You have an empty home in Trieste and someone told you a short-term rental would earn twice as much. Then someone else told you the market is saturated and it's no longer worth it.
Call us. In ten minutes we'll tell you whether a meeting is worth it.
The figures in this section come from industry analyses and from our own analysis of the Trieste market.
Three factors to weigh together. Nightly rates are flat. There are more than a thousand properties on the market, and the number is growing. Occupancy is falling, even on the most conservative measure. The same pie is being split between more homes.
That doesn't mean short-term rentals aren't worth it. It means they no longer pay off just because you list a flat.
Between the bottom 25% of listings and the very top of the market there's a gap of almost 30,000 euros gross a year, in the same market and often in the same neighbourhood.
The average income per listing, around 27,000 euros, is well above the typical listing. A few very strong listings pull it up, so the average doesn't tell you how your home will do.
This is a simplified, hypothetical example, not a real case.
Take a flat in a popular area, managed by you. Assume it performs like the typical listing: about 95 euros a night and about 190 nights booked. That makes 18,000 euros gross.
The booking platforms take about a sixth: 3,000 euros.
The average stay is three nights, so guests change about sixty times a year. Each changeover means cleaning, laundry and guest amenities, around 50 euros: 3,000 euros.
Utilities for the nights booked come to about 800 euros.
Then there are the costs you pay even when the flat is empty: internet, booking software, insurance, maintenance, an accountant, photos. A little over 1,000 euros a year.
Out of 18,000 euros taken in, about 7,900 go out. You're left with about 10,000, before any mortgage and taxes.
Then come the taxes. The Italian flat-rate rental tax at 21% on gross income comes to about 3,800 euros, which leaves a little over 6,000 euros a year. And that's before any mortgage.
This is a simplified example. The area, the number of beds, how much you can charge and how many nights the flat stays empty all change it, sometimes a lot. More beds mean higher costs at each changeover but lower costs per guest. They also mean more income: the figures move with the size of the property. We can tell you which of these matter in your case once we've seen the property.
It's the comparison you have in mind and that almost nobody puts in writing for you. Same flat, same area, one tenant.
Say 550 euros a month, or 6,600 euros a year. Take off maintenance, insurance, an accountant and a few empty months between tenants. That leaves around 6,000 euros, again before any mortgage and taxes.
Before tax, the difference between the two options is about 4,000 euros a year. After tax, it's less than half that.
It's not nothing, but it's nowhere near double. With a long-term let you have one tenant and an income you can count on. With a short-term rental you have sixty guests, an income that rises and falls with the season and a home that wears out faster.
Taxes apply to both, and with a short-term rental they apply to a larger income. With the flat-rate tax at 21% on both, the difference falls to around 1,700 euros a year. And there's one step almost nobody includes: Trieste is one of the councils where an agreed-rent contract, known as canone concordato, brings the flat-rate tax down to 10% instead of 21%. With that, the gap between the two options narrows further. But the agreed rent is lower than the open-market rent and has to be certified, so the comparison has to be made on your own property's figures, not in general.
The flat-rate tax and the council's rules apply differently to the two options, so check them before you start. The national identification code (CIN) and the tourist tax don't eat into your margin, but they're obligations that apply to short-term rentals and not to long-term lets: you have to apply for the code and show it in every listing, and you collect the tourist tax from guests and pay it over to the council.
Time is the item that goes missing from the figures you find online. Let's count it in hours.
About sixty changeovers means messages before and after each stay, key handovers, and cleaning and laundry timed for the next guest. Allow a couple of hours each time. Then there's the listing, and prices to adjust with the season.
As a ballpark, that's 150 to 200 hours a year. It's not a rule, just what that example works out to.
Divide the roughly 1,700 euros a year you'd keep over a long-term let, after tax, by those hours. That comes to 8 to 11 euros an hour.
The figures you read elsewhere spread staff costs across dozens of units managed together, where one person looks after many homes on the same round. With a single home you don't get that saving: the staff is you.
There are companies that handle all of this, and we work with some of them. If you live abroad, that's usually the only realistic option. Between doing it yourself and paying someone to do it for you, there's almost always a middle way, and we work out the figures for your case.
Neither column is right for everyone. See which one describes you.
Your home is where people want to stay.
