Run Airbnb in Nairobi without owning the property.
You hold the lease. We find units whose owners allow short-letting, help you get that permission in writing, and then run the unit: pricing, guests, turnovers, maintenance and the compliance that operators get caught by. One itemised statement a month, so you can see your actual margin.
Can you run an Airbnb business in Nairobi without owning property?
Yes. The model is variously called rent-to-rent, rental arbitrage or Airbnb arbitrage: you lease a property on an ordinary long lease, furnish it, and re-let it on short stays at a higher nightly rate, keeping the margin. It is entirely legal in Kenya provided the owner has given written permission to sublet, you hold a county business permit, and you declare the income. Goldstay manages these units for operators in Nairobi for 20% of the revenue collected, and will not take one on without sight of the owner's consent.
- Management fee
- 20% of revenue collected
- Unit sourcing
- Free, we are paid by managing
- Owner's written consent
- Required, no exceptions
- Onboarding or exit fee
- None
- Your furnishing budget
- USD 4,000 to 9,000 for a 1 to 2 bed
- Typical gross vs long rent
- 1.6x to 2.2x, before costs
- You sign as
- Authorised leaseholder, not owner
- If your lease ends
- We exit immediately, no fee
The margin on a single unit is thinner than the courses selling this model suggest. We would rather tell you that before you sign a lease than after.
Consent in writing, or we do not take the unit.
Most of the advice circulating about this model treats the landlord as an obstacle to be managed. Sign the lease, say nothing, and deal with it if it comes up. It is bad advice on its own terms, because the downside is not a warning letter: it is termination, forfeiture of your deposit, and the loss of a furnished unit you paid to furnish, usually in the middle of a booking calendar you cannot honour.
So we ask to see the owner’s written permission, and our management agreement makes you warrant that it exists. We are also the party best placed to help you get it. We manage long-term property for landlords across the same neighbourhoods, which means we know which owners will consider it, and it means a landlord hearing the proposal is hearing it from a managing agent who will be accountable for the unit rather than from a stranger who wants to sublet their apartment.
If you are at the start of that conversation, we have written up how to have it: how to ask a landlord for permission to short-let, including a letter you can send, and what your lease actually has to say for consent to be needed in the first place.
Six things we do, in the order they happen.
The first two are the ones that decide whether the rest is worth doing.
We find units that permit it
The hard part of this model is not the nightly rate, it is finding a landlord whose lease allows short-letting and who will say so in writing. We manage long-term property for landlords across the same neighbourhoods, so we know which buildings and which owners are open to it.
We help you get consent properly
We put the proposal to the owner the way an owner wants to hear it: who is accountable, what happens to the unit, who insures it, and what the recourse is if it goes wrong. A landlord is far more likely to agree when a managing agent is standing behind the arrangement.
You sign as an authorised leaseholder
Our management agreement has a capacity written specifically for this: you warrant that you hold the head lease and that the owner has given written permission both to sublet and to appoint us. The contract says what you actually are rather than pretending you own the place.
We run the unit
Listing and photography, nightly pricing, guest screening, messaging, check-in, turnover cleaning, linen, consumables and maintenance. The same operation we run for owner-held units, because from the guest's side there is no difference.
We keep you compliant
County single business permit, the tourism regulatory requirements, VAT position where turnover crosses the threshold, and rental income reported properly. Operators get caught by this more than owners do, because the model looks like a side hustle and is taxed like a business.
You get one statement
Revenue, our fee, cleaning, consumables and repairs on one itemised monthly statement, so the margin between your rent and your revenue is a number you can actually see rather than one you estimate.
Where the money actually goes.
An operator’s pitch deck shows gross revenue against rent and calls the gap profit. The gap is not profit. Out of it come our fee, cleaning and linen on every turnover, consumables, utilities at short-stay consumption rather than tenant consumption, the void nights that no amount of pricing skill removes, and the furnishing you have already paid for and are amortising whether you think of it that way or not.
- Gross short-stay revenue commonly runs 1.6x to 2.2x the long-term rent on a well-located furnished unit
- Realistic occupancy is 55% to 75% across a full year, by neighbourhood, not the 90% a course will quote
- Cleaning and linen scale with turnovers, so a good month costs more to run than a quiet one
- One unit rarely justifies the effort; the model works at three or more
- A single month of a unit sitting empty while you still owe rent removes most of a quarter's margin
We would rather run three units for an operator who understood this before signing than one for someone who is going to hand the keys back in the fourth month. For the full picture, including the numbers we see across the book, read Airbnb arbitrage in Nairobi.
This page is for people who lease. The other one is for owners.
