5 Best Galveston Airbnb Management Companies (2026, Ranked with Real Data)

Galveston is the highest-earning short-term rental market in Texas that Surge operates in, and also the hardest one to run from a distance. The median entire-place listing on the island and along the mainland shoreline earned $45,674 over the last twelve months, roughly 33% more than a typical Houston listing. But occupancy averages just 45%, revenue is stacked into a handful of summer months, and since November 2025 the city requires a local contact who can answer a complaint within one hour and resolve it within two.

That last rule is why this list matters more in Galveston than anywhere else in Texas. An owner in Dallas or Denver cannot personally meet a one-hour response standard, and three violations in twelve months can put a rental license in front of the STR Licensing Board for revocation. Management here is no longer only about revenue. It is about keeping the license.

Quick answers

• Best overall: Surge, 15% of booking revenue, no annual contract
• Best affordable option: MasterHost, tiered plans from 10%
• Best boutique operator: Mistr Property Management
• Best for luxury and beachfront homes: Vello
• Best for West End beach houses: Sand 'N Sea Properties
• Typical full service fee in Galveston: 15% to 25% of booking revenue
• What the median listing earns: $45,674 a year entire place, $51,992 for a house
• What management costs on that revenue: about $6,850 a year at 15%, about $11,400 at 25%

Galveston short term rental market data, 2026

Every number below comes from AirDNA market data pulled for the Galveston market on August 17, 2026, covering the trailing twelve months for entire-place listings. This is what the market actually pays, not what a listing calculator projects.

• Median annual revenue, entire place: $45,674, up 6.1% year over year
• Houses: $51,992 a year. Condos and apartments: $31,191 a year
• Average daily rate: $321.93, the highest in Texas by a wide margin
• Professionally managed average daily rate: $359.19, an 11.6% premium over the market average
• Occupancy: 45.1%, the lowest of the major Texas markets
• Average length of stay: 3.3 nights. Booking lead time: 44 days
• Active listings: 9,395 across 8 submarkets

Two of those numbers deserve a second look, because together they define the Galveston business model.

The first is the rate. At $321.93 a night, Galveston commands more per night than Austin ($236.64), Fort Worth ($204.45), Dallas ($202.95) or Houston ($186.77). Beachfront supply is finite and demand is leisure-driven, so nightly rates behave like a resort market rather than a metro.

The second is occupancy. At 45.1%, the island runs 10 to 15 points below the Texas metros. Galveston listings are not booked more often than city listings, they are booked at a much higher price for fewer nights. That is a seasonal resort pattern, and it means the revenue math is fragile in a specific way: you cannot make up a lost July with a strong November.

How seasonal is Galveston really?

Very. Here is the last twelve months of monthly occupancy and average daily rate for entire-place listings.

Month	Occupancy	Average daily rate	Revenue per listing
August 2025	45.6%	$325.89	$4,309
September 2025	30.8%	$270.66	$2,694
October 2025	37.8%	$273.40	$2,968
November 2025	32.8%	$273.09	$2,413
December 2025	30.8%	$250.71	$2,280
January 2026	29.0%	$214.32	$1,846
February 2026	37.0%	$220.60	$1,910
March 2026	53.2%	$293.85	$4,070
April 2026	40.2%	$294.67	$3,408
May 2026	50.6%	$335.87	$4,542
June 2026	64.5%	$399.21	$7,074
July 2026	70.4%	$406.29	$8,159

June and July alone produced $15,233 per listing, a third of the annual total in two months. January and February combined produced $3,756. A short term rental management company that mishandles your summer calendar or leaves you unlisted during spring break has not cost you a slow month, it has cost you the year.

This is also the clearest argument for professional revenue management on the island. Rates swing from $214 in January to $406 in July, a 90% spread. Static pricing loses money at both ends: it leaves cash on the table in peak weeks and prices you out of the shoulder season entirely.

