and location matter most: our typical city-centre studio or one-bed earned £26,000 and our typical city-centre two-bed £36,000.

For the wider market, AirROI's figures for the 12 months to September 2026 put the typical Manchester listing at about £110 a night, booked on about 41% of the nights it was open, while the busiest quarter of listings filled 63% or more (AirROI's Manchester data, checked October 2026). AirROI counts every active listing, slow months included, so this isn't like-for-like with our full-year homes. But the spread between the typical listing and the busiest quarter shows how much location, quality and day-to-day running decide what a home earns.

What it costs to run an Airbnb in 2026

Gross isn't net. Budget for these before you decide:

1. Platform commission. Airbnb and Booking.com take their own commission from each booking, roughly 15.5% to 18% depending on the platform.
2. Management, if you use a manager. In Manchester that's usually 12% to 20% of each booking plus VAT. Ours is 15% + VAT (18% in total), plus a one-off £400 + VAT onboarding fee that covers professional photography and your listing build. Our Airbnb management cost guide compares Manchester's published fees. Any payment processing fees on bookings are deducted too.
3. Cleaning and linen. With us, guests pay a cleaning fee on every booking, which covers the turnover clean, fresh linen and restocking. You pay your cleaning fee for an initial clean when we start, then for a quarterly deep clean.
4. Bills. Energy, broadband, streaming and water are yours to pay, where a tenant would usually pay their own.
5. Council tax or business rates. A home moves to business rates only if it was available for at least 140 nights and actually let for at least 70 in the previous year. Our Manchester Airbnb rules page explains the test.
6. Insurance and safety. Cover written for short-term letting, plus gas safety, an EICR, alarms and a fire risk assessment.
7. Furnishing and wear. Good beds, good Wi-Fi and a properly equipped kitchen are what earn the reviews.
8. Tax. Since the Furnished Holiday Lettings rules ended in April 2025, short-let profits are taxed like other rental income. Our Airbnb tax guide covers what changed and Making Tax Digital.

What changed for UK hosts by 2026

• The Furnished Holiday Lettings tax regime ended on 6 April 2025 (1 April 2025 for companies), so the old tax advantages over a buy-to-let have gone.
• Section 21 "no fault" notices ended in England on 1 May 2026 under the Renters' Rights Act. Once a tenant moves in, getting the property back is slower and more conditional than it used to be, which matters if you might want to sell, move back or switch to short lets later.
• A national short-term let register is due in March 2027. It's registration, not a licence: you record the property rather than ask for permission a council can refuse.
• There's still no short-let licence and no night cap in Manchester. The 90-night limit applies to London only.

None of these makes Airbnb a bad idea. They make it a business you run on post-tax numbers, which is how it should have been judged all along.

Is Airbnb more profitable than a long-term let?

It can be, by a good margin, when the home suits short lets and is run well. A short let earns more on busy nights and lets you block dates for yourself, but it costs more to run and the income moves month to month. A tenancy pays less but is steady and needs very little of your time.

The fair way to compare is net against net: the achievable rent minus letting agent fees, voids and repairs, against the short-let revenue minus platform commission, management, bills and furnishing. Our Airbnb vs long-term letting in Manchester guide sets the two side by side, including when the tenancy is the better choice.

When Airbnb isn't worth it

We say this to owners more often than you might think:

• The lease or mortgage forbids it. No amount of demand fixes a covenant.
• Demand is thin. In some outer postcodes the nightly rate never clears the extra running costs, and a tenancy nets more.
• You'd self-manage without the time. A static price, dim photos and slow replies can leave a short let earning less than a tenancy.
• You need certainty. If the quiet months would stress you more than the strong months would please you, take the fixed rent.

Is paying a manager worth it?

For most owners who don't live nearby or don't want a second job, yes. AirROI found the typical company-run Manchester home earned 33% more than a similar owner-run one in the 12 months to October 2026, and its data for the same period shows our Manchester homes out-earning similar owner-run homes by 93% (23 homes compared). A manager is worth it when the extra revenue and the evenings you get back are worth more than the fee. If you have the time, the skill and one nearby flat, managing it yourself can win, and we'll tell you so.

Find out whether it's worth it for your property

General answers only go so far. The real one depends on your address, your home, your lease and how much variation you're comfortable with. Our free valuation models both routes for your property, and if a tenancy wins, we'll say so plainly.

See what your property could earn, or talk to us and Matt or Steph will get back to you personally. If you're ready to hand it over, here's how our Airbnb management in Manchester works.