The Best Way to Export Rental Financials for Tax Prep

The short answer

The best export for tax prep is one row per booking, for the tax year, with the gross amount, the platform’s fee, the cleaning fee, any tax collected and the payout in separate columns, and the property named on every row. Send it as a CSV or spreadsheet, not a PDF, so your accountant can sort and total it.

A list of bank deposits is not enough. Deposits are what was left after the platforms took their fees, and several bookings are often paid together.

What your accountant needs

For income:

• Gross booking value: what the guest paid for the stay, before the platform’s fee
• Cleaning fees and extras, on their own
• Platform fees and commission, as costs
• Taxes the platform collected or you charged: occupancy tax, tourist tax, VAT
• Payout: what reached your bank, and the date
• Currency and exchange rate, if the guest paid in another currency
• Property, on every row
• Check-in and check-out dates and nights, which also show how many days each property was let

For costs: cleaning, repairs, utilities, insurance, software, mortgage interest and anything else you spent on the property, with dates and receipts.

For the calendar: nights let, nights you used the property yourself, and nights it was empty. In several countries the split decides how the income is taxed.

Which date to export by

Ask your accountant before you set the date range. Some rental businesses report income when the money arrives. Others report it when the stay takes place. A booking paid in December for a stay in January falls in different tax years under the two methods.

If you are unsure, export by check-in date and include the payout date as a column. Your accountant can then use either.

Getting it out of each platform

• Airbnb has an earnings section with a transaction history you can download as a CSV, and yearly earnings summaries.
• VRBO has payout and reservation reports in its owner dashboard.
• Booking.com has reservation statements and commission invoices in the extranet’s finance section.
• Direct bookings come from your payment provider’s export and your own booking records.

Each export has its own columns, its own date logic and its own currency. Putting them together is where the time goes: renaming columns, converting currencies, removing cancelled bookings and checking that nothing is counted twice.

Common mistakes

• Exporting payouts and calling it income. This understates your income and loses the platform fees as a deductible cost. We explain why in why your payouts don’t match your invoices.
• One total for all properties. Per-property figures are needed for most tax returns and for any sensible view of which property earns its keep.
• Leaving out cancellations and refunds. A refund in January for a booking taken in November changes two periods.
• Converting currency at today’s rate. Use the rate from the time of the booking or payout, and keep a note of where it came from.
• Sending a PDF. It can be read but not totalled.

How Airflow handles this

Airflow holds every booking from every platform in one list, with the amounts already separated. That makes the export a single step.

Download a CSV. In Bookings → Export Bookings → Export to CSV, set the date range and the property, then download. Each row is one booking and includes the guest, check-in and check-out, nights, channel, property, nightly rate, cleaning fee, platform fee and its percentage, the channel total and payout, the same figures in your accounting currency, the exchange rate with its date and source, and the invoice number and status.

Run a report. The Reports page has a Revenue Report for this month, this quarter, this year or all time, with a downloadable CSV. Reports can be saved and scheduled.

Keep a live spreadsheet. If your accountant prefers Google Sheets, Airflow can write your bookings to a sheet with a tab per property. It is one-way: edit the sheet’s own copy and your changes will be overwritten. See export your bookings to Google Sheets.

Or skip the export. If you connect accounting software, each booking becomes a draft invoice there, with income, fees and tax on separate lines for you to approve. By tax time the figures are already in the system your accountant works in. See short-term rental tax prep: get your books ready in a weekend.

Two limits to know about. Airflow exports your booking income; your expenses live in your accounting software or your own records. And Airflow does not fill in a tax return or give tax advice. For the rules where you are, start with our guides to UK tax for Airbnb hosts and US taxes and the 1099-K, and ask your accountant.

Some exports and reports use tasks from your plan’s allowance — see pricing.

Get started — see plans and pricing.