Running vacation rentals on Holbox, Mexico, an island that drinks from a well on the mainland

What the SAT has the booking platforms withhold doesn't change from one town to the next, so we explain it once, on the Mexico page.

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

Your team and your guests all come across from Chiquilá. In summer 2026 the 9 Hermanos and Holbox Express ferries left every half hour and charged 220 pesos, or 180 with a Quintana Roo resident ID, while small launches for six to eight people charged 200 a head, Ruptura 360 reported. If a cleaner crosses every day, that fare is part of what each checkout costs you.

The island's water comes from a deep well at the Chiquilá port, and when the power fails the pump stops. Hotel owners told Por Esto in February 2025 that what's stored in rooftop tanks and cisterns lasts two or three days, and only about one when occupancy is between 80% and 100%. So in high season it helps if the cleaner notes how full the cistern was when they left.

In October 2025 the town center, the dock and the gas station went more than four hours without power during CFE works (Ruptura 360). In September 2026 the power utility, the town council and the Holbox hotel association agreed to replace old cabling and some transformers, and they scheduled the maintenance for September and October, the quietest months for tourism. If guests are arriving in those weeks, tell them ahead of time what to do if the lights go out.

In 2025 the municipality hauled more than 70,000 tons of built-up garbage out of the island's transfer site, which sits inside the Yum Balam reserve, and a company called ECO-V runs collection on the island (Ruptura 360, September 2025). For your house, that means putting in writing where and when guests should take the bags out.

In the photo checklist your team follows on their phone, you can make a photo of the cistern level a required item. When they finish, you get the report with the time of every photo.

Every box of soap and paper reaches the island by boat, which is why per-property inventory helps: stock comes off after each stay based on the products you set up, and you get a low-stock alert in the app, by email and on WhatsApp.

In the guest guide we write down how to cross from Chiquilá, what to do in a power cut and where the trash goes. Your guests read it on their phones, in Spanish or in English.

If you manage vacation rentals or run a cleaning company on Holbox, Upbridge can help make sure every checkout is checked with photos and that your guests arrive knowing how to cross and how the house works.

If your people live on the Chiquilá side, their day starts at the dock, and because so many places on the island can be booked for one night, some weeks bring checkouts back to back. With the cleaning company account you see every client's checkouts in one calendar, whether each owner uses iCal or a PMS, and the client stays yours.

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