Airbnb income report · 2026 data
How much do Airbnbs make
in Myrtle Beach?
By Devin Day, Operations Officer & licensed MLO · Reviewed by Timmy Fredrick Nash, Broker-in-Charge · Published July 20, 2026
Between $22,600 and $42,000 a year gross for the average listing, depending on whose data you trust, and roughly a third to half of that after expenses. Here are the 2026 numbers by area, by month, and by percentile, with the net math nobody else publishes.
The direct answer
Average Airbnb revenue in Myrtle Beach: $22,600 to $42,000 gross
Five data vendors publish an average for this market, and they disagree by almost double. That is not sloppiness; each one counts a different set of listings a different way. We publish the spread instead of picking a favorite.
| Source | Avg annual revenue | Occupancy | ADR | Listings counted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AirROI (Jul 2026) | $22,596 | 35.2% | $251 | 8,773 |
| AirDNA (Jun 2026) | $26,100 | 53% | $280 | 19,903 |
| Rabbu (Jul 2026) | $34,014 | 31% | $139 | n/a |
| Airbtics (Mar 2026) | $42,000 median | 63% | $177 | 5,813 |
| Awning (Apr 2026, own portfolio) | $45,000-$72,000 claim | 55-70% | $85-$350 | n/a |
Why they disagree: AirDNA counts 19,903 listings across the whole Grand Strand while Airbtics filters to 5,813 full-time listings, and each defines occupancy differently. AirROI and Rabbu divide booked nights by every calendar night, AirDNA divides by nights actually available, and Airbtics reports the median full-time host. All of these are true at once. Figures as displayed on each vendor's public market page, July 2026.
By area
Airbnb income by area: Murrells Inlet and Surfside out-earn Myrtle Beach
Per listing, the famous zip codes earn the least. Myrtle Beach proper is two-thirds one- and two-bedroom condo listings, while the south strand is mostly whole homes, and larger properties gross more. All rows from AirROI, updated July 6, 2026.
| Market | Avg annual revenue | Occupancy | ADR | Listings | Revenue YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Murrells Inlet | $39,949 | 38.7% | $406 | 458 | +11.5% |
| Surfside Beach | $38,565 | 36.9% | $412 | 540 | +1.5% |
| North Myrtle Beach | $31,218 | 34.3% | $374 | 4,473 | +7.5% |
| Myrtle Beach | $22,596 | 35.2% | $251 | 8,773 | -2.5% |
Airbtics, counting only full-time listings, puts North Myrtle Beach at a $58,000 annual median, which is what a committed whole-home operation there looks like rather than the tower average.
Seasonality
Myrtle Beach Airbnb seasonality: July grosses 4.5x January
The average Myrtle Beach listing grossed $6,575 in July at 58.7 percent occupancy and a $347 nightly rate, against $1,467 in January at 23.4 percent and $196. Summer (June through August) averages $5,079 a month; the November-through-January floor averages $1,675. Any underwriting that spreads revenue evenly across twelve months is wrong on purpose.
Two operating stats worth knowing: guests book about 48 days ahead and stay 4.5 nights on average, and 88.9 percent of listings charge a cleaning fee, averaging $192 a turn, which is guest-paid revenue that never reaches your pocket if your manager keeps it. Winter is also where the 90-day mid-term strategy earns its keep: October-to-March snowbird leases cover the months nightly rates cannot.
Gross to net
What a Myrtle Beach Airbnb actually nets: three worked examples
Local benchmark: expenses consume 55 to 65 percent of gross on a professionally managed unit. Here is where the money goes on three common profiles, before any mortgage. Tax lines are estimates from the county formula; run your exact address through our Horry County tax calculator.
Oceanfront condotel 1BR
$26,000 gross, onsite rental desk
- Rental desk at 40%-$10,400
- HOA at $700/mo-$8,400
- Property tax (6%)-$4,500
- HO-6 policy-$800
- License and misc-$300
- Net before mortgage$1,600
Self-managed on Airbnb's 15.5% host fee instead of the desk: net rises to roughly $8,000. The management structure is the investment decision.
