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SUMMARY
Airbnb is still profitable in Can Tho for the right property, but an average newly purchased condo is more likely to produce a modest return than exceptional cash flow.
The latest short-term-rental numbers are much stronger than the previous snapshot. Occupancy has reached roughly 43% and annual revenue about $3,500 per active listing, but the improvement has come mainly from filling more nights rather than charging more for them.
That distinction matters because Can Tho's average daily rate is still only about $23. A market can improve a lot operationally while remaining a difficult place to rescue an overpriced property through higher nightly rates.
At roughly VND90 million of annual gross Airbnb revenue, acquisition price quickly becomes the deciding variable. A property around VND1.2–1.5 billion can be interesting; around VND1.8–2.2 billion, average performance already looks thin before real operating costs.
Can Tho has genuine tourism demand, but the newest citywide tourism totals need careful interpretation because the enlarged municipality now includes the former Can Tho, Hau Giang and Soc Trang. Older like-for-like figures for the old city are often more useful for judging accommodation demand around Ninh Kieu.
Visitors also tend to stay briefly. An average stay of roughly 1.8 days means more turnovers, cleaning and booking gaps than in destinations where guests routinely stay for most of a week.
Cheap hotels place a fairly hard ceiling on ordinary Airbnb pricing. With three-star rooms around the mid-$30s, a generic apartment becomes much less attractive to travellers once its nightly price starts approaching hotel rates.
This gives larger or more distinctive properties an advantage. Two-bedroom units, family accommodation, river-view properties, group houses and good homestays can compete on space and experience rather than trying to beat hotels room-for-room.
Ninh Kieu remains the safest conventional location because short-stay visitors value proximity to the riverfront, restaurants and excursion departure points. In a market built around one- and two-night stays, location can easily matter more than having the newest building.
Airbnb does not automatically beat a normal lease here. A central apartment renting long term for around VND5 million a month generates roughly VND60 million a year with far less work, while the average Airbnb's higher gross revenue is partly eaten by cleaning, utilities, platform fees, maintenance and management.
The strongest Can Tho Airbnb investment is therefore one that already works at today's low nightly rates. Buying cheaply, operating efficiently and having a clear reason to beat the city average matters much more than betting on tourism growth eventually pushing ADR toward $50 or $60.
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Is Airbnb in Can Tho actually profitable today?
Airbnb in Can Tho can still make money today, but an average newly purchased property looks more like a modest-yield investment than an Airbnb cash machine.
The freshest AirDNA snapshot puts the Can Tho short-term-rental market at about 43% occupancy, a $23 average daily rate and roughly $3,500 in trailing annual revenue per active listing. Using an exchange rate around VND26,000 per dollar, that is roughly VND90 million of gross yearly revenue.
That number immediately puts a limit on what we should call profitable. If a suitable property costs VND1.3 billion, VND90 million represents nearly 7% gross. At VND1.8 billion, the same revenue produces 5%. At VND2.2 billion, it drops close to 4%.
And gross revenue is still far from what the owner keeps. Cleaning, electricity, internet, linen, maintenance, platform charges, taxes where applicable and furnishing replacement all come afterward.
We would therefore call Can Tho Airbnb profitable today only when the purchase price and operating setup are good enough. Buying an ordinary apartment at a premium price and hoping that tourism growth fixes the economics later is much harder to defend.
| Property cost | Revenue at VND90m/year | Gross yield | Our reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| VND1.2bn | VND90m | 7.5% | Attractive enough to investigate |
| VND1.5bn | VND90m | 6.0% | Workable |
| VND1.8bn | VND90m | 5.0% | Thin after costs |
| VND2.2bn | VND90m | 4.1% | Weak for an Airbnb-focused purchase |
Why does Can Tho Airbnb suddenly look much stronger?
Can Tho's latest Airbnb numbers look much better, although we would be careful about calling this a full-blown boom.
AirDNA's newest market overview shows occupancy at 43%, up 62.8% year over year, while RevPAR has risen to $10 and average revenue per active listing is reported at about $3,500. ADR, however, is still only $23 and is actually down 4.2%.
The combination is interesting. Hosts are filling many more available nights without charging more for them. Demand has recovered faster than pricing power.
