My experience with short-term rental providers like AirBnB or booking

Short-term rentals through platforms like Airbnb and Booking can not only be an interesting way to improve your cash flow, but also a path to personal development and new experiences. To inform and possibly inspire, I wrote this article. In this article, I share my experience in providing short-term rentals, practical insights from operations and dealing with the bureaucratic pitfalls that every host faces.

The whole story began with the purchase of a condo, which I bought to have my own place to live and use my the money I earned. You can find out how I went about buying the condo in my summary of the year 2024. I've been thinking of a way to make efficient use of my property, which for my frugal needs much larger. Most importantly, I've been thinking about how to use the property efficiently when I want to go abroad for a month or two in the heat this winter. So I started thinking about running an occasional short-term rental business.

Inspiration && reasons

I was inspired by a friend who rents out his apartment when he travels. Or an experience where I rented for a month for a month in an apartment where the owner was going on a long vacation in the summer. I also had an interesting experience in Spain from the Canary Islands from the town of Las Palmas, where the owner of a four-bedroom apartment rented out rooms in the apartment and when he was away he rented out his room as well.

There's a lot of information on the internet about short-term accommodation, so I'll focus on passing on the essentials and currency clear situations. For general background information, the links below the article will serve you.

Taxes and Bureaucracy

Business

Since some time, even the occasional provision of short-term accommodation has been treated as a business, so you need to have trade. This means that this income is taxed under section 7 - self-employment income. It's not taxable as rent! (rental income under §10 of the Income Tax Act) Fortunately, I am an entrepreneur specifically a sole trader so this red tape was no obstacle for me.
Of course, it follows that the income is thereby burdened not only with income tax, but also with social and health tax (social and health tax).

Steps of bureaucracy

In addition to preparing your room or apartment and creating a presentation, you also have to prepare for bureaucracy. Here is list of key steps:

• Business:
  • You must have a trade.
  • Add activity to trade: 55 accommodation services.
  • You can view the registered activities and other trade information here: www.rzp.cz
  • Identify the establishment.
• Reporting obligations:
  • Report the rental to the local city government and register for city tax.
  • Foreigners (even within the EU) must report to the Czech Police - register with the Czech Police. At They have 30 days to process the registration.
• Documentation:
  • Keep a house book/guest book ) for the use of the City and the Police Department, where you record information of guests staying at the hotel.
• Certification:
  • The apartment meets above-standard conditions even for short-term accommodation, so no need to be re-authorized.

Commercial Relationship and Bureaucracy

There is no contractual relationship of accommodation between the platform and the guest. The contractual relationship is directly between the guest and the host. The platform only mediates this contact. Also for this reason, it is the host who issues the invoice to the guest. However, if the platform organises marketing events, it may the actual price for the guest and the remuneration for the host may be different.

What is revenue

Income is not the amount that the platform sends to your account, but the amount that is listed as a price on the platform. The brokerage fee is your expense. If you claim expenses in a lump sum, you do not record the expense in detail. If you are self-employed, you tax the income according to the date the payment is credited to your account, not the date on the invoice. The invoice must be issued to the guest no later than the day of departure. This means that the date of the invoice and the date of receipt are usually different, as you usually receive the money after departure the guest's departure. Usually there is no difference and at the turn of the year, it makes a difference - an invoice issued at the end of the year is then not received until the next year.

DPH

VAT is one of many taxes and it affects your business because it affects your prices.

Most of you are probably not VAT payers. Since guests are mostly end customers, the price for includes VAT. For VAT payers, this means that the real income is lower by this tax. At least the VAT rate on accommodation is lower than the basic VAT. Specifically, VAT on accommodation is 12% in 2025. Better to be a non-VAT payer, however, because then you will be cheaper or have more money left over. In addition even from VAT you pay a brokerage fee.

How does it work if you are a non-VAT payer with invoices from Booking and Airbnb? Since platforms like Booking and Airbnb are VAT-registered in another EU country and invoice you without VAT, you have to register in the Czech Republic Czech Republic as an identified person. As an identified person, you are required to submit a monthly statement of the foreign supply received and the corresponding VAT in Czech Republic.

Guest registration

The host is required to register guests in the guest book for the city and for the police. And to report foreigners, i.e. persons outside the Czech Republic, to the foreign police.
In practice, this means keeping a guest book in which information that meets both requirements is recorded. Foreigners must be reported within three days of their arrival. Fortunately, this can be done via an online application. This is slow and unsightly, but it works.
The app even supports bulk importing from a file, so you can upload data files that have generated other programs.

City Fees

There is typically an additional fee payable to the City. It is called a city fee or a resident fee. It's simply a tax to the city. That's why even cheap campgrounds aren't cheap, because they always have to collect a fixed fee per person per night.

When providing lodging within 60 days, the host is required to collect the city tax from the guest. This fee is not income to the host - it is non-taxable income, so it does not affect the tax base. It is simply a remittance from the guest to the city. It is therefore not subject to income tax or VAT. Yet you must collect it, and technically it is a "tax" that adds to the final price to the guest. This tax can be a maximum of 50 CZK per person per night in 2025. The specific amount is set by each city individually - in some places it is zero, in Prague it is set at a maximum of CZK 50. For two guests for a week's stay in Prague, this means an increase of the amount of CZK 1,750, which goes to the city.
The fee is payable once a month to the respective city district. If the stay takes place at the turn of the month, the fee must be paid to the should be correctly divided into the respective months.
The PDF form I downloaded for this purpose unfortunately did not work properly. Fortunately, as a capable IT specialist, I got the hang of it and modified the form myself.