Galveston submarkets ranked by median annual revenue

Submarket	Median annual revenue	Occupancy	Average daily rate
Port Bolivar	$54,005	42.9%	$440
Galveston (island proper)	$40,330	44.9%	$303
Santa Fe	$38,806	40.1%	$421
Kemah	$35,675	50.0%	$224
League City	$31,918	71.9%	$153
Dickinson	$31,758	52.2%	$229
Texas City	$25,390	58.0%	$140
La Marque	$24,796	44.8%	$182

Port Bolivar leads on revenue at a $440 nightly rate, which reflects large beachfront houses reachable only by the ferry. League City is the opposite business: a $153 rate at 71.9% occupancy, the highest occupancy in the market, driven by Houston-area work travel and NASA-adjacent demand rather than beach weeks.

Those two properties should not be run the same way, and this is the most common mistake we see owners make when they hire a manager whose whole playbook is built for one of them. A mainland listing in League City or Texas City needs weekday business pricing, fast turnovers and midweek availability. A Port Bolivar or West End beach house needs Saturday-to-Saturday minimum stays in July, aggressive shoulder-season discounting, and a maintenance plan for salt air.

One more note on geography: the Galveston AirDNA market includes mainland cities like League City, Dickinson, Texas City, La Marque and Kemah, and those are separate jurisdictions with their own rules. The Galveston city ordinance described below applies inside Galveston city limits. If your property is in League City, do not assume the island's rules or its revenue apply to you.

The 2026 Galveston rules that decide who can manage your rental

On October 1, 2025 the City of Galveston took over short term rental regulation from the Park Board, and on November 13, 2025 the City Council adopted a rewritten ordinance that took effect immediately. The rewrite came out of a Council-appointed ad hoc committee that met 19 times between March and October 2025. If you last read the rules before 2025, everything you know about registering a rental here is out of date.

Here is what applies now, per the city's own summary of the approved ordinance:

• An annual license, per unit. Licenses run January through December, are non-transferable, and cost $250 per unit. A duplex is two licenses with two registration numbers, not one.
• A $500 late fee for registrations filed after December 31, waived only when the property changed ownership.
• A 24/7 local contact who responds within one hour and resolves the complaint within two hours. Missing that window is itself a violation, issued by the City Marshal's office.
• Three violations in twelve months and the STR Licensing Board may recommend revoking the license.
• A posted information sheet inside the unit covering maximum occupancy, parking rules, quiet hours, the local contact, emergency numbers and flood evacuation guidance.
• Owner responsibility for guest behavior, including parking, trash, noise, fireworks, discharge of firearms and animal disturbances. A complaint hotline (409-247-8160) routes reports straight to enforcement.
• No RVs, campers or similar structures may be registered as short term rentals.
• Unregistered listings get suspended. The city sends invalid registration numbers and addresses to the booking platforms, and the City Marshal's Office files charges against owners operating without a license.

Galveston enforces this with software, not complaints alone. The city uses a listing-scanning platform that crawls thousands of rental sites daily and cross-references them against the registration database, and every listing must display its Galveston Vacation Rental (GVR) number. Renewals open December 1 and are due by December 31; miss it and the platforms are told to pull your listing, after which reinstating it is your problem, not theirs. Full detail lives on the city's short term rental owner page, and we cover the ordinance in depth in our Galveston short term rental laws guide.

Why the one-hour rule is really a management requirement

Read the response standard as an operating spec rather than a legal footnote. A complaint arrives at 11:40pm on a Saturday in July. Someone has to answer the phone, reach the property, quiet the group or move the cars, and close the issue out by 1:40am. Then it has to happen again the next weekend, because the same house turns over every 3.3 nights.

An owner who lives in Houston is 50 minutes away in good traffic. An owner in Austin or out of state cannot do it at all. A neighbor doing you a favor will do it twice and then stop answering. And a national management company with a call center in another time zone can answer the phone but cannot put a person on your porch. Three failures inside a year and your license goes before the Licensing Board.

This is the single biggest reason Galveston owners hire local managers rather than remote ones. When you interview a company here, the first question is not what fee they charge. It is: who physically shows up, how far away do they live, and what happens if they are already at another property?

Galveston hotel occupancy tax: the part owners get wrong

Two layers of tax apply to every Galveston stay under 30 days.