3BR house near the beach
$30,000 gross, third-party manager
- Management at 25%-$7,500
- STR insurance + flood-$3,500
- Property tax (6%)-$6,000
- Utilities and internet-$2,800
- License, supplies, upkeep-$2,000
- Net before mortgage$8,200
Self-managed: roughly $11,000. Insurance detail is in our coastal insurance guide.
North Myrtle Beach 4BR house
$60,000 gross, third-party manager
- Management at 22%-$13,200
- Insurance + flood-$5,500
- Property tax (6%)-$11,000
- Utilities and internet-$3,600
- License, supplies, upkeep-$3,500
- Net before mortgage$23,200
Whole homes produce the most net cash flow, and they are also the easiest to finance with a DSCR loan.
The advantage a spreadsheet does not show: control. A short-term rental turns over every few days, so you or your manager are inside the unit almost every week. A leak, a tired HVAC unit, a worn floor, or guest damage gets caught within days and fixed before it grows. A long-term tenant can occupy a unit for a year with limited access, and small problems compound unseen until move-out. Renting nightly keeps the property clean, inspected, and maintained on a weekly rhythm, which protects both the asset and its resale value.
The expense stack
Myrtle Beach short-term rental expenses, line by line
- ✓Management: 20 to 30 percent for a full-service offsite manager, 10 to 15 for booking-only services, and 35 to 45 percent on an onsite condotel rental desk, plus travel-agent commissions and program fees that push the effective condotel split higher. This one line changes the result more than any rate or occupancy assumption.
- ✓HOA dues: $400 to $1,200 a month on oceanfront towers, usually covering water, cable, internet, pool, and the building's wind insurance, and often electric in condotels. Coastal master-policy premiums pushed many buildings' dues up 15 to 30 percent over the past two years.
- ✓Property tax at the 6 percent rate, with no school-operating credit. The math and a calculator are on our property tax page.
- ✓Insurance at two to three times a standard homeowner policy for STR use, roughly $2,000 to $3,000 a year on a house before wind and flood, which run higher near the beach.
- ✓Platform fees: budget 15.5 percent for Airbnb in 2026, not the old 3 percent. Airbnb is migrating hosts to a host-only fee this year; Vrbo's pay-per-booking model runs about 8 percent all-in.
- ✓Licenses and lodging taxes: a business license in every jurisdiction, and roughly 13 percent in guest-paid lodging taxes that Airbnb mostly collects and remits. The full stack, city by city, is in our short-term rental rules guide.
A real portfolio
A real Myrtle Beach Airbnb portfolio: $45,000 gross on a $130,000 condo
One of our investor clients works hand in hand with a local property management company and buys for himself and its owner-clients, which means we see the actual management statements, not projections. Two of his positions explain this whole page better than any average can.
His oceanfront condos at Grande Cayman Resort on the north end of Myrtle Beach's Ocean Boulevard, bought a few years ago at around $130,000 a unit, have grossed more than $45,000 a year per unit, year after year. His Little River townhomes, bought around $242,000, gross about $60,000 a year each, and they have appreciated: one just sold for $300,000.
Those are owner-reported gross figures from management statements, before the expenses listed above, and individual results vary. They are top-decile operations running several times the market median, which is the point of the percentile table below: the difference between an average unit and a well-bought, well-run one is larger than the difference between markets.
Distribution
Top 10% of Myrtle Beach Airbnbs gross $6,376+ a month; the median does $2,322
Monthly revenue percentiles for the Myrtle Beach market, per AirROI: the top 10 percent of listings gross $6,376 or more, the top quartile $4,047 or more, the median $2,322, and the bottom quartile $1,163 or less. The top quartile out-earns the bottom by roughly 3.5 times. Occupancy shows the same spread: the top decile runs 73 percent or better against a 32 percent median.
The lesson is not that averages are useless; it is that the property and the operation choose your percentile. Bedroom count, walkability, the building's rental rules, pricing discipline, and the management split move a unit between those rows. That screening is what our STR analysis is for.