If you own the property, you do not need any of the consent machinery above and the economics are considerably better, because the rent you are paying an owner is rent you are not paying. Go to Airbnb management instead, which is the same operation at the same fee without the head lease in the middle. If you are weighing a short-let against a tenant, compare it with long-term management at 10% of collected rent, and if you are a landlord who has discovered a tenant short-letting your unit, here is where you stand.
What operators ask before they sign a lease.
Can I rent an apartment in Nairobi and put it on Airbnb?
Yes, if your lease permits it or the owner gives written permission, and no if it does not. This is the whole question and there is no clever way around it: a residential lease that is silent on subletting does not imply consent, and short-letting a unit in breach of the lease gives the owner a straightforward route to terminate and keep your deposit. Get the permission in writing before you commit to the rent, not after.
Is Airbnb arbitrage legal in Kenya?
The model itself is perfectly legal. Leasing a property and re-letting it on a short-stay basis is ordinary commercial subletting, which Kenyan law permits. What makes it unlawful in a particular case is doing it without the right to: without the owner's consent where the lease requires it, without the county business permit, or without declaring the income. None of those are difficulties with the model, they are things operators skip.
Do I need the landlord's permission to sublet?
Read the lease. Most Kenyan residential leases either prohibit subletting outright or require the landlord's prior written consent, and a growing number now name short-stay letting specifically because owners have caught on. If the lease is genuinely silent you are on better ground, but silence is not consent and a court will look at what the parties intended. Ask. A landlord who says yes in writing is worth more than an argument you might win.
Will you manage a unit if I do not have the owner's consent?
No. We will help you get it, and we are unusually well placed to because we manage long-term property for landlords in the same neighbourhoods, but we will not run a unit that is being short-let behind the owner's back. Our management agreement makes you warrant that the permission exists, and we ask to see it. This is not squeamishness: we would be the visible party in a dispute, and half our business is acting for landlords.
What do you charge an operator in Nairobi?
20% of the revenue collected, the same as we charge an owner, with no onboarding fee, no listing fee and no exit fee. We take nothing from contractors or listing platforms. On a unit renting at KES 80,000 and grossing KES 160,000, our fee is KES 32,000 and your margin is what remains after rent, our fee and running costs.
How much can an operator actually make on a Nairobi unit?
Less than the courses claim. On a well-located furnished one or two bedroom, gross short-stay revenue is commonly 1.6 to 2.2 times the long-term rent, and out of that difference come our fee, cleaning, consumables, utilities, the void nights and the furnishing you paid for up front. A realistic operator margin on a single unit is thin, and the model only becomes a business at several units with the fixed costs spread across them.
What does it cost to set up?
Furnishing is the real number and it is yours, not ours: budget USD 4,000 to 9,000 for a one or two bedroom depending on how far you go, plus the deposit and first month on your own lease. Our side adds photography at USD 100 to 150 where the unit needs it. Nothing else is payable to us before the unit earns.
Is this the same as co-hosting?
Co-hosting usually means running someone else's listing for a share of the revenue while the owner keeps the booking relationship. What we do here is full management of a unit you hold on a lease, which is a different arrangement contractually even though the day-to-day work overlaps heavily. If you already have a listing running and want it taken over, that is fine too, and it is the same fee.
What happens if my head lease ends or the owner withdraws consent?
The management agreement follows the lease. You are obliged to tell us in writing as soon as your authority to let ends, lapses or is withdrawn, and we can then end the arrangement immediately without an exit fee, because continuing to take bookings for a unit you no longer control is the one thing neither of us can afford. We would help you rehouse confirmed guests.
Do I need to register a business and pay tax?
Yes. Short-stay letting as a business needs a county single business permit, and the income is taxable whether or not you registered anything. Once turnover crosses the VAT threshold you have a VAT obligation too, which catches operators at three or four units who were still treating it as informal income. We report your revenue properly and remit what is due rather than leaving you to reconstruct it later.
Can you find me a unit as well as manage it?
Yes, and for operators it is usually the more valuable half. We know which owners in which buildings will consider short-letting, because we already act for a lot of them. Sourcing is free to you: we are paid by managing the unit afterwards, not by placing you in it, which means we have no reason to put you into a unit that will not perform.
Would you rather I just bought a property?
Not necessarily, and we will say so honestly. Leasing lets you test a neighbourhood and a price point for the cost of a deposit rather than a purchase, and if it does not work you hand the keys back. Owning is the better long-term position and we help people do that too, but starting as an operator is a defensible way to learn the market with a bounded downside.
Leasing a unit to short-let it?
Tell us the neighbourhood and the rent you are being asked for. We will tell you what it realistically grosses, and whether the owner is likely to agree.
Prefer to call? +254 702 471 993