Short-term rental and yield in the Dominican Republic

If you are looking at a Dominican condo as a short-let investment, you have probably been shown a revenue figure. The problem is that the available sources disagree with each other by about a factor of two on the same market in the same year, and the brochure will have quoted whichever one is highest.

This guide does three things: shows the disagreement rather than picking a side, walks the gross figure down to what actually reaches you, and covers the registration regime that was in public consultation until 22 July 2026 and has not yet been signed.

The numbers you will be shown, side by side

Three commercial platforms publish Dominican short-let data, all built from scraped listings with undisclosed sampling. Here they are on the same markets, unaveraged.

AirDNA, the third platform, reports by province rather than town, which makes direct comparison impossible. Its La Altagracia figure of US$19,100 per listing bundles Punta Cana with Higüey, and Higüey carries a much higher published daily rate, so the province number flatters the resort corridor.

Why they differ

Two drivers are identifiable and worth knowing. The first is geographic boundary: AirDNA reports provinces while the other two report towns, so any comparison across them is measuring different areas. The second is period: Airbtics published calendar year 2025, while AirROI and AirDNA report a trailing twelve months to mid-2026.

Neither fully explains a two-to-one gap on the same town between AirROI and Airbtics. Sampling does the rest. A platform that captures more of the professionally managed, higher-performing listings and fewer of the dormant ones will report a much better market than one that scrapes everything.

What a real owner actually netted

Against all that scraped data, there is one published case study with real figures from an actual purchase and operation. It is worth more than any of the platform averages, and it is sobering.

The property was listed at US$295,000 and bought for US$280,000, coming to roughly US$290,000 all in after closing costs. Over sixteen months of operation the owner netted about US$28,500, which annualises to around US$21,400, or a pre-tax net yield of about 7.4%.

Two details matter more than the headline. Monthly net profit ranged from US$794 to US$3,372, so a bad month is a quarter of a good one. And the management fee was 20% of gross with accounting at US$150 a month on top.

Gross to net: the waterfall

The gap between a platform revenue figure and money in your account is where most projections fall apart. Here is the order in which it comes off.

Apply that stack to any gross figure and the reason a real owner lands near 7.4% net while a platform implies double-digit gross becomes obvious. Neither number is wrong. They are measuring different points in the waterfall.

The tax layer

Two separate taxes apply to short-term letting, and CONFOTUR status changes neither of them.

ITBIS at 18%

Long-term residential letting is an exempt service, but DGII treats tourist accommodation as taxable and names tourist apartments and aparthotels among the taxable categories. Holiday letting sits on the taxable side of that line.

There is no registration threshold. The obligation starts with the first supply rather than at some level of turnover, and it applies to foreign owners on the same terms. You will need an RNC and to issue fiscal receipts, which is what the accounting line in the waterfall is paying for.

Tax on the income

Rental income from a Dominican property is Dominican-source income. Where rent is remitted to a non-resident abroad, withholding is 27% as a single and final payment, reduced to 18% for residents of Canada under treaty. Separately, a domestic payer withholding on rent paid to individuals rose to 15% from 1 July 2026 and became a final tax rather than a payment on account.

Which of those bites depends on how rent actually reaches you: directly from guests, through a Dominican manager, or via a platform. This is worth specific advice with your arrangement in front of an accountant, and the full picture is in our closing costs and taxes guide.

What CONFOTUR does and does not do here

A CONFOTUR project exempts the annual property tax for the first buyer, which helps the waterfall. It does not touch ITBIS, it does not touch income tax on the rent, and it does not exempt capital gains when you sell. The details are in our CONFOTUR guide.

The registration regime arriving now

This is the most time-sensitive thing on this page, and as of early August 2026 almost nothing written for foreign buyers reflects it.

The Ministry of Tourism ran a public consultation on draft resolutions creating RENATUR, a national registry of tourist accommodation, which would do for short-term rentals what the existing register does for hotels. The consultation closed on 22 July 2026. The resolutions had not been signed as of the date on this article, so what follows is a draft, not law.

What the draft would require:

• Registration of each short-term rental property in RENATUR, with a visible credential linking to the registry entry.
• Platforms such as Airbnb and Booking to give listings 60 calendar days to register and show proof, then stop advertising and stop providing services to unregistered properties, and report violations to the ministry.
• Existing operators to formalise within six months.
• Certification from the condominium authorising the rental, and compliance with municipal ordinances.
• Hotel-standard service levels, and submission to random ministry inspections of private property.

The vice-minister has stated explicitly that the draft creates no new taxes and no new operating licence. That is worth noting, because the last attempt at this went the other way: Decree 30-25 in January 2025 sought to apply sales tax to platform bookings and was withdrawn in April 2025 after public pushback.

There is also organised opposition. An owners' campaign has argued thousands of units could exit the market, an owners' association requested an extension of the consultation, and Airbnb publicly asked for no excessive bureaucratic burdens. Whether the final text matches the draft is an open question.

The thing most likely to stop you

Not tax, not occupancy, not the registry. The condominium bylaws.

A building can prohibit short-term letting regardless of what national law permits, and plenty do, particularly as owner-occupiers push back against turnover in shared buildings. Both the draft ministry rules and the congressional bill would make express condominium authorisation a precondition, which turns a private dispute into a compliance requirement.

Before you sign anything, get the current bylaws in writing, confirm they permit short-term letting, and ask whether any amendment has been proposed. A yield model is worthless if the building says no.

Where the supply risk is showing

The most useful counterweight to the growth narrative is in the data itself. AirROI reports Sosúa revenue down 27.3% year on year on a 16.5% increase in supply. AirDNA reports Puerto Plata province revenue per listing down 10.2%.

That is what it looks like when new units arrive faster than guests do. It is concentrated on the north coast rather than the resort corridor, which is the same region that shows the highest gross yields on paper because entry prices are lowest. The two facts are related, and we cover the regional picture in our market trends guide.

What to check before you buy for short-let

1. The condominium bylaws, in writing, confirming short-term letting is permitted.
2. The actual current maintenance charge from the building, plus what it was two years ago.
3. Which data source and period any revenue projection came from, and whether it is gross or net.
4. Whether the project holds CONFOTUR, and whether you are buying from the developer, since the property tax exemption does not survive a resale.
5. Your management arrangement and its fee, since 20% of gross is the realistic upper end for a fully managed resort condo.
6. Your ITBIS position, because the obligation starts with the first booking and there is no threshold.
7. How rent will physically reach you, since that determines which withholding applies.