How much can an Ibiza villa actually earn?

Three honest strategies. In the south-west (Sant Josep – Cala Vedella, Cala Tarida, Es Cubells) you buy the island’s highest rates; you pay for that privilege in the purchase price. In Sant Antoni you buy nights: the strongest occupancy on the island at friendlier prices per square metre. In Santa Eulària you buy the entry point: villas trade well below the south-west yet charge nearly the same nightly rate when they do book – the gap is occupancy, and occupancy is partly an operations problem, which you control (step 6). None of these is wrong. Buying without knowing which one you chose is.

Each bedroom class adds roughly €19,000 to €27,000 of median annual revenue, and in the larger classes the top quarter pulls away hard. But the cleanest rule of thumb in the whole dataset is this: revenue per licensed guest place is stable at €10,000 to €12,000 a year across every size class. When a listing agent shows you a villa licensed for ten and talks about €60,000 a year, the data says the conversation should start at €110,000. Size the purchase to the licence, then hold every promise against that number.

The fatal (walk away, or price it brutally)

• No private pool – villas without one earn about 30% less, and on a rural plot the permission to add one is never guaranteed. On Ibiza the pool is not a luxury, it is the product.
• No air conditioning where it cannot reasonably be added – the few villas without it earn roughly 30% less. Guests do not negotiate on August heat.

The fixable (this is where buyers make money)

• A tired interior – villas whose reviews say “worn” earn about a third less. That discount is real on the way in and recoverable after a refurbishment: you are buying the problem cheaper than the cure.
• Fewer bathrooms than bedrooms – villas with MORE bathrooms than bedrooms earn about 20% more, and a bathroom is one of the cheapest premiums you can build. Count bathrooms like a hotelier.

The priced-in (fine, but do not pay twice)

• A sea view adds about 18% to rental income – and rather more than that to the asking price. Enjoy it, but run the numbers as if you were buying the income, not the postcard.

The summer quarter alone produces 47% of the median villa’s annual revenue; May to October is effectively the whole market. Two things follow. First, a villa that opens only for the peak weeks still captures over half of a full year’s potential – and tightly run seasonal villas book around 70% of the nights they offer. Second, if you plan to use the house yourself, take the winter and the shoulder edges: keeping August for yourself is the single most expensive decision an owner can make. The calculator below prices your availability honestly – try it both ways and see what your own weeks actually cost.

The biggest gap in the whole dataset is not between areas or sizes. It is between how villas are run. Plainly self-managed villas book 24% of their open nights; villas run to a top-rated standard book 51%. Reviews compound the gap: rated 4.6 or higher, villas earn about 55% more than those below it (€97,000 vs €62,000 median). Villas under professional management earn 24% more than the market median for their size class – an observed difference, not a promise. Some of the best hosts on the island are private owners who treat it as a serious part-time job; if that is you, wonderful. If it is not going to be you – you live abroad, you have a business to run, you want the house to be a pleasure and not a second career – then decide who runs it BEFORE you buy, because the answer changes which villa you should choose.