Short-term rental data glossary

How the terms are defined

Airbnb counted 533 million Nights and Seats Booked in 2025, and its annual report says the company is “not aware of any uniform standards for calculating these key metrics”²⁴. A hotel benchmark, a short-term rental data firm and a booking platform can use one name for different arithmetic, most often in which nights count as available and which fees count as revenue.

Each entry gives the meaning in plain words and names the organisation whose definition it follows: CoStar’s STR benchmark for hotel measures, AirDNA and Key Data for short-term rental data, Airbnb’s filings and help pages for platform terms, and laws, tax agencies and a bank supervisor for rules and investing. Where providers define a term differently, the entry says so. Figures follow the desk’s published standard.

Prices and revenue

Price measures differ most in what they leave in or out: cleaning fees, platform fees and taxes.

• Average daily rate (ADR) The average amount earned per night sold. CoStar’s STR divides room revenue by rooms sold¹. AirDNA divides total revenue by booked nights and counts the host’s cleaning fee in that revenue, leaving out Airbnb’s service fees³. Key Data’s ADR covers base accommodation revenue only; its ADR (Total) adds everything else the guest pays⁹.
• Price (nightly rate) The rate a host asks for a future night on the listing calendar. AirDNA keeps it apart from ADR: price leaves out the cleaning fee and, where a host pays Airbnb’s whole service fee, can include that fee³.
• Dynamic pricing Automatic changes to the nightly rate as demand moves. Airbnb’s tool, Smart Pricing, adjusts the nightly price using hundreds of factors about the listing and its area, within a minimum and maximum the host sets²⁹.
• Revenue What a listing earned from stays. AirDNA adds nightly rates and cleaning fees and subtracts service fees and discounts; Airbnb host fees and other additional fees are left out⁵.
• Revenue per available listing Revenue spread across a market’s listings. AirDNA’s daily RevPAR divides a day’s revenue by all listings available⁴. Its monthly market revenue divides by the listings that took at least one booking that month, so unbooked listings drop out of the average⁵.
• RevPAR Revenue per available room, or per available rental in short-term rental data. CoStar’s STR divides room revenue by rooms available¹. AirDNA’s monthly RevPAR divides monthly revenue by the listing nights available in the month⁴. Key Data’s RevPAR uses every night in the period, owner nights included, and its Adjusted RevPAR only the nights open to paying guests¹³¹⁴.
• TRevPAR Total revenue per available room. CoStar’s STR counts revenue from all hotel operations, resort and cancellation fees included¹. Key Data’s version, called TRevPAR before December 2025 and RevPAR (Total) since, divides total revenue, ancillary and service fees included, by the nights in the period²².
• TRevPOR or ADR (Total) Total revenue per occupied night. CoStar’s STR divides total revenue by rooms sold¹. Key Data used the name TRevPOR before December 2025 and now calls the same calculation ADR (Total): total revenue divided by guest nights¹⁰.
• Gross Booking Value (GBV) Airbnb’s dollar value of bookings made in a period, including host earnings, service fees, cleaning fees and taxes, net of cancellations and alterations. Airbnb records revenue at check-in, so it calls GBV a leading indicator of revenue. GBV was $91,273 million in 2025²⁴.
• RevPAR index (RGI) and average rate index (ARI) A property’s RevPAR or ADR divided by its comparison group’s, times 100. In CoStar’s STR definitions an index of 100 is a fair share¹. Key Data calculates the same indexes for a manager against its market, using adjusted RevPAR for the RevPAR index²¹.

Occupancy and demand

Occupancy figures differ mainly in the denominator: which nights count as available.

