The Real Cost Per Night of a Second Home Abroad

Published on: September 7, 2026

Last reviewed: September 2026. All figures below are illustrative examples constructed to show the method, not quotations, valuations or forecasts for any specific property or market.

Quick answer:

• Cost per night is annual running costs plus amortised transaction costs plus the cost of the capital, divided by the nights you actually sleep there.
• The denominator dominates. Cutting costs by 20 per cent moves the number a little; doubling your nights halves it.
• Transaction costs belong in the annual figure. Round-trip friction of 12 to 18 per cent of value is normal in Europe.
• Letting it out is the one lever that transforms the arithmetic, and it depends entirely on a licence that many cities no longer issue.
• Keep capital appreciation out of this calculation. It is a forecast, not a cost, and mixing the two hides which one you are relying on.

Ask an owner what their holiday home costs and you will get an annual figure: the taxes, the community fees, the insurance, maybe the flights. Ask how many nights they slept in it last year and the answer is usually a shrug and a number smaller than they expected.

Divide the first number by the second and you get the only figure that lets you compare owning to renting: cost per night of actual use.

It is a deliberately uncomfortable number. Most second-home owners who run it honestly for the first time discover they are paying a great deal more per night than a booking site would have charged them. That does not automatically mean the purchase was a mistake. It means the case for it was never really about the accommodation, and it is better to know that before you buy than after.

This article gives you the formula, the line items people forget, three worked examples and the break-even calculation.

The formula

Cost per night  =  ( annual running costs
                   + amortised transaction costs
                   + cost of the capital tied up )
                   ÷ nights actually occupied by you and your family

Three components, and the second and third are the ones almost nobody includes.

Note what is not in the formula: capital appreciation. That belongs in a separate calculation, for a good reason. Appreciation is uncertain, it varies enormously by market and by decade, and mixing a hoped-for capital gain into a known annual cost turns an arithmetic exercise into a forecast. Run the cost per night first. Then, separately, decide what you believe about the market. We come back to this at the end.

Component 1: annual running costs

The list is longer than most people's mental version of it.

Taxes and charges

• Annual property tax (IBI in Spain, taxe foncière in France, IMI in Portugal, IMU in Italy, council tax in the UK, property tax in the US)
• Second-home surcharges, where they apply, and they increasingly do
• Non-resident imputed income tax. Spain charges non-resident owners tax on a notional rental income for every day the property is not let, calculated from the cadastral value. Owners routinely forget this exists.
• Waste, water and sewerage standing charges

Fixed operating costs

• Community or condominium fees, and the reserve fund contributions inside them
• Buildings and contents insurance, plus any specialist cover (flood, windstorm, earthquake, unoccupancy loading)
• Utility standing charges and minimum consumption during the ten months you are not there
• Internet and TV kept live year-round
• Pool, garden, alarm monitoring, keyholding

Maintenance

• A realistic reserve, not last year's actual spend. The common rule of thumb is 1% of property value per year; for older stone, rural or coastal properties, 1.5% to 2% is closer to reality. Salt air, damp and a house nobody visits for months all accelerate the bill.
• Periodic capital items amortised: roof, boiler, windows, pool lining, terrace waterproofing

Getting there

• Flights, ferries or fuel for every trip, for everyone who goes
• Airport transfers, car hire or the cost of keeping a car parked there year-round, including its insurance and tax

Management

• Property management or a caretaker
• Cleaning before and after each stay

Component 2: transaction costs, amortised

Buying and selling are the two most expensive days in the life of a second home, and treating them as sunk costs hides them from the arithmetic.

Add up purchase costs (transfer tax or VAT, notary, land registry, legal fees, survey, mortgage arrangement, currency conversion spread) and the exit costs you will eventually pay (agent commission, legal, energy certificate, municipal capital gains levies, capital gains tax where it applies, non-resident withholding). Divide the total by the number of years you realistically expect to hold the property.

This single line often adds several thousand euros a year in Europe, where combined round-trip friction of 12% to 18% of value is normal.

Component 3: the cost of the capital

Money in a property is money not somewhere else. You can include this line at whatever rate you consider appropriate, or set it to zero and read both versions of the answer. We show both below, using an illustrative 3% because it keeps the arithmetic transparent, not because it is a recommendation.

If you bought with a mortgage, replace this line with the actual interest paid (not the full repayment, since capital repayment is not a cost).

Worked example: a coastal apartment in Spain

An illustrative €250,000 two-bedroom apartment. The owners visit three times a year, a week each time: 21 nights.

Transaction costs: roughly €27,500 to buy (transfer tax, notary, registry, legal, survey) and roughly €12,500 to sell. Over a ten-year hold that is €4,000 a year.

For comparison, this example assumes a similar apartment could be rented in that resort for around €150 a night in shoulder season.

The nights-used sensitivity

This is the part worth internalising. The cost per night is dominated by the denominator, not the numerator. Using the same €11,480 annual figure:

Cutting your costs by 20% moves the number a little. Doubling your nights halves it. Any decision that increases actual use, a direct flight route, a location you can reach on a Friday evening, retirement, remote work, does far more for the economics than shaving the community fees.

Three profiles compared

Illustrative figures, ten-year hold, capital cost excluded.

