Running vacation rentals in Mérida, Mexico, where city hall wants to know who's behind each one

PorEsto reports that the first conversations with owners were about catching up on taxes and on city services like garbage collection and water. The mayor said city hall didn't really know where these houses were or who was responsible for each one.

Mérida's airport handled 2,739,431 passengers from January through August, 6.9% more than a year earlier, while hotel occupancy in the city fell from 57.5% to 53.0% over the same months (Sefotur). In April, José Enrique Molina Cáceres, who heads the Mérida chamber of commerce (Canaco), blamed Airbnb for Easter week bringing plenty of visitors and still leaving hotels short of full. He wants rentals counted in the official statistics and taxed like hotels. For now it's only a request from the chamber.

For what the SAT withholds on each booking, see the national section.

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

Of the 1,494,776 visitors who stayed overnight in Mérida's hotels from January to August 2026, 81.4% came from elsewhere in Mexico, per Sefotur's August report. Rentals aren't in that count, but it tells you who comes to the city, and it means your arrival instructions will mostly be read in Spanish.

PorEsto, using Airbnb's own figures, ranked Mérida tenth in the country for listings on the platform in June. More than half of the rentals city hall wants on its register are in the Centro Histórico. Since the city opened those talks by asking about garbage and water, it helps if your cleaner knows which day the truck comes past each house and where the bags go after a checkout.

The heat sets the work schedule. April 2026 was the fourth-hottest April on record in Mérida, reaching 42.5 °C (about 108 °F) on Saturday the 25th at the Conagua weather station at the airport, and PorEsto advised staying out of the sun between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. For a turnover, that means cleaning early and switching the AC on well before the guest arrives, since a house that's been shut all afternoon takes a while to cool down.

Because most people who come to Mérida are Mexican, we write the guest guide in Spanish first and in English too, with how to find your house in the center, how to get in and what to do with the trash. Your guest opens it on their phone before they arrive.

For April and May turnovers, we set up a photo checklist with you, room by room, and leaving the AC running can be one of the required items. Every checkout on the calendar creates its own cleaning task, whether you're on Guesty, Hostaway, Lodgify, Uplisting or plain iCal.

If you've got rentals in Mérida, or your team cleans them, Upbridge can help with the whole checkout day, from the first photo of a clean room to the next guest opening the guide on their phone.

When April afternoons go past 40 °C, your crew is better off cleaning in the morning, and you can only plan that if you know ahead of time which houses check out that day. The account for cleaning companies shows every client's calendar in one place, whether it comes from their iCal or their PMS, and each client stays yours, with no cut per job.