• Occupancy rate Nights sold as a share of nights that could have been sold. CoStar’s STR divides rooms sold by rooms available¹. AirDNA divides booked nights by nights available to book, leaving out nights the host blocked². Key Data’s Paid Occupancy counts every night in the period¹¹; its Adjusted Paid Occupancy removes owner nights and holds, so in its example a 5 night stay in a 31 day month with 11 owner nights gives 25%¹².
• Booked nights Nights reserved by guests. Key Data calls them guest nights, or nights sold¹⁷. CoStar’s STR calls the hotel equivalent demand: rooms sold in a period, complimentary rooms excluded¹.
• Nights and Seats Booked Airbnb’s volume measure: nights booked for stays plus seats booked for experiences and services, net of cancellations and alterations in the period. A booking counts in the quarter it is made, and one night can cover several guests and several bedrooms²⁴. Airbnb’s filing for the third quarter of 2024 called it Nights and Experiences Booked²⁵.
• Nights spent Eurostat counts each night a guest actually spends in accommodation, so a night shared by several guests counts once per guest³⁴. Eurostat reported 951.6 million nights in short-stay accommodation booked online in 2025, up 11.4% on 2024³³.
• Available nights Nights a listing could be booked, whether or not it was. AirDNA’s days available add the days open to book and the days booked over the last 12 months². Key Data’s nights available are all nights in the period minus owner and hold nights¹⁵. CoStar’s STR calls the hotel version supply¹.
• Blocked nights Nights a host takes off the calendar, for personal use, repairs or local rules. AirDNA drops them from occupancy and says it separates blocks from bookings with 16 booking signals, such as lead times and reviews². Key Data reports them as owner nights plus holds, the nights guests cannot book¹⁶.
• Booking window (lead time) The days between the date a reservation is made and the check-in date. Key Data averages it across the check-ins in a period²⁰.
• Length of stay The nights in one stay. CoStar’s STR defines it per guest¹, and Key Data’s average length of stay divides guest nights by guest check-ins¹⁹.
• Mid-term rental A furnished stay of about a month or more. Key Data uses the term for stays longer than 28 days and up to 12 months, most often 3 to 9 months²³. Airbnb treats guest stays of at least 28 nights as long-term stays and handles each month as a separate contract²⁴.
• Cancellation rate The share of reservations cancelled in a period, in Key Data’s definition¹⁸. Airbnb takes a cancellation off its nights and GBV in the quarter the cancellation happens²⁴.
• Pacing Bookings already made for future dates, tracked as they build. AirDNA’s pacing view tracks reservation demand, ADR and when guests book across the next six months⁷.
• Pickup Bookings added since the last report. HSMAI’s glossary describes the daily pick-up report as the bookings made since yesterday and uses pick-up report and pace report as names for the same report³⁹.
• Seasonality The yearly rise and fall of demand and rates. Airbnb reports seasonality in its nights and GBV, with peak travel in the third quarter across North America and EMEA²⁴. AirDNA notes that ski-town rates tend to rise in winter while beach markets show the opposite³.
• Market penetration index (MPI) A property’s occupancy divided by its comparison group’s, times 100. CoStar’s STR also calls it the occupancy index and measures it against a competitive set of rival hotels, a market or a submarket¹. Key Data’s version uses adjusted paid occupancy²¹.

Supply

Supply counts depend on what is counted: homes, listings, units, rooms or hosts.

• Short-term rental A furnished home let for short stays, where “short” has no single definition. Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide uses rentals of typically less than 30 consecutive days without a standard long-term lease³⁶. Washington’s Department of Revenue treats lodging of less than one month as transient³⁸. The EU regulation leaves the details to national law³⁰, and the FTC’s fee rule sets no length of stay³¹.
• Supply In hotel data, the rooms in a hotel or group of hotels times the days in the period; CoStar’s STR example is 100 rooms over 31 days, a supply of 3,100¹.
• Census and sample CoStar’s STR calls all hotels and rooms in a segment the census and the properties that submit performance data the sample¹.
• Hotel (in benchmark data) CoStar’s STR counts a property as a hotel when it typically has 10 or more rooms, is open to the public and earns nightly revenue¹. The EU regulation leaves hotels and similar accommodation out of its definition of a unit³⁰.
• Active listing AirDNA counts a listing as active when it had an available night or a booking in the previous month, and excludes one whose calendar was fully blocked even if it stayed live on Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com⁶. Airbnb’s own definition is a listing viewable on Airbnb that has been booked at least once²⁴.
• Listing versus unit A listing is the advert; a unit is the accommodation behind it. The EU regulation defines a listing as the reference to a unit published on a platform’s website³⁰. AirDNA matches one unit’s duplicate listings across Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com using 14 metrics, such as location and bedrooms², and Airbnb lets a host list each space separately, with its own calendar²⁸.
• Whole home versus private room Airbnb sorts places into four types: entire place, private room, hotel room and shared room. An entire place gives guests the whole space; a private room gives them their own bedroom and shared use of other spaces²⁸.
• Host The EU regulation defines a host as a person or company offering short-term rentals for payment through an online platform, professionally or not³⁰. Airbnb counts hosts by users with available listings and notes that one person may hold more than one host account²⁴.
• Multi-listing host (corporate host) A host account that runs more than one listing. AirDNA’s market view ranks property managers by the number of properties they run, naming each by company or Airbnb host ID⁴².
• Co-host and professional manager Airbnb describes co-hosts as experienced hosts who help with anything from listing setup to managing bookings and messaging guests²⁴. Its single service fee is mandatory for most hosts, including hotels and hosts who use property management software²⁶.
• Property management system (PMS) The software that holds a property’s available and occupied rooms, rates, past and future reservations and guest charges, in HSMAI’s definition⁴¹.
• Channel manager Software that updates a property’s availability and rates on the major online travel agencies, in HSMAI’s definition⁴⁰.

