Owners rarely open with what will I earn. The first question is almost always narrower and more useful: what exactly do you do, and what is still my job. It deserves a straight answer, because Airbnb management in Athens covers an enormous range of things. At one end, someone answering guest messages from their phone. At the other, a team that takes the apartment from the first photograph to the last utility bill.
UPSTREET manages more than 300 apartments across 40 Athens neighbourhoods, and has been doing it for over a decade. This is the piece we wish every owner had read before calling: what the work involves, how the fee is built, what Greek law now demands of the property itself, and when management is the wrong answer.
What a management company actually does
The work starts before the first guest. The apartment is photographed properly, a listing is written for each platform rather than copied between them, and availability is connected across channels so a booking anywhere closes the calendar everywhere. An apartment that appears on one platform only leaves money on the table, particularly out of season, when demand shifts towards corporate and longer stays.
Then comes the part nobody sees. Pricing is not set once a year. It moves daily against demand in that specific neighbourhood, the gaps in the calendar, public holidays, conferences and flight loads. The difference between competent and careless pricing is not a few euros a night. It is whole weeks of occupancy across a year.
Alongside that runs the daily operation: guest communication around the clock, screening bookings before arrival, cleaning and linen between every stay, technical response when something breaks, and preventive maintenance so it breaks less often. And then the part that decides whether the relationship lasts: a monthly statement of income and costs, and visibility of bookings as they happen. If you are not seeing numbers every month, you do not have management.
Leasing or management: two different products
This is where most owners get confused, and it is the most consequential decision you will make. Under leasing, UPSTREET becomes the tenant of your apartment. You sign a long-term lease and receive a fixed monthly rent whether the apartment is full or empty in February. Guaranteed rent here is not a forecast, it is a contractual term, and the vacancy risk sits with us.
Under management, the apartment stays yours and so does the income. We take a percentage of revenue. In a good year you earn more than a fixed rent would have paid you, and in a bad one, less. No serious company can guarantee a return on management, because nobody controls demand. Anyone promising you a number is promising something that is not theirs to give.
Leasing sells certainty. Management sells upside. Neither is more correct; it depends on what keeps you awake.
The practical rule: if the apartment services a mortgage or forms core income, stability is worth more than margin. If you can absorb the swing, management is the way. In Athens, where demand varies sharply between areas, the answer changes almost block by block. Our neighbourhood guide gives you the map.
How the fee is built
A management fee is a percentage of the property’s revenue, not a flat retainer. It is set according to the type of apartment, the area and the scope of services, and it is agreed in writing from the start. The logic is simple: if the apartment does not earn, you do not pay a percentage. Both sides are pointed in the same direction.
- Covered by the fee: listings, pricing, bookings and guest communication.
- Also covered: cleaning, linen and coordinating maintenance.
- Yours: utility bills, building charges and property tax.
- Yours: the tax on the income the apartment produces.
- Materials for repairs are charged as incurred, with receipts.
Ask two questions before signing anything. What is charged outside the percentage, and how long does the commitment run. A transparent arrangement answers both in a paragraph.
What has to be true before the first booking
First, the registry number. The apartment is entered in the Greek tax authority’s short-term rental registry and receives a Property Registry Number, the ΑΜΑ, which must appear on every listing on every platform. Without it there is no lawful short-term letting in Greece.
And here is the part that catches out buyers in the centre. In the 1st, 2nd and 3rd municipal districts of Athens, first registration of new properties in the registry has been suspended since 2025, and the suspension runs through the whole of 2026. If your apartment sits inside those districts and does not already hold an ΑΜΑ, it will not be getting one this year.
New registry entries: suspended in central Athens until 31.12.2026
There is a second detail that deserves more attention than it gets, especially if you are buying. Inside those suspension zones the licence does not follow the building. If the property changes hands, whether by sale, gift or inheritance, the existing registry entry is deleted and the new owner cannot issue a fresh ΑΜΑ. If you are looking at a central Athens apartment as a short-let investment, that is the first thing to check, ahead of the price.
The standards in force since October 2025
Under law 5170/2025, every property holding an active ΑΜΑ has to meet a defined set of standards, and inspections happen on site. The apartment must be a main-use space, with natural light and ventilation in the bedrooms and air conditioning. It also needs current civil liability insurance, an electrician’s declaration confirming a residual current device, fire extinguishers and smoke detectors, marked and lit escape routes, a pest control certificate, a first aid kit and a list of emergency numbers.
In practice most Athens apartments already satisfy the physical requirements. What is usually missing is paperwork rather than infrastructure: the insurance policy, the electrician’s declaration, the pest control certificate. Assembling that is part of the preparation we do before an apartment goes to market.
The apartment has to survive the comparison
The law is the threshold, not the standard. Athens now has tens of thousands of active listings, and a guest decides in seconds, scanning photographs side by side. Only good apartments survive that comparison. The rest sit empty, or fill only by dropping the price far enough that it stops being worth anyone’s while.
Three things decide the outcome. The apartment needs to be newly built or genuinely renovated, not simply repainted. It needs to sit in an area with proven demand, because no manager creates demand where none exists. And it needs to be furnished with taste and consistency, in pieces that photograph well and survive daily use. Furnishing is not decoration. It is the product.
If the apartment is not there yet, you do not have to solve that alone. Our team takes on furnishing and space planning from scratch, with materials and layouts that work in this market. We are selective about what we take on, because a portfolio’s reputation is only as good as its weakest apartment, and we would rather say so at the start than discover it in the reviews.
How the income is taxed
The dividing line is the number of properties and the nature of the services. An individual letting up to two properties short-term, furnished and with nothing beyond linen provided, is taxed on the property income scale, as with a conventional tenancy. From the third property onward, or where hotel-type services are provided, the activity is treated as a business. That brings business registration, 13% VAT across the whole activity, social security contributions and the trade fee. For companies, short-term rental income is business income regardless of how many properties are involved.
The three-property threshold arrives sooner than most owners expect, and crossing it changes the entire cost structure. It is worth discussing with an accountant before you add the third, not after. Non-resident owners should also take advice on how Greek rental income interacts with tax at home, since that varies by country and by treaty. The climate resilience levy, incidentally, falls on the guest rather than on you, though it does affect the final price they see.
And it does not suit everyone. If the building’s rules prohibit short-term letting, the conversation ends there. If the area has neither tourist nor corporate demand, a longer stay is usually the better answer, and we have written separately on how monthly pricing works.
In every other case the question is not whether professional management is worth it, but who does it and on what terms. Send us the address and a few photographs. We will tell you honestly which of the two models fits your apartment, even if the answer is neither.
Find out what your apartment could earn
Send us the details and we will come back with a proper revenue estimate.