• State hotel occupancy tax, 6%. Airbnb and Vrbo collect and remit this for you. See the Texas Comptroller's hotel tax rules.
• City hotel occupancy tax, 9% of taxable receipts, reported to the City of Galveston on its hotel occupancy tax collection report.

The city portion is where owners get into trouble. Reports are due by the 20th of the month following the reporting period. If a property generates $500 or less per month in tax, or $1,500 or less per quarter, it may report quarterly instead, on April 20, July 20, October 20 and January 20. Late filings carry penalties, and the filing obligation does not disappear in a month with no bookings.

Do the math on a median Galveston house at $51,992 a year: 9% is roughly $4,680 in city tax passing through your hands annually, on a filing calendar you are responsible for. Ask any manager you interview two direct questions: do you file the city HOT report on my behalf, and do you file a zero report in January when the house sat empty? Plenty of companies collect the tax and hand you a spreadsheet. Our Texas short term rental tax guide walks through the full picture.

What a full service property management company actually does

Fees are quoted as one percentage, which hides how much variation there is in what you get. A full service Airbnb management company in Galveston should cover all of the following. If a proposal is missing several of these, it is a partial service or co-hosting arrangement, and it should cost less.

• Listing creation and optimization across Airbnb, Vrbo and direct channels, including professional photography and copy written for beach travel search
• Dynamic pricing that moves with the island's real curve, from $214 in January to $406 in July, plus minimum-stay rules for holiday and summer weekends
• Calendar and channel management so the same week is never double booked across platforms
• 24/7 guest communication, screening, and check-in support
• Cleaning and laundry coordination on 3-night turnarounds, including same-day summer turns
• Restocking of consumables, linens and beach supplies
• Maintenance and repair coordination, with a coastal preventive schedule for HVAC, salt corrosion, decks and outdoor showers
• Inspections after every stay, with photo documentation for damage claims
• Regulatory compliance: license renewal each December, the posted information sheet, GVR number displayed on listings, and monthly or quarterly city HOT filing
• Local emergency response that meets the one-hour complaint standard, including hurricane season preparation and guest evacuation communication
• Owner reporting: monthly statements, occupancy and rate performance, and a portal you can check without emailing anyone

Coastal properties add work that inland managers underestimate. Salt air eats HVAC coils, hardware and light fixtures. Sand tracks through every room. Decks and stairs need inspection. Hurricane season runs June through November, exactly on top of peak revenue, so a manager needs a written plan for boarding up, refunding or rebooking, and reopening quickly after a storm.

What management costs in Galveston, and what it returns

Full service rates on the island generally run 15% to 25% of booking revenue. Here is what each rate costs against real market revenue.

Management fee	Median entire place ($45,674)	Median house ($51,992)	Port Bolivar ($54,005)
15%	$6,851	$7,799	$8,101
18%	$8,221	$9,359	$9,721
20%	$9,135	$10,398	$10,801
25%	$11,419	$12,998	$13,501

The gap between 15% and 25% on a median house is $5,199 a year. That is the number to hold a manager to, and in Galveston there is a defensible case that good management pays for itself: professionally managed listings average $359.19 a night against a $321.93 market average, an 11.6% premium. Applied to the same number of booked nights, that rate difference is worth roughly $5,300 a year on a median house, which covers a 15% fee outright.

Be careful with that argument, though, because it is a correlation. Professionally managed homes here also skew larger and closer to the water. The honest version is narrower: a manager who lifts your rate 11% or your occupancy 5 points pays for themselves, and one who does neither is a pure cost. Ask for the rate and occupancy history of comparable homes they run, not a portfolio average.

Break-even nights

At 45.1% occupancy, a Galveston listing books about 165 nights a year (365 x 0.451), which is well below what comparable short term rentals book in Texas metros. At the market average rate of $321.93 that is roughly $53,100 in gross booking revenue, and the median comes in below that because rate and occupancy do not peak on the same properties.

Work from the median house at $51,992 and subtract realistic costs: a 15% management fee ($7,799), cleaning paid by guests, roughly $3,000 to $4,500 in insurance and coastal windstorm coverage, $2,000 to $3,500 in maintenance and utilities on a beach house, the $250 license, and platform fees. Owners in this market typically keep 55% to 65% of gross before mortgage and property tax. If your underwriting assumed 80%, rebuild it.