Platform fees

Airbnb is moving all home hosts to a single service fee and phasing out its split fee, so these terms are changing²⁶.

• Service fee The platform’s charge on a booking. Airbnb’s revenue consists of service fees, net of incentives and refunds; for stays, the fee is a percentage of the booking value excluding taxes and varies with booking value, length of stay, location and host type²⁴.
• Split fee A service fee shared by host and guest. Under Airbnb’s split fee most hosts pay 3%, hosts with listings in Brazil and Mexico pay 4%, and guests pay 14.1% to 16.5% of the booking subtotal²⁶.
• Host fee The part of the service fee deducted from the host’s payout. Airbnb works it out on the nightly price plus any host fees, excluding the guest fee and taxes²⁶.
• Guest fee The part of the service fee added to the guest’s price. Airbnb’s booking subtotal for this fee is the nightly price plus host fees, before the guest fee and taxes, and guests paying in another currency can be charged up to 16.5%²⁶. No guest fee applies where the host has moved to the single fee²⁷.
• Host-only fee (single fee) The whole service fee taken from the host’s payout, which Airbnb now calls the single fee. Most hosts pay 15.5%, other hosts typically 14%-16%, and listings in Brazil and Mexico 16%²⁶.
• Cleaning fee A charge some hosts add to cover cleaning after a stay, in Airbnb’s description²⁷. AirDNA counts it in revenue and ADR: in its example, 5 days at $250 per night with a $200 cleaning fee give an ADR of $290³. Key Data’s ADR counts base accommodation revenue only⁹.
• Take rate The share of booking value a platform keeps as revenue. Airbnb’s annual report does not use the term; it reports 2025 revenue of $12.2 billion and GBV of $91,273 million and defines both²⁴.
• Total price The full amount a guest pays. Airbnb builds it from the host’s nightly price plus fees, taxes and costs set by the host or Airbnb; prices in search include fees, taxes may appear only at checkout in some places, and checkout always shows the full total²⁷.

Rules and tax

Rules come from countries, states and cities, and each term below follows the law or agency named. For an individual case, check with the authority concerned or a professional.

• Registration number Under EU Regulation 2024/1028, a unique identifier that a competent authority issues to identify one unit in its country; a unit may be put through only one registration procedure. The regulation was adopted on 11 April 2024 and applies from 20 May 2026³⁰. Airbnb requires registration numbers on listings in some jurisdictions²⁴.
• Activity data The EU regulation’s term for the nights a unit is rented and the number of guests per night, with each guest’s country of residence³⁰.
• Night cap A limit on the nights a home may be let short term in a year. Airbnb’s annual report lists night caps among the local rules that can limit listings²⁴.
• Primary-residence rule A rule that allows short-term letting only of the host’s main home, sometimes only while the host is present. Airbnb lists primary residence and host presence requirements among the same local limits²⁴.
• Minimum stay A lower limit on the nights in one booking. Local rules can impose one: Airbnb lists minimum night stays among the limits on listings²⁴.
• Occupancy tax (transient lodging tax) A tax charged on short stays. Washington’s Department of Revenue treats lodging of less than one month as transient and says most Washington locations add lodging taxes on top of sales tax³⁸. Airbnb says it collects and remits taxes on behalf of hosts when legally required²⁴.
• Marketplace facilitator A platform that collects and pays tax on sales made through it. Washington’s Department of Revenue says some marketplaces have agreed with it to collect and pay taxes due on short-term rentals; hosts then deduct the sales the facilitator collected and may still have to register and report³⁷.
• Total price rule The FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees, effective May 12, 2025, prohibits bait-and-switch pricing for short-term lodging. The total price includes all fees the business knows about and can calculate upfront; taxes, government charges and optional extras may be left out³¹.
• Personal-use days Under US federal tax rules, a home counts as a residence when the owner’s personal use exceeds the greater of 14 days or 10% of the days rented at a fair rental price. A residence rented for fewer than 15 days reports no rental income and deducts no rental expenses, the IRS says³².