There is another reason for caution. AirDNA's preceding Can Tho pages, based on the previous completed period, showed 35% occupancy, $8 RevPAR and only about $1,800 of trailing revenue. Its supply page also counted 439 active rentals, whereas the newest overview counts 210.
A market can move quickly, but changes of that size in adjacent snapshots also tell us that Can Tho's dataset is small and sensitive to changes in the active-listing pool. We would use the newest figures as the best current reading without extrapolating the spectacular year-on-year percentages into the future.
Can Tho short-term rentals are doing considerably better than they were. So far, the recovery is mostly an occupancy story.
| AirDNA measure | Earlier reading | Latest reading | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Occupancy | 35% | 43% | Strong improvement |
| ADR | $23 | $23 | Essentially no pricing gain |
| RevPAR | $8 | $10 | More revenue per available night |
| Trailing annual revenue | ~$1,800 | ~$3,500 | Sharp improvement |
| Active listings reported | 439 | 210 | Large change in tracked active supply |
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Are Can Tho's huge tourism numbers really helping Airbnb?
Can Tho has plenty of tourism demand now, but some of the biggest recent visitor numbers make the Airbnb opportunity look stronger than it really is.
The reason is geographical. The present Can Tho was created by combining the former Can Tho with Hau Giang and Soc Trang. The enlarged municipality covers a much larger tourism economy than the old city.
That creates a break in the statistics. A visitor to an attraction somewhere in the newly enlarged territory can now appear in a Can Tho tourism total without creating a single night's demand for an apartment around Ninh Kieu.
Before the change, the old Can Tho was already attracting meaningful volumes. In 2024 it recorded roughly 6.37 million visitors, including around 3.14 million staying visitors. During the first half of 2025, the old city then received more than four million visitors and about 2.3 million overnight visitors, according to Can Tho's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
Those older figures are actually more useful for an Airbnb investor because they prove that central Can Tho already had a real tourism base before the administrative enlargement changed the geographical scope of the headline numbers.
So yes, tourism supports Airbnb in Can Tho. We just would not model Ninh Kieu occupancy from the municipality's newest total visitor count.
Do enough tourists actually stay overnight in Can Tho?
Can Tho has enough overnight visitors to support Airbnb, although short stays remain one of the market's biggest limitations.
In 2024, the old Can Tho recorded around 3.14 million staying visitors out of approximately 6.37 million total visitors. Average stays were about 1.8 days.
That fits the way many people use Can Tho. Visitors come for Ninh Kieu Wharf, Cai Rang Floating Market, Mekong boat trips, food, orchards and wider Delta itineraries, then move on quickly.
For an Airbnb host, 1.8 days is a very different business from a beach destination where guests routinely book five or seven nights. More short reservations mean more check-ins, more cleaning, more laundry and more empty gaps between bookings.
The upside is that Can Tho still has room to improve without needing visitor numbers to explode. If more travellers turn a one-night Mekong stop into two or three nights, accommodation demand rises materially even with similar arrivals.
Can Tho is actively trying to broaden its tourism offer around waterways, culture, agriculture, events and MICE travel. That should help. We would still expect future gains to show up first in occupancy and length of stay rather than dramatically higher room rates.
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Can Can Tho Airbnb hosts charge much more than $23 a night?
Most Can Tho Airbnb hosts cannot raise prices aggressively today because inexpensive hotels keep the market grounded.
The latest AirDNA data put the average short-term-rental ADR at about $23. Trip.com's current trailing hotel data put an average three-star Can Tho room at roughly $34–35 on weekdays and around $35–36 on weekends.
That gives a regular Airbnb apartment surprisingly little room to move. At $25, the property can compete on price and space. At $35 or $40, the guest starts comparing it directly with staffed hotels that may include reception, daily housekeeping, luggage storage and breakfast.
Can Tho already had nearly 640 accommodation establishments and around 11,000 rooms before the recent administrative changes. About 133 rated hotels alone accounted for more than 5,000 rooms.
This explains why the latest short-term-rental recovery has happened with a flat or slightly falling ADR. There are more guests to capture, but hosts have not suddenly gained the power to double prices.
Properties that can escape direct hotel comparison have more upside. A two-bedroom apartment for a family, a river-view property, an attractive house for a group or a well-designed homestay can sell something different from a standard hotel room.
A generic studio has a much harder job.
Is Ninh Kieu still the best area for Airbnb in Can Tho?
