Do I Need to Report My Airbnb Earnings to Revenue?

Short answer: yes. Every euro you earn from hosting on Airbnb (or Booking.com, Vrbo, or any similar platform) is taxable in Ireland and needs to go on a tax return. It doesn't matter whether you rent out a spare room, your whole house while you're away for a fortnight, or a dedicated holiday property in Kerry. If money came in, Revenue expects to hear about it.

That might not be the answer you were hoping for, so let's walk through what it actually means in practice — and clear up a few myths along the way.

“But I thought the first €14,000 was tax-free?”

This is the single biggest misunderstanding among Irish hosts, and it catches people out every year.

You've probably heard of Rent-a-Room Relief — the scheme that lets you earn up to €14,000 a year tax-free from renting a room in your own home. Here's the catch: it doesn't apply to short-term lets. Revenue's position is clear: the relief is for longer-term residential arrangements, like renting a room to a student for the academic year or a lodger who actually lives with you. Guests staying a weekend or a week through Airbnb don't count, because they're visitors, not residents.

So if you earned €6,000 hosting last summer, that €6,000 is taxable income — the €14,000 threshold offers you no shelter at all.

“Will Revenue even know about my Airbnb income?”

Yes. They already do.

Since 2023, under EU rules (known as DAC7), Airbnb and the other platforms are legally required to send Revenue detailed reports on their Irish hosts — your name, your PPS number, how much you earned, how many bookings you had, and the address of the property. Revenue isn't guessing; they have your numbers on file.

This matters for two reasons. First, “staying under the radar” simply isn't an option anymore. Second, if the figure you declare doesn't match the figure Airbnb reported, that's exactly the kind of mismatch that triggers a letter from Revenue. And Revenue letters about undeclared income tend to come with interest and penalties attached — which cost far more than just paying the tax in the first place.

One detail worth knowing: the taxable figure is your gross earnings before Airbnb takes its service fee — not the amount that lands in your bank account. The good news is that the service fee is a deductible expense, so you're not taxed on it in the end. But you need to declare the gross figure and claim the fee separately, because the gross figure is what Revenue sees.

What tax will I actually pay?

Your Airbnb profit gets added to your other income and taxed at your usual rate — so 20% or 40% depending on where you sit, plus USC and PRSI. If you're a PAYE worker with a salary of, say, €50,000, your hosting income sits on top of that and is likely taxed at the higher rate.

The word doing the heavy lifting there is profit. You're not taxed on everything that came in — you're taxed on what's left after your allowable expenses. For most hosts, that includes things like:

• Airbnb's service fees and commissions
• Cleaning, laundry, and welcome supplies
• A fair share of electricity, heating, broadband, and bins for the hosted period
• Insurance, repairs, and maintenance related to the letting
• Advertising and photography costs

Keeping receipts and a simple record of these expenses can meaningfully shrink your tax bill, so it's well worth doing properly.

One wrinkle worth knowing about: Revenue can treat short-term letting income in different ways depending on how you host. If it's occasional and hands-off, it's usually treated as miscellaneous income. If you're running it more like a business — frequent bookings, cleaning between every guest, breakfast baskets, the works — it can count as trading income, which actually gives you broader scope to claim expenses. The classification affects what you can deduct, so it's an area where getting it right pays off.

How do I actually report it?

It depends on how much you're earning:

If your net income from hosting (after expenses) is under €5,000 a year and you're a PAYE worker, you can usually declare it through a Form 12 in your myAccount on Revenue's website. It's relatively painless.

If it's €5,000 or more, you need to register as self-assessed and file a Form 11 each year through ROS (Revenue Online Service). The deadline is 31 October for paper filers, with an extension into mid-November if you file and pay online. (Not sure which side of the line you fall on, or what else might pull you into a return? Our plain-English guide to who needs to file an Irish tax return walks through the whole picture.)

Either way, the return covers the previous calendar year — so the return you file in autumn 2026 covers what you earned in 2025.

And yes, this applies even if you think you owe little or nothing. Filing keeps you compliant and gives you a clean record if Revenue ever comes asking.

What if I haven't been declaring it?

Don't panic — but don't sit on it either. Revenue looks far more kindly on people who come forward voluntarily than on people they have to chase. If you've a year or two of undeclared hosting income, the smart move is to get your figures together and make a disclosure before that letter arrives. It's a fixable problem, and fixing it early is always cheaper.

The easy way to get it sorted: Pegora

If all of this sounds like a headache — the expense tracking, the classification questions, the forms with numbers instead of names — that's exactly the problem Pegora was built to solve.

Here's how it works: upload your Airbnb earnings statement and log your expenses, and Pegora reads every payout, nets off the allowable expenses, and works out the income tax, USC and PRSI owing — making sure every deduction is claimed so you don't pay a cent more than you owe. Every figure then lands in a filing pack keyed to Revenue's own forms — Form 12 or a full Form 11 — ready to copy into your return or hand to your accountant, with the deadlines shown alongside.

No spreadsheets, no deciphering Revenue's terminology, no October panic. Just accurate figures, ready on time, with your expenses working as hard for you as your spare room does.

Because here's the truth: hosting on Airbnb is a great way to earn extra income — and declaring it properly is far simpler, and far cheaper, than hoping Revenue doesn't notice. They already have. Get ahead of it, claim what you're entitled to, and let Pegora handle the sums.

This article is general information, not personal tax advice. Everyone's circumstances differ, and tax rules change — if you're unsure about your situation, get professional advice.