Investing

The definitions below follow a US bank supervisor, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), unless a data firm is named.

• Net operating income (NOI) Annual gross income minus operating expenses. In the OCC’s definition, operating expenses leave out loan interest and principal, income taxes and depreciation, and include a reserve for replacing capital items³⁵.
• Cap rate The ratio between a property’s stabilised NOI and its sale price, used to convert income into value³⁵.
• Gross yield Income as a share of price, before costs. AirDNA’s yield divides a property’s revenue potential, its projected revenue, by the purchase price, so no running costs are deducted⁸.
• Debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) NOI divided by the year’s debt service, which the OCC describes as a measure of the borrower’s ability to service its debt; it lists minimum debt service coverage among the standards a bank’s lending policy should set³⁵. Investor loans marketed as DSCR loans take their name from this ratio.
• Debt yield NOI divided by the loan amount, expressed as a percent³⁵.
• Loan-to-value (LTV) The loan divided by the market value of the property securing it, measured when the loan is made³⁵.

Common questions

Sources

1. CoStar Group (STR), Glossary, key hotel industry metrics and terms (STR Benchmark). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
2. AirDNA, How does AirDNA calculate occupancy rate? (2026-08-20). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
3. AirDNA, How does AirDNA calculate average daily rate (ADR)? (2026-05-22). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
4. AirDNA, What is RevPAR? (2026-06-10). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
5. AirDNA, How does AirDNA calculate revenue? (2026-05-20). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
6. AirDNA, Total active listings (2026-06-12). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
7. AirDNA, How do I analyze future bookings with AirDNA? (2025-09-22). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
8. AirDNA, What is yield? (2026-06-17). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
9. Key Data, ADR (Average Daily Rate). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
10. Key Data, ADR (Total), formerly TRevPOR. Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
11. Key Data, Paid Occupancy %. Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
12. Key Data, Adjusted Paid Occupancy %. Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
13. Key Data, RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Rental Night). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
14. Key Data, Adjusted RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Rental Night). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
15. Key Data, Nights Available. Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
16. Key Data, Owner Nights + Holds. Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
17. Key Data, Guest Nights. Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
18. Key Data, Cancellation Rate. Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
19. Key Data, Average Length of Stay. Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
20. Key Data, Average Booking Window. Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
21. Key Data, Market Indexes and Share KPIs. Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
22. Key Data, RevPAR (Total), formerly TRevPAR. Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
23. Key Data, Should property managers prioritize a mid-term rental strategy? (2026-03-25). Secondary source, read 2026-10-09.
24. Airbnb, Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 (2026-02-12). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
25. Airbnb, Inc., Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2024 (2024-11-07). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
26. Airbnb, Inc., Airbnb service fees (Help Center). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
27. Airbnb, Inc., How pricing works for homes (Help Center). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
28. Airbnb, Inc., Types of places to stay (Help Center). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
29. Airbnb, Inc., Use Smart Pricing to automatically adjust your prices based on demand (Help Center). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
30. European Union, Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 on data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services (2024-04-11). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
31. U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, frequently asked questions (2025-05). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
32. U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Topic no. 415, Renting residential and vacation property (2026-09-24). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
33. Eurostat, Tourism nights booked via platforms hit nearly 1 billion (2026-04-01). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
34. Eurostat, Glossary, nights spent. Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
35. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Comptroller’s Handbook, Commercial Real Estate Lending, version 2.0 (2022-03). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
36. Fannie Mae, Selling Guide B3-3.8-03, Rental income, subject property short-term rental (2026-09-02). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
37. Washington State Department of Revenue, Online marketplaces and property managers (lodging guide). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
38. Washington State Department of Revenue, Lodging industry guide. Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
39. HSMAI Academy, Glossary, pick-up or pace report. Secondary source, read 2026-10-09.
40. HSMAI Academy, Glossary, channel manager. Secondary source, read 2026-10-09.
41. HSMAI Academy, Glossary, property management system (PMS). Secondary source, read 2026-10-09.
42. AirDNA, How do I learn about property managers in a market? (2026-06-12). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.