Ninh Kieu is still the safest location for a conventional Can Tho Airbnb because short-stay visitors usually value convenience more than extra space farther out.
Ninh Kieu concentrates the riverfront, restaurants, nightlife, Ninh Kieu Wharf and many of the departure points used for Mekong excursions. For someone spending only one or two nights in the city, staying close to those places is an obvious advantage.
We also have evidence that central accommodation absorbs demand better during busy periods. During the 2025 Tet holiday, reported hotel occupancy in central Ninh Kieu reached roughly 75–80%, compared with around 65–70% in surrounding areas.
We would never use a holiday occupancy rate as an annual Airbnb forecast. The geographical gap is still useful because it shows where visitors concentrate when demand is strongest.
In Can Tho, that can outweigh having a newer building. A smaller unit from which guests can easily walk to restaurants and the river may earn more reliably than a larger apartment that requires repeated taxi or ride-hailing trips.
Buying "in Can Tho" tells us almost nothing about the likely Airbnb result. Micro-location does.
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Are Can Tho condo prices low enough for Airbnb to work?
Some Can Tho apartments remain cheap enough to produce a decent Airbnb yield, but the numbers get unattractive quickly once the purchase price moves much above VND30–35 million per square metre.
Current Ninh Kieu sale listings include apartments around roughly VND31–38 million per square metre. At that level, a 50-square-metre unit comes to around VND1.55–1.9 billion before furniture and transaction costs.
Against the latest market-wide Airbnb revenue of roughly VND90 million a year, a VND1.55 billion purchase produces just under 6% gross. At VND1.9 billion, we are already below 5%.
A strong operator can beat the market average, of course. But an investment should not require exceptional performance just to produce an ordinary return.
The acquisition price is doing most of the work. Because Can Tho ADR is only around $23, a host cannot easily rescue an expensive purchase by raising nightly rates another 30% or 40%.
We would become much more interested below roughly VND1.4–1.5 billion for a genuinely Airbnb-suitable property. Above VND1.8–2 billion, we would want clear evidence that the specific unit can materially outperform Can Tho's average revenue.
How much do Airbnb fees, taxes and operating costs hurt Can Tho profits?
Costs hurt Can Tho Airbnb profits quite badly because a $23 nightly rate leaves little money to absorb them.
Airbnb generally charges many hosts around 3% under its split-fee model, while hosts using the single-fee structure can face a much higher percentage. On top of that come cleaning, utilities, Wi-Fi, toiletries, linen, maintenance and furnishing wear.
Professional management makes the equation tougher. If a manager takes a meaningful share of revenue, an average Can Tho apartment can lose much of the extra income that made short-term renting look better than a normal lease in the first place.
Vietnam's tax treatment also changed. Airbnb says it began implementing withholding under Decree 117 for transactions involving Vietnamese individual hosts. Its guidance says resident individuals or household businesses can face 5% VAT and 2% personal income tax withholding, while non-resident individuals can face 5% VAT and 5% PIT.
There is an important nuance for smaller hosts. The current VAT rules use a VND500 million annual revenue threshold from January 1, 2026. The average Can Tho listing, at around VND90 million of annual gross revenue, sits well below that level. The relationship between platform withholding, thresholds and the host's final tax position still depends on the owner's exact structure, so we would not simply subtract a headline percentage from every host's income and call that the final tax bill.
Can Tho works better for an owner who manages the property efficiently than for someone building several layers of fees into a low-ADR rental.
| Cost item | Typical effect | Why it matters more in Can Tho | Investor takeaway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airbnb host fee | Often ~3%, potentially higher under other structures | Revenue per booked night is low | Check exact fee structure before modelling |
| Cleaning | Cost per turnover | Average stays are short | Frequent bookings can eat margin |
| Utilities | Owner normally pays | Included in nightly rate | Long occupied periods do not mean pure profit |
| Management | Can be a large revenue percentage | $23 ADR leaves limited room | Self-management has a real advantage |
| Vietnam taxes | Depends on residency, structure and thresholds | Rules have recently changed | Do not model from an old tax assumption |
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Is Airbnb better than long-term renting in Can Tho?
Airbnb can earn more gross revenue than a long-term Can Tho lease, but the extra profit is much smaller than the headline revenue gap suggests.