What to expect from a Galveston vacation rental management company

Vacation rental management companies in Galveston sell the same headline promise: they run your vacation rentals so you do not have to. What separates good vacation rental management from a bad experience is how much of the work genuinely leaves your hands, and how clearly the services are defined before you sign.

Most property owners hiring vacation rental property management for the first time expect five things, and every reputable company on Galveston Island should deliver all five:

• Marketing and distribution. Your vacation rental property is listed, photographed and priced across Airbnb, Vrbo and direct channels, with the listing refreshed as guest expectations shift.
• Guest care from inquiry to review. Guest messaging before arrival, support while the guest arrives and stays, and review management afterward. When a guest arrives to a problem at 9pm, that call goes to the manager and not to you.
• Housekeeping and property maintenance. Cleaning between stays, restocking, and a preventive property maintenance schedule so a well maintained home does not turn into an emergency repair in July.
• Financial administration. Owner statements, booking fees reconciled, and help to remit taxes correctly, including local taxes filed under Galveston's local laws.
• Compliance and local presence. Registration, renewals and a local contact in the local area who can be at the property quickly.

Good property managers also bring local expertise you cannot buy from a dashboard. A locally owned company knows which streets in the Galveston community flood on a high tide, which HOAs restrict rentals, which weekends the island fills for festivals, and which vacation rental property management practices generate positive reviews from Gulf Coast families rather than complaints. That local expertise is what turns a rental business into something closer to passive income.

It is worth being clear about what management is not. No management company can make a badly located or under-furnished property earn like a beachfront home, and no company should promise a specific annual figure before seeing your property. What professional property management does is capture more of what your property can already earn, protect the asset, and remove the operational load from homeowners.

Galveston Island neighborhoods worth knowing

Inside Galveston TX itself, the rental market splits into distinct pockets. The West End subdivisions, including Pirates Beach and the neighboring Pirates Cove and Beachside Village communities, hold most of the island's larger beach properties and the highest nightly rates. Pirates Beach in particular is where multi-bedroom family homes with golf-cart access to the sand cluster, and it is the part of the island most vacation rental management companies compete hardest to serve. The Seawall corridor is condo territory, with lower rates but steadier volume. The East End Historical District trades on architecture and walkability to the Strand, where photography and parking guidance matter more than square footage.

Nearby Gulf Coast markets

Many homeowners we work with own in more than one Texas market, and the comparison shapes expectations. Houston runs a median of $34,317 a year at 55.8% occupancy, a business-and-events market with steady weekday demand. Corpus Christi and the rest of the mid-coast trade at lower nightly rates than Galveston TX but face the same seasonality and coastal maintenance load. Austin, at $44,919 and an 8.6% professionally managed rate premium, is the closest Texas market to Galveston on revenue but nothing like it operationally. If your portfolio spans a coastal property and a metro property, expect a good property management company to price and staff them differently rather than applying one playbook to both.

How we chose the best Airbnb management companies in Galveston

We ranked the best Airbnb management companies in Galveston against the things that actually determine an owner's return in this market, in this order:

• Local presence. Can they meet the one-hour complaint standard with a real person on the island?
• Compliance handling. License renewal, the posted information sheet, and city HOT filing done for you rather than explained to you.
• Revenue management. Evidence of pricing that moves across a 90% seasonal rate swing, not a flat rate with a summer bump.
• Coastal operations. Same-day turnovers in July, salt-air maintenance, and a hurricane plan in writing.
• Contract terms. Fee clarity, no long lock-in, and no markup on maintenance labor.
• Owner reporting. Monthly statements and portal access, not a quarterly PDF.

1. Surge: best overall

Surge is a Texas-based full service short term rental management company covering Galveston, Houston and the Gulf Coast, founded by Humberto Marquez, a licensed Texas real estate broker who has spent years operating vacation rentals in this exact market.

