You own an apartment in Cuenca and you do not live here: what it earns and how to run it from abroad

A great deal has been written about buying property in Cuenca and about what it costs to live here. Almost nothing about the question that matters once you already own the place: what does that apartment actually earn if you rent it out by the night.

This article is written for the owner who is not in Cuenca all year: the retiree who spends stretches of time abroad, the investor who bought and left the apartment closed, the resident with a second unit sitting unused.

Start with what a monthly rental would give you

Before looking at nightly rates, set your baseline. In early 2026, monthly rents in Cuenca sit in these bands: a one-bedroom in a local neighbourhood, 300 to 400 dollars unfurnished and 400 to 550 furnished; a two-bedroom in the historic centre, 400 to 550 unfurnished and 550 to 750 furnished; a two-bedroom near the rivers, up to 950 furnished; a three-bedroom in a modern building, 850 to 1,200 furnished.

That is your comparison number, and it comes with two advantages people underestimate: it arrives every month, and the tenant pays the utilities.

What short-term renting changes

Renting by the night replaces one variable with two: the rate and the occupancy. The rate is the easy part. From our sampling of a thousand active listings in Cuenca, the city average is around 41 dollars a night, with Yanuncay at 30.60 and Remigio Crespo at 51.54. Occupancy is what decides whether this is worth doing.

And there is the figure almost nobody publishes: the market as a whole fills between 30 and 35% of nights, but an established listing, with more than thirty reviews and a good rating, sustains between 40 and 50%. That fifteen-point difference is not luck: it is photography, pricing adjusted by season, response times and reviews.

Costs move too. Utilities, internet, cleaning between stays, consumables, linen replacement and maintenance all become yours. As a working assumption, count on 30 to 40% of gross going to costs and platform fees.

The honest calculation: net against net

Almost every comparison in circulation deducts the costs of short-term renting and does not deduct those of the monthly rental. That makes comparison impossible: a monthly rental also has empty months, maintenance and your own time, somewhere between 10 and 15% of annual gross.

With both columns net, a two-bedroom that would rent monthly for 500 dollars needs about 14 nights filled at 50 dollars to match that rent. That is 45% occupancy: right inside the band a well-run listing operates in, and well above the market average. Everything you fill above those 14 nights is the real difference between the two options.

And there is something that appears in neither column: with short-term renting the apartment is still yours. You can block the dates when you come to Cuenca and use it, without waiting for a two-year contract to expire. For an owner who spends part of the year here, that is often worth more than the difference in income.

The full arithmetic, neighbourhood by neighbourhood and rent by rent, is in Airbnb or a traditional rental: the numbers in Cuenca.

What the law requires of you

Renting by the night in Ecuador is a regulated activity, and the requirements are not optional:

• Tourism Registry with the Ministry of Tourism. It is free, done online, and it issues a certificate with a QR code that must be displayed at the property. You need a RUC or RIMPE tax registration first.
• LUAF, the annual operating licence from the Municipality of Cuenca. It is renewed every year and requires the Tourism Registry certificate.
• Registro de huéspedes for every stay: name, length of stay, number of adults and minors and a contact phone number, kept for six months.
• Tax registration and electronic invoicing. The platform collecting payment does not replace your obligation to invoice the guest.

One local detail worth knowing: research from the University of Cuenca counted around 1,985 short-term accommodations operating in the city, of which only 145 were registered with the Ministry of Tourism as of March 2025. The Municipality is working on an ordinance to regulate the sector, so that gap between operating and being registered is going to narrow.

The full procedure, screen by screen, is in is it legal to have an Airbnb in Cuenca? and the tax side in taxes on an Airbnb in Ecuador.

Running it without being in Cuenca

This is where it gets complicated for the owner who lives abroad, and it has little to do with the numbers. Guests write at any hour and in two languages. Cleaning has to be coordinated between stays, sometimes at a few hours notice. Something breaks and someone has to be at the door. None of that works with a five-hour time difference.

The options are the same everywhere: do it yourself and accept the schedule, ask a relative or a friend and quietly wear the relationship down, or hire management and give up a share of the income. Management commissions in Ecuador run from 15% to 30% depending on scope.

The useful way to look at that commission is not as a cost on what you already earn, but against the difference between filling 33% of nights, which is the market average, and filling the 45 or 50% of a well-run listing. If management does not move that number, it is not worth what it costs. If it does, it pays for itself.

When a monthly rental is the better answer

Sometimes it is, and it is worth saying plainly. If your building bylaws prohibit short stays, which is common in Cuenca, the decision is already made. If the apartment is far from the historic centre, if it has three or more bedrooms in a purely residential area, or if you need predictable monthly income, a traditional rental will usually serve you better.

The point of running the numbers is not to talk yourself into short-term renting. It is to find out which of the two your particular apartment is suited to.