Furnished apartments in and around central Ninh Kieu can still be found around roughly VND4–6 million a month depending on size and quality. At VND5 million, a year-long tenant generates VND60 million of gross rent.
Compare that with roughly VND90 million from an average Airbnb listing today. The short-term strategy appears to earn 50% more.
But Airbnb also pays for electricity, Wi-Fi, cleaning, guest supplies, platform charges, repairs caused by frequent turnover and the owner's time. Long-term landlords avoid much of that work and normally have much more predictable occupancy.
A strong Airbnb generating VND120–150 million changes the calculation completely. An average unit around VND90 million makes the choice much closer.
Airbnb is worth the added work when the property has a reason to beat the city average. If our realistic forecast is only average performance, a long-term tenant can easily produce the better risk-adjusted result.
| Rental strategy | Illustrative gross revenue | Work required | Income volatility | Our view |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Long-term at VND5m/month | VND60m | Low | Low | Solid passive option |
| Average Airbnb | ~VND90m | High | Higher | Extra income, but costs narrow the gap |
| Strong Airbnb | VND120m+ | High | Higher | Much more compelling |
| Weak Airbnb | VND60–70m | High | Higher | Hard to justify versus long-term rent |
Are hotels a bigger threat than other Airbnb hosts in Can Tho?
Hotels are probably a bigger competitive problem for Can Tho Airbnb owners than other Airbnb listings.
The reason is scale. The old city already had close to 640 accommodation establishments with roughly 11,000 rooms. The newest AirDNA snapshot counts only about 210 active short-term rentals in its current Can Tho market overview.
Even allowing for differences in geography and methodology, Airbnb remains a small slice of Can Tho's accommodation market.
Hotel prices are also low. Current Trip.com data put three-star rooms around the mid-$30s on average, while plenty of cheaper properties are available below that level.
An Airbnb host therefore cannot assume that rising visitor numbers will automatically create scarcity and push nightly prices sharply higher. Can Tho already has a large stock of conventional rooms competing for the same traveller.
Where Airbnb does have an advantage is in formats hotels struggle to match cheaply. Families wanting two bedrooms, groups wanting shared living space, travellers wanting a kitchen or visitors looking for a genuine homestay experience can find better value through short-term rentals.
For a solo traveller who simply needs a clean room near the centre, the hotel sector is difficult to beat.
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What type of Airbnb has the best chance of making money in Can Tho?
The best Can Tho Airbnbs today are properties that give guests a clear reason to choose them over a cheap hotel.
That can mean enough beds for a family or group, a river view, an attractive house, an unusually good location around Ninh Kieu, a strong local design or a genuine homestay experience.
The arithmetic explains why. A standard one-bedroom listing enters a segment already crowded with inexpensive hotel rooms and other one-bedroom rentals. AirDNA's preceding supply breakdown showed one-bedroom properties making up around 80% of tracked listings, while private rooms were also a large share of supply.
Offering another interchangeable one-bedroom unit gives us very little pricing power.
A two-bedroom apartment at $35–45 can be much more interesting if it replaces two hotel rooms for a family of four. A house that sleeps six can charge well above the citywide ADR while still looking cheap on a per-person basis.
Can Tho investors should therefore think about revenue per booking and revenue per guest rather than simply buying the smallest apartment available.
Differentiation is worth more here because competing purely on nightly price leads straight back toward Can Tho's $23 market average.
Could Can Tho Airbnb become much more profitable over the next few years?
Can Tho Airbnb should have room to improve, but we would bet on gradually fuller calendars rather than a dramatic jump in nightly prices.
The city has genuine ingredients for higher accommodation demand. Waterway tourism, Cai Rang Floating Market, food, agriculture, festivals and Mekong Delta itineraries already attract millions of visitors. Can Tho has also been trying to grow MICE, cultural and experience-based tourism.
More importantly, average stays have historically been short. Extending a typical visit from around 1.8 days toward two or three days would create a meaningful increase in room nights without requiring tourism arrivals to double.
Can Tho is also paying closer attention to its tourism data. The city introduced a new visitor survey program covering overnight stays, day visitors, travel style, spending and purpose of travel. Better data should make it easier to understand which parts of the enlarged city are really generating accommodation demand.
The main obstacle is still pricing. Hotel capacity is substantial and inexpensive, so higher demand does not automatically mean much higher ADR.