It's already in good shape, you don't need to invest, and you can charge above average: it's bright, well kept, with proper beds rather than a sofa bed.
You have the time, or someone in the family who does.
You can cope with almost no income in January.
You're buying with a loan and basing the figures on top performers. Those are the top 25%, not what a new listing can expect.
You don't have the time and hand everything over to a management company. Compare what's left with a long-term let before you start.
You need the same income every month. Then let it long term and sleep easier.
The figures only work if you pay yourself nothing. Then don't do it.
These figures are for a typical home. Yours will do better or worse, and that's what the study works out.
You opened a B&B, a guest house or a couple of holiday flats and the figures don't add up. Before you close or sell at a loss, it's worth finding out where the money is going.
It may be the price, kept low for fear of empty nights. It may be the listing. It may be the number of beds, too few for the space you're paying for. Or the property itself.
We look at the figures you already have, compare them with the market and tell you where the money is being lost.
For your home, the study sets out the options you really have, side by side: a short-term rental you manage yourself, a short-term rental handed to a management company, a long-term let, or a sale. For each one, it shows what you'd be left with and how many hours it takes.
You read it. It's yours to keep. You decide whether to go ahead. If you like the way we work, we'll give you a quote for the in-depth study.
And if the answer is that it doesn't stack up, we'll tell you that too. We've done it before.
The Preliminary Feasibility Study is not a formal appraisal, an official valuation, an architectural design, a building quote or an estate agency agreement. We don't ask for exclusivity and you don't sign anything.
In Trieste the typical (median) listing takes around 18,000 euros gross a year, an average of about 1,500 euros a month, with July and September fully booked and January close to zero. After platform fees, guest changeovers, utilities and fixed costs, a little over half is left. After tax, about a third. If you'd like the figures for your own case, call us.
The first is time: with an average stay of three nights, guests change about sixty times a year, and each time means messages, keys, cleaning and laundry. Then there's income that rises and falls with the season, a home that wears out faster, and council and condominium rules to check before you start. And there are safety requirements that apply even if you're not running a business: working gas and carbon monoxide detectors and compliant fire extinguishers, with fines if they're missing.
From 2026, no more than two in the same year. For up to two, the flat-rate rental tax known as cedolare secca still applies; from the third property on, the activity counts as a business, so you need a VAT number and normal business rules apply, whoever you are. The limit used to be four. If you own more than one property, agree with an accountant, before you start rather than at the end of the year, which properties you let, in what order, and which one uses the flat-rate tax.
They're two different legal formats, with different rules on breakfast, opening hours, whether you must live on site, and paperwork. A B&B is run in your own home: you must live there, it can have up to six rooms and twelve beds, and breakfast is compulsory. A guest house, known in Italy as an affittacamere, doesn't require you to live there and can have up to six rooms and fifteen beds, but it comes with its own constraints. Both are opened by notifying the local council. But the format comes second: first you need to know what that property would take in and what it costs to keep it running.
It depends on the uses the council allows and on the technical features of the unit: ceiling heights, and natural light and ventilation in the bedrooms. But the useful question isn't whether it can be done. It's what the conversion costs and what the unit would take in once it's finished. A ground-floor shop won't necessarily become a room people want to book. If you'd like the figures for your own case, call us.
Yes. The Preliminary Feasibility Study is free, with no conditions and no commitment. If you then want an in-depth study, we'll give you a quote and you decide. If we see no realistic option at all, we won't write the document: we'll tell you on the phone and won't waste your time. The preliminary study also helps us decide whether it makes sense to work together. We only get paid later, and only if you decide to go ahead. You receive the quote together with the first document, before you decide anything.
No. We don't handle property sales and we earn no commission when your property is sold. We look at the property, work out what it costs and what it could earn, and tell you in writing what can be done with it and who you'd need to do it. Then we work alongside the professionals involved: surveyors, architects, valuers, accountants and, where needed, estate agents.
We answer the phone ourselves. If we're out on a site visit, we'll call you back the same day.
Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm Italian time. Outside those hours, message us on WhatsApp and we'll call you back the next working day.
Prefer to write? Leave your name, phone number and a few words about your property. We'll call you back.
Message received.
We'll call you back as soon as we can.
Sorry, your message wasn't sent. Please call us on phone number. We answer Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm Italian time.
Or go back to the home page.