Pricing is a flat 15% of booking revenue with no annual agreement, which is the low end of the full service range on the island. That fee includes listing creation and management across platforms, professional photography, dynamic pricing, calendar management, cleaning and maintenance coordination, restocking, lock automation, damage protection, a dedicated host hotline and an owner portal with real-time performance data.

Two things matter specifically for Galveston. First, guest response is guaranteed 24/7 with a 10-minute response target, which is well inside the city's one-hour complaint standard and the reason the standard is a non-issue for Surge-managed homes. Second, tax and compliance support is included, so the monthly city hotel occupancy tax filing and the annual December license renewal do not land on your calendar.

Surge also deliberately limits portfolio growth to properties it can service properly rather than taking every listing, which is the opposite of the national roll-up model and shows up in review consistency from both guests and owners.

To get a Galveston-specific revenue projection for your address, book a call through Surge's Galveston management page, text or call (281) 612-4152, or email hello@gowithsurge.com.

2. MasterHost: best affordable option

MasterHost launched in Canada in 2014 and now manages short term rentals internationally, including Texas. Its pricing is the most flexible on this list: tiered plans at 10%, 12% and 15% of booking revenue on month-to-month terms.

The higher tiers include listing creation and optimization, dynamic pricing, calendar coordination, professional photography, 24/7 guest screening and communication, check-in and check-out support, cleaning and laundry, restocking, maintenance, lock automation, guest and owner portals, and damage protection on every reservation. Property owners report occupancy and revenue improvements for their vacation rentals after switching.

The trade-off is presence. MasterHost is an international operator rather than an island company, so if you are considering the 10% tier, get explicit written answers on who handles a midnight noise complaint in Galveston, how quickly they arrive, and whether city HOT filing is included at that price. On a median house, the difference between 10% and 15% is about $2,600 a year, which is real money but small next to a revoked license.

3. Mistr Property Management: best boutique operator

Mistr Property Management is a family-owned boutique company founded by Kelsey and Samuel Mistretta, who moved from corporate careers into vacation rentals starting in 2020. Pricing is commission-based on booking revenue and not published, so you will need a quote.

Their services cover professional photography, listing optimization, dynamic pricing, guest communication, cleaning management and calendar coordination, plus custom guest guidebooks and smart-lock check-in. Property owners consistently describe them as responsive, straightforward and strong on property condition.

A boutique team brings a human touch that is a genuine advantage in a market with a one-hour response rule, because the person answering the phone is usually an owner of the business. The limit is scale: a small team covering a busy July weekend has finite capacity, so ask how many properties they manage and how many staff cover a peak Saturday. Reach them at info@mistrpm.com or (225) 800-7635.

4. Vello: best for luxury and beachfront homes

Vello focuses on luxury rentals and runs a full range of services for owners of high-end vacation rentals, with a concierge-style guest experience aimed at matching a five-star hotel. Pricing is commission-based on booking revenue with no long term contracts.

Routine maintenance is handled by an in-house team, larger repairs are coordinated with outside technicians and billed at cost with no markup, and cleaning and restocking are included. Professional photography and dynamic pricing come standard. Owners specifically praise their handling of storm damage, which in a hurricane-exposed market is not a small thing.

Vello makes the most sense at the top of the market. AirDNA puts the luxury segment's average daily rate at $524.55 against $321.93 market-wide, and at that rate a concierge service model has room to pay for itself. On a $250,000 mainland condo it does not. Call (504) 512-8651.

5. Sand 'N Sea Properties: best for West End beach houses

Sand 'N Sea Properties has operated in Galveston since 1974 and is the most established local name on this list, family-owned and specialized in West Galveston beach houses. Pricing is not published.

Sand 'N Sea Properties handles marketing, reservations, housekeeping, maintenance and guest communication as a combined property management and real estate company, and five decades on the island means unusual depth on which streets, elevations and beach accesses actually rent. Guest reviews emphasize smooth booking and immaculate properties, with a high rate of repeat visitors, which matters more than it sounds: repeat direct guests are the cheapest bookings you will ever get.

The fit is narrower than the reputation suggests. This is a beach-house company, and its services are built around West End vacation rentals. If your property is a mainland condo in Texas City or a League City house renting to weekday business travelers, you are outside their core, and one of the operators above will price and position it better.