Overall, so the paperwork with the state in the case of providing only one room is appalling.

Platforms and fees

I've come across several platforms. For example, Flatio, Expedia. I've also tried Airbnb. In the end, I landed on booking.com, although I don't use it at all as a guest. When I'm looking for accommodation as a guest, I much prefer AirBnB because it's much easier to search by location and the information is more clear.

Airbnb and Booking fees are about the same. The resulting brokerage fee is approximately 17% of the fee. But the calculation is different, so it can be confusing.

• Booking: has 15% of the price + 1.3% fee if guest pays online via booking. Total approx. 17 %.
• Airbnb: Of the amount the guest actually paid, it's just over 17%. The way it works is that the price is set. Of that price, I pay the brokerage fee and the guest also pays the brokerage fee. So the price the guest pays is the set price + his brokerage fee. Airbnb then sends me a fee, which is the price minus my brokerage fee.
  Of the amount that is my remuneration, the guest pays approximately 20% more . There is still a 3% fee deducted from the amount that I end up getting.

Not to be limited to third-party platforms, I also created my own website where digital nomads can rent my room in Prague.

Technical page

Airbnb has guest and host features in one app. You just need to switch the functionality. Booking has a separate web interface for the host and a separate mobile app for the host. This smartphone app called Pulse.
Booking issues a summary invoice once a month for the services provided, for which it has already taken a commission in advance. On the first day of the month, it displays a summary with the amounts and information that payment is due. Once Booking has processed everything, the invoice is automatically marked as paid - so you don't need to make a payment, because the amount has been deducted before the earnings are sent. This monthly summary invoice is convenient and clear for further processing.
Airbnb generates invoices for each individual booking separately. Unfortunately, it does not provide them as a PDF (or I haven't figured out a way to download them). You need to print the page or take a screenshot. Because of this - and the complexity of calculating the price - billing through Airbnb is significantly more work.

Calendars

Booking calendars from Airbnb and Booking can be linked to other tools or you can create your own, which helps you organise availability. I personally have my extra calendar, which I use to block out dates when I don't want to accept guests.

Price Settings

Both Airbnb and Booking allow you to dynamically set the price. Especially with Booking, there are many options, so you need to set it up carefully so that you don't get surprised there are big discounts.

Affordability and myths about Airbnb

When people bitch about housing prices, it's mostly in big cities. The reason is the centralization of life into big cities and slow construction, caused by bureaucracy. Airbnb and Booking have little effect on this. On the contrary, they bring people into the city who are spend money. People have to choose if they want tourists in the centre to feed them. Or to be without tourists and therefore no jobs and no income.
For example, for retirees with large apartments, providing short-term accommodation would be a very interesting extra-income as well as a good social activity.

Guest Experience

Every guest is different. Some come back, others were surprised that it was not the whole apartment, but a shared accommodation because they didn't read the description in detail. Booking doesn't allow you to edit the introductory text, so the added important information is at the bottom of the page. However, as is usual with corporations, Booking is unable to handle feedback. So no improvements from their on their part all year. That's why I've included the basic information in the accommodation photos.

Some guests had arrival in the morning and of course they had to wait for check-in. Guests who were supposed to arrive within a certain time frame always arrived after that. Everybody was always late. Typically half an hour, an hour or two.

Is it worth running short-term accommodation?

Providing short-term accommodation is challenging but can be interesting if you have the time and the property. It can be a better income than traditional renting, but is it worth it?
The first thing to remember is that a considerable amount is eaten up by the intermediary platform.
It's very challenging to provide short term accommodation and given my expertise, it's not even economically worth it. However, I take it as solidarity and an opportunity to gain interesting experience. Of course, my big advantage is that as an independent programmer and linux admin I work remotely, so I can optimize my time. Also, the room I occasionally provide is in the apartment where I live myself. This makes it easy for me to to set up the room for guests and maybe even welcome them in person, because I don't have to go anywhere and wait for anyone.

If he wants to share his experience or want advice you can me contact me.

Links on short term accommodation

Collected links on the topic of short-term accommodation. Of course, changes in the law and therefore possible outdatedness of the linked articles over time should be taken into account.

• Airbnb Home and Records book
• tax returns and income from Airbnb
• Airbnb House and record book
• Local Residence Fee
• Prazian's Portal: local residence tax
• DPH and KH as an identified person
• What do I have to and I don't have to when I want to rent an apartment through Airbnb
• Provider Obligations of a short-term accommodation provider
• Responsibilities of a landlord when renting through Airbnb or Booking
• Home book
• Reporting and Marking establishment

Links: Foreigners and the Police

• Reporting the stay of foreigners in short-term rentals
• UbyPort app
• Reporting of accommodation of a foreigner by a landlord via remote access via the Internet (UBYPORT)
• Reporting obligation of the accommodation provider