Running vacation rentals in Zihuatanejo and Ixtapa, Mexico: who your guests are and how long they stay

What Airbnb and the other platforms withhold for the SAT, Mexico's tax authority, is the same across the country, so it lives in the national section.

This is not legal or tax advice, and Upbridge does not file anything for you: no registrations and no tax returns.

AirROI counted 929 active listings in Zihuatanejo over the twelve months to September 2026, 50% more than a year before, while average revenue per listing fell 9%. Ixtapa had 342, up 17%. With that many new places chasing the same guests, every review counts for more, and one dirty towel your cleaner missed can cost you the next booking.

February is the best month on both sides and September the slowest. The average stay is 5.9 nights in Zihuatanejo and 5.5 in Ixtapa, so a week-long booking may want fresh towels and sheets halfway through, if you sell that as an extra service.

Guests from Morelia and Querétaro, a big share of Ixtapa's, most likely drive in, and they'll want to know where to park before they arrive. In Zihuatanejo nearly a quarter of guests are from the US and about one in seven from Canada, and they'll read the house instructions in English. The flights that bring them are covered on the Guerrero page.

Hotels feel the same demand. On Saturday, February 21, 2026, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo hotels were 85.5% full (La Razón), and on the year's second long weekend they reached 93%, according to the state tourism department (SDP Noticias, March 2026).

On Thursday, October 9, 2025, Zihuatanejo got more rain than anywhere else in Mexico, 151 millimeters in one day, according to the national civil protection coordinator, Laura Velázquez (N+). After a downpour like that, someone should walk through the empty houses to check for leaks and damp before the next guest shows up.

So every cleaning gets the same check, there are photo checklists: your cleaner goes room by room on their phone, ticks the required items and adds photos, and you get the report with the time on it. Checklists can also run on a schedule, say a walk-through of the empty houses after every September or October storm.

For guests from the US and Canada, we build the guest guide in English and Spanish, with directions and how to get in. If a guest wants the mid-stay sheet change or a late checkout, they ask for it and pay on the Upbridge page, and the task is created and assigned on its own.

Connect your Guesty, Hostaway, Lodgify or Uplisting account, or let us import your iCal, and every checkout creates its cleaning task, so in February you can see at a glance which houses turn over each day.

If you manage vacation rentals or run a cleaning company in Ixtapa or Zihuatanejo, Upbridge can help make sure a six-night stay ends with the house checked room by room, and that the next guest, whether from Morelia or Vancouver, knows how to get there.

With stays of almost six nights, each house gives you fewer checkouts a month than a weekend town would, but every checkout is a deep clean after a week of use. Among listings that charge cleaning separately, the typical fee is 350 pesos in Zihuatanejo and 455 in Ixtapa, according to AirROI. With the cleaning company account you see every client's bookings in one calendar, each house from its own iCal or PMS. Each client stays yours, and we keep nothing from what you charge for a cleaning.

Guerrero · Acapulco · Taxco