Full service management versus co-hosting in Galveston

	Full service management	Co-hosting or partial service
Typical cost	15% to 25% of booking revenue	8% to 12%, or a flat monthly fee
Guest communication	Handled 24/7	Often shared, or business hours only
Cleaning and maintenance	Coordinated and supervised	Usually your vendors, your problem
One-hour complaint response	Covered by a local contact	Rarely covered. Verify in writing
City HOT filing	Commonly included	Rarely included
License renewal each December	Handled	Yours
Best for	Out-of-town owners, beach houses, anyone who wants it hands-off	Local owners who want to stay operationally involved

In most Texas markets co-hosting is a reasonable way to save a few points. In Galveston city limits it carries a specific risk: if nobody has clearly agreed to be the 24/7 local contact who arrives within an hour, the answer defaults to you. Get that assignment in writing before you sign anything.

How the best Galveston managers market a listing

With 9,395 active listings competing for a leisure audience that books 44 days out, distribution and timing decide your year.

• Book the summer early. A 44-day average lead time means June and July inventory is being chosen in April and May. Rates and minimum stays for peak weeks should be set in late winter, not in June.
• List on Vrbo, not just Airbnb. Multi-bedroom beach houses booked by families over-index on Vrbo in Gulf Coast markets. Our Vrbo property management guide for Galveston covers the differences.
• Merchandise the specifics. Distance to the beach in walking minutes, elevation and stair count, deck views, sleeping capacity by bed type, and whether the driveway fits three cars. Parking is a live enforcement issue on the island, so state the rules in the listing.
• Sell the shoulder season deliberately. March hits 53.2% occupancy on spring break and Mardi Gras Galveston traffic, and October still runs 37.8%. Those months respond to weekly discounts, pet-friendly policies and snowbird-length stays, not to summer pricing left in place.
• Build repeat and direct demand. A high repeat rate is the strongest defense against platform ranking changes in a market this seasonal.

What Galveston guests expect

Average stay is 3.3 nights, so guests arrive at short term rentals here with a plan and no patience for friction. Guests are direct about what they want, and the recurring complaints across Galveston vacation rentals are predictable: no beach gear, not enough parking, a slow response when the air conditioning fails in August, and cleaning that missed sand in the bedrooms. Managers who go the extra mile solve most of it with inventory rather than apologies: chairs, umbrellas, a wagon, an outdoor shower, working fast wifi, blackout curtains and an A/C system that has been serviced before summer cover most of it. Fast maintenance response is not a nicety here; in July an A/C failure is a refund request within the hour.

Red flags when hiring a Galveston property manager

• No island-based staff. If the nearest employee is in Houston, the one-hour standard is theoretical.
• Vague answers on the city HOT report. Collecting the tax and filing the report are different jobs. Ask which one they do.
• Flat annual revenue projections. Any Galveston projection that does not show a June and July spike is not built on this market.
• Marked-up maintenance. Ask whether repairs are billed at cost and whether vendor invoices are shared.
• Long lock-in with an early termination fee. Month-to-month is standard among the better operators here.
• No written hurricane plan. Storm season overlaps peak season. Ask who decides to cancel a booking, and who handles refunds and rebooking.
• No portfolio-comparable data. Ask for the rate and occupancy of two homes they manage that resemble yours, not a portfolio-wide average.

Which manager fits your property type

Property	What matters most	Strong fit
West End or Port Bolivar beach house	Peak-week pricing, coastal maintenance, storm response	Surge, Sand 'N Sea Properties, Vello
Luxury beachfront, $500+ nightly	Concierge service, high-end photography	Vello, Surge
Island condo near the Seawall	Volume of bookings, fast turnovers, HOA rules	Surge, MasterHost
Historic East End home	Photography, parking guidance, noise management	Surge, Mistr
League City, Kemah or Dickinson house	Weekday business pricing, midweek availability	Surge, MasterHost
Texas City or La Marque rental	Cost control at a $140 to $182 nightly rate	MasterHost, Surge