Market size
The Myrtle Beach vacation rental market in public records
The demand base: 18.2 million visitors spent $13.3 billion on the Grand Strand in 2025. Horry County generated $31.2 million in state accommodations tax in 2024, roughly 30 percent of the entire state's collections, and the county's hospitality fee brought in another $59.3 million. This is the largest lodging market in South Carolina by a wide margin.
The rules side is jurisdiction by jurisdiction: the City of Myrtle Beach even passed an ordinance in January 2025 protecting a 114-block oceanside district's short-term rental stock from long-term conversion, after a study valued 1,000 converted units at $2.48 million a year in lost city revenue. Where rentals are legal, what they license, and what they tax is all in short-term rental rules by city.
Run Myrtle Beach Airbnb numbers on a real address.
We build the revenue, expense, and financing picture for specific properties, including the condotel buildings most lenders decline, because our in-house lender BrickWood Mortgage closes them at the same fees as any other loan.
Sources
Data sources for this report
- AirROI market reports for Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach, and Murrells Inlet, updated July 6, 2026: revenue, occupancy, ADR, seasonality, and percentiles.
- AirDNA Myrtle Beach market page, June 2026, and Rabbu, July 2026: comparison averages as displayed on their public pages.
- Airbtics Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach reports, March 12, 2026.
- Tourism Works for the Grand Strand: 2025 visitor volume and spending (DK Shifflet study), county accommodations tax and hospitality fee collections.
- Avalara MyLodgeTax, January 21, 2025: City of Myrtle Beach conversion-ban ordinance and revenue study.
- Management, HOA, insurance, and platform-fee ranges: published local property-management rate cards, listing regime-fee data, NASTRM insurance benchmarks, and Airbnb's 2026 host-only fee migration notices. Client portfolio figures are owner-reported from management statements.
Common questions
Myrtle Beach Airbnb income FAQ
How much does an Airbnb make in Myrtle Beach?
The average listing grossed between $22,600 and $42,000 in the year ending mid-2026, depending on the data vendor and how it counts. Expenses typically consume 55 to 65 percent of gross, so a well-run unit nets roughly $8,000 to $23,000 a year before the mortgage. Top-decile listings gross more than $6,300 a month while the median does about $2,300.
Is Airbnb profitable in Myrtle Beach?
It can be, but the result usually comes down to how the unit is managed. The same $26,000-gross oceanfront condotel nets roughly $1,600 a year on a 40 percent onsite rental program and roughly $8,000 self-managed. Whole homes in North Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach, and Murrells Inlet carry the strongest net cash flow.
What occupancy should I expect from a Myrtle Beach Airbnb?
About 31 to 35 percent of all calendar nights, 53 percent of available nights, or around 63 percent if you run it full-time like the median active host. The measure matters as much as the market. July occupancy runs near 59 percent or higher; January falls to roughly 23 percent.
Do I need a license to run an Airbnb in Myrtle Beach?
Yes. The City of Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach both require a business license for every rental, with fees based on gross receipts, and unincorporated Horry County requires a county license plus a hospitality-fee account. Guests also pay about 13 percent in combined lodging taxes, most of which Airbnb collects and remits automatically.
Which part of the Grand Strand earns the most on Airbnb?
Per listing, Murrells Inlet ($39,949) and Surfside Beach ($38,565) average the most and Myrtle Beach proper the least ($22,596), because the city's inventory is two-thirds one- and two-bedroom condos while the south strand is mostly whole homes. Bigger properties gross more; the area difference is a unit-mix effect, not a location premium.
How much do Airbnb expenses run in Myrtle Beach?
Plan on 55 to 65 percent of gross for a managed unit: 20 to 30 percent for professional management (35 to 45 percent on an onsite condotel desk), $400 to $1,200 a month in HOA dues on oceanfront towers, the 6 percent property tax assessment, short-term-rental insurance at roughly two to three times a standard homeowner policy, and platform fees, which for Airbnb are migrating to a 15.5 percent host-only fee in 2026.