P&L template for a short-term rental business
A free, self-calculating profit & loss spreadsheet set up for a short-term rental business: type your statement lines on one tab and the monthly P&L builds itself, with guidance for the categories this trade actually uses.
- Free Excel file preloaded for a short-term rental business; works in Google Sheets and Numbers too.
- Type transactions once; twelve monthly P&L columns calculate themselves.
- Category guidance for this trade: cleaning & turnover, supplies & consumables, utilities, and more.
- Transfers, card payments, and owner draws get an excluded section so they never inflate or deflate profit.
- Prefer not to type? RapidPnL builds the same P&L from your statement PDFs in minutes, reconciled to the penny, for $49.
Excel format (.xlsx), about 25 KB, free, no email required.
Download the templateWhat income looks like for a short-term rental business
Airbnb payouts typically arrive a day or so after each check-in under a recognizable name, net of the platform's host fee. VRBO pays on its own cycle, and direct bookings arrive by Zelle, check, or a card processor. Each channel is one recurring pattern, categorized once, so a busy season's dozens of deposits collapse into a clean rental revenue line. Because payouts are net of host fees, bank-based revenue reads lower than the dashboard's gross bookings, and the report's basis note says exactly that. The monthly columns show the seasonal shape honestly: heavy summer or ski-season months, thin shoulder months, and the annual question of whether peak season carries the year.
In the template, every deposit gets entered as a positive amount and categorized as Sales & Services Revenue (or Other Income when it genuinely is not sales). The monthly columns then show your revenue pattern at a glance, which is the first thing a lender reads.
The expense categories that matter
The cleaner paid by Zelle or Venmo after every stay, often the largest operating line. If any cleaner clears $600 in a year, this line also feeds your 1099 obligations.
Linens, toiletries, coffee, paper goods, the big-box restock runs between guests. Constant small debits that total a real line.
Power, water, internet, and streaming on the rental. Guests expect all of it on, all season, and the drafts recur monthly.
Fixing what guests break and what weather wears out. Repairs are expenses; improvements are not, and the big-ticket items get flagged so your preparer can handle depreciation.
The interest portion of the mortgage payment is an expense. Principal is repayment of debt and stays off the P&L so profit is not understated.
The part most templates get wrong
Transfers between your own accounts, credit card payments made from checking, owner draws, and loan principal are cash movements, not income or expenses. A homemade P&L that counts them reports the wrong profit, and it is the first thing an experienced reviewer notices. This template gives those categories a dedicated excluded section below the P&L: the cash stays tracked, the profit stays honest.
The honest test of any hand-built P&L is reconciliation: for each account and month, the beginning balance plus every line you entered must equal the printed ending balance. The Start-here tab walks through the check. If typing and checking a year of statements is more weekend than you want to spend, the short-term rental business P&L guide shows what the finished product looks like, and RapidPnL builds it from your statement PDFs in minutes.
Upload the PDFs and get a management-use profit & loss in minutes, with every statement reconciled to the penny. $49 for 3 months, then $9 each additional month. Full refund if we can't reconcile.
The free statement is read, categorized, and reconciled on screen before you pay anything. One per person; no card required.
Common questions
Cleaning & turnover, Supplies & consumables, Utilities, Repairs & maintenance do most of the work on this trade's P&L. The template's Start-here tab explains each one, and the dropdown carries the full chart of accounts so nothing gets forced into the wrong bucket.
Record what actually lands on the bank statement. Airbnb payouts typically arrive a day or so after each check-in under a recognizable name, net of the platform's host fee. Enter each deposit as a positive amount under Sales & Services Revenue; processor fees that appear as separate debits get their own expense line.
Same engine and formulas, tuned for a short-term rental business: the Start-here tab lists the categories that matter for this trade and why, and the Transactions tab opens with example entries that look like this business's real statement lines.
Other industries
- Cleaning business →
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- Amazon business →
- Rideshare or delivery business →
- Real estate practice →
Written by a licensed CPA. This guide is general information, not tax, legal, accounting, or financial advice, and does not create a professional relationship. Lender requirements and bank websites change; confirm specifics with your lender and financial institution. RapidPnL reports are cash-basis summaries generated from customer-provided data for management use only, not audited or CPA-reviewed. © 2026 RapidPnL LLC.