How to maximize revenue on a Galveston rental

• Price the curve, not the year. Rates should move from roughly $215 in January to $400 or more in July. A flat rate loses money twice.
• Protect peak weekends with minimum stays. Saturday-to-Saturday in July prevents orphan nights on your highest-rate inventory.
• Buy the amenities guests search for. Beach gear, a golf cart where permitted, a hot tub for shoulder season, and enough beds to move up a bedroom-count tier.
• Chase occupancy, not rate, on the mainland. League City clears 71.9% occupancy at $153. That property wins on volume.
• Keep the license clean. Screen guests, cap occupancy honestly, state parking rules, and respond fast. Three violations can end the business entirely.
• Re-underwrite annually. Revenue rose 6.1% year over year while occupancy moved 0.9%, which means the gain came from rate. Rate-driven growth is more fragile than demand-driven growth.

If you are still deciding whether to buy here, our Galveston Airbnb investment analysis and the Galveston market data pages go deeper on submarkets and returns, and if you are comparing national operators, we reviewed Vacasa in Galveston separately. Both guides compare the services national companies offer against what locally owned companies deliver on the ground.

Frequently asked questions

How much do Airbnb management companies charge in Galveston?

Full service management of Galveston vacation rentals runs 15% to 25% of booking revenue, and half service or co-hosting plans run less. Surge charges 15% with no annual contract; MasterHost offers tiers from 10%. On the median Galveston house earning $51,992 a year, that is roughly $7,799 at 15% and $12,998 at 25%.

How much can a Galveston Airbnb make?

The median entire-place listing earned $45,674 over the last twelve months, up 6.1% year over year. Houses average $51,992 and condos or apartments $31,191. Port Bolivar leads the submarkets at $54,005.

Do I need a license to run a short term rental in Galveston?

Yes. Every unit needs an annual, non-transferable city license running January through December, at $250 per unit, with a $500 late fee after December 31. Your registration number must appear on your listings, and unregistered listings are reported to the platforms for removal.

What is the one-hour rule?

Under the ordinance adopted November 13, 2025, every Galveston short term rental must have a 24/7 local contact who responds to a complaint within one hour and resolves it within two. Failing to do so is a violation, and three violations in twelve months can lead the STR Licensing Board to recommend revoking your license.

What taxes do Galveston short term rentals pay?

6% state hotel occupancy tax, which Airbnb and Vrbo remit for you, plus 9% city hotel occupancy tax, which you report to the City of Galveston by the 20th of the following month. Properties under $500 in monthly tax or $1,500 quarterly may file quarterly.

Is Galveston a good short term rental market?

It is the highest-revenue and highest-rate market in Texas, at $321.93 a night, but the lowest on occupancy at 45.1% and heavily concentrated in June and July. Guests pay a premium here, and the market rewards operators who price the season well and can service a coastal property fast, and it punishes absentee owners.

Can I manage my Galveston rental myself from out of town?

Legally you may own it from anywhere, but you must name a local contact who can be at the property within the response window. In practice that means hiring a local manager or a very reliable local partner. This rule, more than revenue, is why most out-of-town Galveston owners use professional management.

Bottom line

Galveston pays the best nightly rates in Texas and gives up the most ground on occupancy, which makes it a market decided by execution: pricing the summer correctly, turning a house over in a single day in July, keeping a beach property maintained in salt air, and answering a complaint inside an hour so the license stays intact.

Sand 'N Sea brings five decades of West End experience, Vello suits the luxury tier, Mistr is a strong boutique option and MasterHost is the budget choice. For most owners who want full service, local response and compliance handled at the low end of the fee range, Surge is the best overall fit. Get a Galveston revenue projection for your property, or call or text (281) 612-4152.

Market data: AirDNA, Galveston market, trailing twelve months as of August 17, 2026, entire-place listings. Regulatory detail: City of Galveston ordinance adopted November 13, 2025 and city hotel occupancy tax collection materials. Fees and terms change, so confirm current pricing with each company.

Want the underlying numbers first? Read how much you can make on Airbnb in Galveston for 2026 revenue, ADR and occupancy by submarket.