With the Short-Term Letting Register closing off the classic nightly tourist-let route for most Dublin properties, a lot of owners have quietly concluded that the only door left open is the one they were trying to avoid: a twelve-month tenancy, a rent cap, and a tenant they may not be able to move on if circumstances change. That conclusion is understandable — and wrong. There is a third model, and it is the one we run: fully managed monthly stays for corporate guests. This post puts the two options side by side, honestly, so you can judge which fits your property and your appetite for involvement.
The short version of the new rules: the register, established under the Planning and Development Act 2024, applies to lettings of 21 nights or less, and in Rent Pressure Zones the nightly tourist-let model now generally requires planning permission that most residential properties will not get. This post takes that as the starting point and focuses on the decision it leaves owners with.
First, what "managed monthly stays" actually means
Guests stay for a month or more — relocating executives waiting on a permanent home, consultants on project assignments, medics on rotation, production crews on a shoot. Because these bookings run well beyond the register's 21-night threshold, they sit outside the scope of the new short-term letting regime. The property stays furnished, the guests are ID-verified and usually company-backed, and an operator like EirStay handles everything: marketing, vetting, check-ins, housekeeping, maintenance and monthly statements. You receive a payout and a report; you do not receive 2am phone calls.
Income: the headline comparison
A long-term lease gives you one number, twelve times a year — and in a Rent Pressure Zone, that number is capped. If your rent drifted below market over a previous tenancy, RPZ rules mean you may never close the gap, however the market moves. Managed monthly stays are priced at market rates for furnished, serviced accommodation, which in Dublin consistently commands a premium over unfurnished tenancy rents. After management fees, most suitable properties still net meaningfully more than a capped lease — and the pricing resets with the market rather than being anchored to a historic tenancy. Run your own numbers through our yield calculator to see the gap for your property.
Risk: arrears vs occupancy
Each model carries a different risk, and it is worth being honest about both. The long-term lease's risk is concentrated: one tenant, and if that tenant stops paying, the arrears and overholding process can run many months while your mortgage keeps falling due. The monthly-stay model's risk is occupancy: there can be gaps between bookings, and winter months are quieter than September. The difference is how the risk behaves. Occupancy risk is spread across many bookings and managed actively — pricing, corporate relationships and multi-channel distribution all work to keep the calendar full. Arrears risk is binary and largely outside your control once it crystallises. Corporate guests also pay in advance, before they arrive — there is no such thing as arrears in this model.
Control: the difference nobody prices in
Under a tenancy, the property is the tenant's home, with all the security-of-tenure protections Irish law rightly attaches to that. Selling, renovating, moving a family member in, or simply taking the property back all become slow and constrained. With monthly stays, the property remains yours. Want to sell next spring? We wind down the calendar. Want to use it for a family visit in August? Block the dates. This flexibility is the single biggest reason owners choose the model — it converts an illiquid, tenant-encumbered asset back into something you actually control.
Condition: who looks after the property better?
Counterintuitively, a professionally managed short-stay property is usually kept in better condition than a tenanted one. It is professionally cleaned on every changeover, inspected constantly as a side-effect of housekeeping, and small maintenance issues are caught and fixed in days rather than discovered at the end of a multi-year tenancy. Our housekeeping and maintenance coordination services exist precisely because the property's condition is our shared commercial interest — a tired apartment does not book.
Effort: what lands on your desk
A self-managed tenancy is not passive: RTB registration, annual inspections, appliance failures, rent reviews, and the correspondence that comes with all of it. A fully managed monthly-stay arrangement is genuinely hands-off — this is what full management actually involves — and your involvement reduces to reading a monthly statement.
Compliance: where each model stands in 2026
A long-term tenancy is fully within the residential tenancy regime — compliant, but with RPZ caps and tenure obligations. Nightly tourist letting without planning permission is, for most Dublin properties, no longer viable under the register. Managed monthly stays occupy the compliant middle ground: bookings beyond the 21-night threshold fall outside the register's scope, and the guest profile — professionals on assignment, not tourists on city breaks — matches the substance of the model, not just its paperwork. It is the route that preserves short-let economics without the regulatory exposure.
Who each model actually suits
- Choose a long-term lease if: you want one tenant and zero variability, your property is outside the areas corporate guests book, or you plan to hold indefinitely and never need the property back.
- Choose managed monthly stays if: your property is in Dublin 1, 2, 4, 6 or 8, it is (or can be) furnished to a good standard, you value flexibility over a fixed cheque, and you want market-rate income without becoming a landlord in the day-to-day sense.
What happens next
If you are weighing this up, the practical first step is a property assessment: we look at the location, condition and likely calendar for your specific apartment and come back with a realistic income range — not a brochure number. It costs nothing and does not commit you to anything. Request a free property assessment, or read more about how the EirStay partnership works.