Updated August 9, 2026
Most of this site is written for guests — people booking a furnished apartment in Roma Norte or Narvarte for a month or a year. This section is the other side of the same operation: what it looks like from the owner’s chair.
If you own an apartment in Mexico City, or you are about to, you are facing a set of decisions that almost nothing in English addresses honestly. How much does management actually cost, and is the fee quoted on gross or net? Is short-term renting still legal after the Ley de Turismo reform, and what happened to all those court challenges? What does Airbnb withhold before the money reaches you, and what does the SAT still expect afterwards? Does the arithmetic even work in the building you are looking at?
The Spanish-speaking market has answers. Our management arm, Roma Norte Host , has published dozens of owner guides in Spanish over the past year. Almost none of that exists in English, which is how foreign owners end up making six-figure decisions on the basis of a forum thread from 2019.
These articles close that gap.
Start here
What Airbnb property management costs in Mexico City — fee structures, what each tier includes, co-hosting versus full management, the costs owners forget to model, and the cases where hiring a manager genuinely does not pay for itself.
Mexico City’s short-term rental rules, explained for foreign owners — the host registry, the night cap, what the amparo litigation does and does not mean for you, and why your condominium bylaws may matter more than city law.
Is a Mexico City Airbnb still worth it, neighborhood by neighborhood — how the revenue equation actually works once available nights become an uncertain input, the full cost stack, and how Roma Norte, Condesa, Narvarte, Polanco, Del Valle and Escandón differ in practice.
Tax on Airbnb income in Mexico for foreign owners — what the platform withholds, why registering your RFC changes the number on every payout, how the three common tax regimes differ, and the questions to bring to your accountant.
Why this is written by a guest-facing brand
Worth stating plainly, because it affects how you should read everything here: StayWork CDMX and Roma Norte Host are run by the same operator. StayWork is the guest-facing side — the listings, the reviews, the direct booking. Roma Norte Host is the management side, for owners who want someone else running that machine on their unit.
That arrangement is the reason these articles can say anything useful. Occupancy is not an abstraction when you are the one answering the message at 11pm about a broken lock. Cleaning costs are not a line item from a spreadsheet when you employ the team. A management fee looks different when you have been on both sides of the invoice.
It also means you should apply the obvious discount. We sell management. Where that creates an incentive to shade an answer, the articles try to say so out loud — including the parts where the honest recommendation is to self-manage, or to not buy at all.
The three real options
Owners tend to arrive thinking the choice is manager or no manager. In practice there are three, and the middle one is underrated.
Self-managing. Viable if you live in the city, speak Spanish, and treat it as a part-time job. The failure mode is not the guest messages — it is the maintenance network. Finding a plumber who answers on a Sunday takes years to build and about a week to need.
Co-hosting. Someone handles the operational layer — pricing, messaging, turnovers, maintenance — while you keep the listing, the account, and the relationship with the platform. Cheaper than full management, and the right answer for owners who want control but not the 2am pager.
Full management. The unit becomes someone else’s operational problem, and you receive a report. Worth it above a certain revenue level or when you live abroad; wasteful below it.
Which one fits depends on numbers specific to your unit. Roma Norte Host publishes a short-term versus traditional rental calculator that lets you run your own inputs rather than trusting a market average that was never about your building.
If you want the management conversation
Everything above is written to be useful whether or not you ever contact us. If you do want to talk about your specific unit, that conversation happens on the management side: Roma Norte Host services , or the results we publish from units we currently operate.
If you are a guest looking for an apartment rather than an owner looking for a manager, you want the furnished monthly rentals side of the site instead.
Nothing in this section is legal, tax, or investment advice. It is operator experience. Confirm anything that touches money or compliance with a Mexican accountant and, where the rules are involved, a lawyer.