We therefore see a plausible path from today's roughly 43% Airbnb occupancy toward a healthier, more consistently booked market. Building an investment case around $50 or $60 average nightly rates would be much more speculative.
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So, is Airbnb still profitable in Can Tho?
Yes, Airbnb is still profitable in Can Tho for the right property, but buying an average condo at today's asking price and running it passively is no longer an especially attractive Airbnb strategy.
The freshest market data are clearly better than they were. Occupancy has climbed sharply, RevPAR has improved and the latest AirDNA snapshot puts annual revenue around $3,500 per active listing. Can Tho also has millions of genuine tourists and a sizeable overnight market.
The weakness sits on the pricing side. An average Airbnb night still sells for only around $23, while three-star hotels commonly cost only about $34–36. That keeps a hard ceiling on what an ordinary apartment can charge.
At roughly VND90 million of annual gross revenue, purchase price becomes decisive. A VND1.2–1.4 billion property can produce interesting numbers. Somewhere around VND1.8–2 billion, an average-performing unit already looks thin once real operating costs are included.
Self-managed properties bought cheaply, well-located Ninh Kieu units and accommodation built for families or groups can still work very well. Generic one-bedroom condos bought at premium prices are much harder to justify.
The latest recovery makes Can Tho more interesting than it was recently. It does not make every Airbnb investment attractive. We would only buy when the property has a credible path to beating the city's roughly $23 nightly rate or when the acquisition price is low enough that average performance is already profitable.
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis tests whether Airbnb is still profitable in Can Tho by looking at the pieces that actually determine an owner's return rather than relying on one attractive occupancy or tourism statistic. We compared short-term-rental performance, tourism demand, overnight stays, length of stay, hotel competition, location, acquisition prices, operating costs, taxes and fees, long-term rents, and the types of properties most likely to outperform the market.
For short-term-rental performance, we used AirDNA's latest Can Tho overview for occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, active listings and trailing revenue. We also checked its preceding supply, revenue and seasonality snapshots because the latest figures changed sharply. We treated that gap as evidence that this is a relatively small dataset whose measured performance can move materially when the active-listing pool changes.
Tourism demand was checked against official Can Tho and Vietnam tourism data. We paid particular attention to the distinction between total visitors and staying visitors, the roughly 1.8-day historical average stay, and the administrative merger of Can Tho with Hau Giang and Soc Trang. Where the geographical scope changed, older like-for-like figures for the former Can Tho were given more weight for judging accommodation demand around Ninh Kieu.
We then tested Airbnb pricing against hotel competition and property economics. Trip.com hotel rates were used as a check on how far Airbnb ADR can realistically rise, while current Batdongsan.com.vn listings were used for Ninh Kieu apartment asking prices and long-term rental comparisons. Gross Airbnb revenue was compared with acquisition cost before considering cleaning, utilities, platform fees, maintenance, furnishing wear and management.
Taxes and platform charges were treated separately from operating assumptions. Airbnb's own guidance was used for host service fees and Vietnam withholding practices, while the Vietnamese Government's legal and tax sources were used for Decree 117 and the current VND500 million VAT revenue threshold applying from January 1, 2026.
Our conclusion comes from the direction and consistency of these different pieces of evidence rather than a mechanical score. Where several independent measures point the same way, such as stronger occupancy but weak pricing power, we give that conclusion more weight. Where the data are less stable, particularly the changing AirDNA listing counts, we keep the claim narrower.
Key sources used for this analysis include: AirDNA's latest Can Tho short-term-rental overview, AirDNA's Can Tho supply data, AirDNA's Can Tho revenue data, AirDNA's Can Tho occupancy and seasonality data, Trip.com for current Can Tho hotel pricing, Can Tho's official city portal for tourism performance, Can Tho's official tourism and policy source for staying visitors, accommodation capacity and average stay, the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism for first-half 2025 visitor data, the Vietnamese Government on the administrative enlargement of Can Tho, Airbnb's host service-fee guidance, Airbnb's Vietnam tax-withholding guidance, the Government Gazette for Decree 117/2025/ND-CP, the Vietnamese Government on the current VAT threshold, Batdongsan.com.vn for current Ninh Kieu apartment asking prices, and Batdongsan.com.vn for current Ninh Kieu rental listings.
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