Short-term vs long-term rental: which is more profitable?

There's no universal winner; it depends on your market, your regulations, and how much involvement you actually want. Short-term usually grosses more per month in a place people travel to, but it asks for real ongoing work and rides seasonal and regulatory risk. Long-term grosses less but pays it out steady and barely touches your week. That's the whole trade in one sentence.

Short-term makes sense when your location has genuine visitor demand (a beach, slopes, a walkable downtown) or your place has something specific going for it, and when you can hold decent occupancy across the year rather than three good months and nine dead ones. It rewards you with higher revenue and the flexibility to block your own dates and move pricing, and it punishes you with turnover costs, the constant guest communication, and the risk your town tightens the rules on you.

Long-term wins when the short-term rules where you are are strict or clearly heading that way, when demand is badly lopsided by season, or when what you really want is money that shows up without you doing anything. A twelve-month lease is predictable and low-effort; the catch is you give up flexibility and pricing power, and a bad tenant is far harder to remove than a bad guest is to check out.

Plenty of hosts split the difference: short-term through the busy season, then medium-term one-to-three-month stays over the dead stretch. You capture the peak without heating an empty place all winter. And if what tips short-term from marginal to worthwhile is the operational load, that's exactly the load automation is meant to take off you. The revenue's already better; the work is the reason people quit.