Short-Term Rental Investment in Mauritius: Licence, Tax and Real Yield
Short-term rentals in Mauritius require a Tourism Authority licence and a tourist fee since 2025. What a buyer must check before signing.
Renting a property to tourists in Mauritius is not a casual side option to long-term letting: it is a regulated activity that requires a licence from the Tourism Authority, and since 1 October 2025 it also means collecting a tourist fee of 3 euros per night for every guest over 12. Before running any yield projection, a buyer has to confirm that the specific unit they are looking at is actually allowed to operate that way — that check matters more than the financial model, because it is what separates a workable project from a purchase that stalls once the paperwork starts.
The Tourism Authority licence comes before any letting
According to the Government of Mauritius, renting accommodation to tourists falls under two licence categories issued by the Mauritius Tourism Authority. The Tourist Accommodation Certificate replaced, following a 2015 change to the law (the Finance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act), the former licence that covered hotels, guesthouses and tourist residences. The Tourist Enterprise Licence applies to any other activity that supplies goods or services to tourists for payment. Both sit under the Tourism Authority Act.
In practice, a property let to tourists without one of these two approvals is operating illegally, whether the booking comes through a platform like Airbnb or Booking.com or directly. That check belongs before the purchase, not after: a unit that cannot actually obtain the licence — because the co-ownership rules forbid it, or the zoning does not allow it — is not worth the rental income its seller is quoting.
The tourist fee, in force since 1 October 2025
The Mauritius Revenue Authority has been given responsibility for collecting a tourist fee of 3 euros per night, owed by every tourist aged over 12 staying in a tourist accommodation. It has applied since 1 October 2025. Managers of accommodations already operating had to register with the MRA by 25 September 2025, and the obligation is ongoing for any new operator: a monthly return has to report the number of tourists liable for the fee, the exempt children, and the amounts collected.
Exempt from the fee are children under 12, Mauritian residents, members of the Mauritian diaspora holding a Mauritian passport, and holders of a valid Premium Visa or residence permit. For a buyer taking over a unit that is already let short-term, this means inheriting an active monthly reporting duty, not just an extra line added to the guest’s bill.
Which properties can actually be let short-term
The legal right to let depends first on the scheme under which the property was bought. The schemes open to foreigners — PDS, IRS, RES, and apartments in buildings of at least two floors above ground — generally allow letting, tourist letting included; the exact price thresholds and conditions of each scheme are covered in our comparison guide to Mauritius’s new-build ownership schemes and in the legal framework for a foreign buyer.
National eligibility is not the whole story, though: inside a co-owned development, the co-ownership rules or the managing syndic can restrict or flatly ban short-term letting regardless of what the law permits nationally. That is the point buyers most often discover too late, and it is covered in detail in our guide to Airbnb rules inside a PDS — the same caution applies to any co-owned building, PDS or not.
Short-term and long-term are two different businesses, not two versions of the same sum
Long-term letting in Mauritius has tracked market data by region, with sourced gross yield ranges — see the rental yield figures by city. Nothing equivalent exists yet for short-term letting: no official series lets anyone put a reliable average yield on seasonal rental by region, for lack of a tracked, comparable sample. Filling that gap with an invented number would do more harm than good.
What genuinely separates the two models is the cost structure. Long-term letting produces a stable rent, low vacancy, and light management. Short-term letting can produce a higher nightly rate in peak season, but it carries real vacancy in the low season — the cyclone period from January to March weighs structurally on occupancy —, cleaning costs on every turnover, a significant commission taken by booking platforms, and the administrative load of the tourist fee and licence renewal. A seasonal yield quoted without those cost lines is not a yield, it is gross turnover.
When this model actually makes sense
Short-term letting holds up when three conditions line up: a location with genuine, year-round tourist demand rather than a purely seasonal trickle, management handed to a professional or to an owner present enough on the ground to handle turnovers, and a budget that can absorb low-season vacancy without strain. The areas with the heaviest tourist footfall — Grand Baie, Flic-en-Flac, Trou-aux-Biches or Belle Mare — carry most of the short-term demand, backed by a tourism flow that keeps growing: Mauritius recorded 1,436,250 tourist arrivals in 2025, up 3.9% on the 1,382,177 arrivals of 2024, according to Statistics Mauritius.
By contrast, an isolated property, a co-ownership that has not clarified its own rules, or a buyer planning to manage turnovers remotely from abroad without a local relay, are signals that point the project toward long-term letting instead — a more predictable business.
The mistakes that cost the most
Signing before checking with the syndic or the managing agent that short-term letting is actually allowed in the co-ownership. Starting to list on a platform before obtaining the Tourist Accommodation Certificate or the Tourist Enterprise Licence, betting the breach will go unnoticed. Underestimating real low-season vacancy in a revenue projection. Forgetting that taking over a unit already let short-term also means taking over its monthly reporting duty to the MRA, not just its existing bookings.
How to secure the purchase before signing
Ask the seller or the syndic for the co-ownership rules and confirm in writing that short-term letting is not restricted. Contact the Tourism Authority before the promise of sale to confirm the licence is feasible for that specific unit. Budget the cost and the timeline of getting the licence as part of the financing plan, not as an afterthought once the purchase price is settled. Line up a local manager — an agency or a concierge service — able to handle turnovers and the monthly tourist fee return from day one, rather than discovering that workload after the first booking.
Sources and verification
Planning a property project?
Let’s talk about your project in Mauritius
Westimmo guides you through the analysis, selection and securing of your property project in Mauritius.