The French house is cheaper per night despite similar running costs, because the owners drive there and go more often. The Florida condo is the most expensive per night despite being the largest asset, because association fees, property tax and windstorm insurance are high, exit commission is high, and thirty nights is a thin denominator. None of that is visible from the purchase price.

What letting it out actually does

Letting is the lever most owners reach for, and it does move the number, but not by the gross rental figure.

Take the Spanish example. Say it lets for 100 nights at an average €140, giving €14,000 gross.

That takes the annual cost from €11,480 to €3,960, and the cost per night for 21 nights of own use from €547 to €189. Genuinely transformative.

But four caveats belong next to that figure:

1. The licence may not exist. Barcelona, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Athens, Palma, Ibiza, New York, Dubrovnik and a growing list of others have frozen, capped or withdrawn short-term rental licences. Buying a property on the assumption you will get one is the single most common way this calculation breaks. See Holiday Let Licensing.
2. The 100 nights are the good ones. Peak-season lettings compete directly with your own use. If you want August, your rental income falls sharply.
3. The tax treatment differs by country and by residency. Deductibility of expenses varies enormously; the illustrative figure above is not a substitute for advice. See Non-Resident Rental Income Tax and Net After-Tax Rental Yield by Country.
4. Letting changes what the home is. A property run as a business needs to be kept to guest standard, cleared of personal belongings, and available on someone else's calendar.

The break-even: how many nights before ownership wins

Using the Spanish example and a €150 per night rental alternative:

Seventy-seven nights a year is eleven weeks. That is a demanding threshold for a property you fly to, and an easy one for a property you drive to. It is also worth noting that the alternative is not always a hotel: for stays of a month or more, a long or mid-term rental in the same location usually costs far less per night than the holiday rate, which pushes the break-even further out. See Renting Long Term Abroad as a Foreigner.

What the number deliberately leaves out

Cost per night measures one thing: accommodation. Second homes are bought for several others, and it is honest to name them rather than pretend the arithmetic settles the question.

• Optionality. The ability to go this weekend, without booking, at no marginal cost, is worth something real that does not show up per night.
• Storage and continuity. Your things are there. The bikes, the boat, the winter clothes, the children's beds.
• Family use. If relatives and friends stay too, and you count only your own nights, you are understating the use.
• A base for a future move. Many owners are buying a retirement or relocation option a decade early. That is a different purchase with a different justification.
• Capital return. Property may appreciate, and in some markets over some decades it has appreciated a great deal. It has also fallen in real terms for long stretches in Japan, Spain, Ireland, Greece and elsewhere. Treat it as a separate, uncertain line, not as a way to make the running costs disappear.

Run your own version in ten minutes

1. List every euro that left your account for that property last year, including flights and car.
2. Add a maintenance reserve of 1% to 2% of value, even if you spent less.
3. Total your purchase costs, estimate your exit costs, and divide by your expected years of ownership.
4. Decide whether to include a capital cost line, and at what rate.
5. Count the nights. Actual nights, from your calendar or your boarding passes, not your impression.
6. Divide.
7. Compare against what the same week would have cost you to rent in that town, in that season.

If the number shocks you, the useful response is usually not to sell. It is to increase the denominator: go more often, go for longer, let family use it, or reconsider whether the location is one you can realistically reach more than three times a year.

Frequently asked questions

What is a typical cost per night for a second home abroad?
There is no published average, which is part of why so few owners run the number. What the arithmetic shows is the shape: for owners flying to a holiday home two or three times a year, the figure lands far above a hotel rate once transaction costs are amortised, and for owners who drive to a property in a neighbouring country and use it for several weeks, it lands well below one. Run your own inputs rather than trusting a headline figure.

Should I include the mortgage payment?
Include the interest, not the capital repayment. Capital repayment is a transfer between two of your own accounts, not a cost. If you include mortgage interest, do not also add a separate cost-of-capital line for the borrowed portion.

Does capital appreciation cancel this out?
It can, and in some markets historically it has. But it is a forecast, not a cost, and it only becomes real when you sell and pay the exit costs. Keep the two calculations separate so you can see which one you are relying on.

How many nights a year do second-home owners actually use their property?
Owners generally use their properties less than they projected at purchase, and long-haul properties least of all. The reliable approach is to look at your last two years of actual travel to that region rather than your intention.

Is it cheaper to just rent the same place every year?
On pure accommodation cost, for a small number of weeks a year, usually yes. Ownership wins on control, continuity, storage and optionality, and on the possibility of capital gain. It is a genuine trade-off, which is the point of running the number.

Keep reading on JanusHermes

Run the number before you buy, not after, and run it on the nights you will realistically spend there rather than the ones you imagine. If the answer only works at 70 or 80 nights a year, the honest question is not about the property, it is about whether you can actually get there that often. JanusHermes lists property from local agencies in 11 languages, with the local agency's own contact details on every listing.

Related reading: The Hidden Costs of Owning Property Abroad, Holiday Let Licensing, Net After-Tax Rental Yield by Country, Direct Flights and Second-Home Values, Second Home Ownership by Country and The Real Cost of Living After You Buy Abroad.

All figures in this article are illustrative examples constructed to show the method, not quotations, valuations or forecasts for any specific property or market. Tax treatment, rates, allowances and licensing rules vary by country, by region and by your own residence and citizenship, and they change. This is general information, not tax, legal or financial advice. Run your own numbers with a qualified accountant and lawyer in the relevant country before making a purchase decision.