iGMS Releases Free World Cup Report, Finding Short-Term Rental Rates Rose About 20% as Occupancy Fell

New iGMS research across 385,000 short-term rental listings finds asking rates rose about 20% in the ten U.S. host metros during the 2026 tournament, while the share of nights filled fell about 4%

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--iGMS today published The World Cup Effect, research that measures the impact of the 2026 FIFA World Cup on short-term rental income in the 10 U.S. host metros. The full report is free to read online with no registration. The finding runs against the common assumption: host cities did not fill up. Hosts charged more for the nights they were already going to fill.

The study compared ten host metros against seven similar non-host metros over the June 12 to July 19, 2026 window, against the same calendar weeks in 2023 and 2024. Across roughly 385,000 listings and 10.9 million booked nights:

- Asking rates rose about 19.8% against matched control metros. Six separate estimators, spanning two statistical frameworks and two independent datasets, all land between +16% and +20%.
- The share of nights filled fell about 4.2%. Occupancy declined in nine of the ten host metros by roughly 6 percentage points on average relative to control cities.
- Income per listing rose about 13.9%, driven almost entirely by rate rather than occupancy. All ten host metros showed a positive lift.

"We wanted to answer a single question: when a mega-event like the FIFA World Cup comes to your city, what actually happens to your rental income?" said Sem Leontev, the iGMS data scientist who led the research. "Intuitively, we expected the tournament to fill host cities up, with occupancy and rates rising together. The data said otherwise. Across ten U.S. host metros, asking rates ran roughly 16 to 20% above matched non-host markets during the tournament, while nights filled edged down about 4%. This was a pricing event, not a booking boom. What mattered most was proximity to a venue, not the city itself: roughly 30 to 42% above control markets within 2 km of a stadium, against about 7% beyond 30 km."

The premium came from the stadium, not the city center

The report also rules out the more ordinary explanation that this was simply a downtown premium. With distance to the stadium and distance to the city center modeled simultaneously, only the stadium slope was distinguishable from zero.

The premium also tracked the match calendar. Going from zero to two matches in a metro-week widened the gap between near-venue and far listings by roughly 17 percentage points.

For hosts: dollars, not percent

"We ran this because hosts kept asking us what to do about the World Cup, and we didn't actually know," said Ivan Levchenko, CEO of iGMS. "The most useful answer isn't a percentage. It's about $55 a night. The event added roughly a fixed dollar amount, so what percentage that represents depends entirely on what you already charge. A host in Philadelphia and a host in Los Angeles made similar money on very different starting prices."

Baseline nightly price explains about 80% of the variation between cities; match volume explains none of it. The report declines to rank host cities, because the per-city intervals overlap almost entirely.

Built to survive a null test

An earlier version of the analysis failed a placebo test, returning a false +16% "effect" in a year with no World Cup. It was rebuilt to measure change within each individual listing over time, rather than comparing one group of listings to another. On the same test, the corrected method returns +0.6%.

The report includes a full limitations appendix and a section on what the data does not support. It measures posted rates on nights that sold, not willingness to pay, and estimates no price elasticity. Kansas City was excluded after its 2026 price series could not be explained, and no claim covers it.

Availability

The World Cup Effect is published in full at https://www.igms.com/go/world-cup-report/, free and without registration: fifteen sections, eleven figures, and four appendices covering methodology, data sources, limitations, and the statistical model. A 26-page PDF is downloadable from the same page. Journalists seeking chart assets or interviews can contact Daniëlle Kruger.

About iGMS

iGMS is short-term rental management software for independent hosts and small property managers running 1 to 19 properties on Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com. It consolidates bookings, messages, and calendars into a single dashboard and a native mobile app for iOS and Android, enabling hosts to manage their business from their phones. With live human support, iGMS handles channel syncing, guest messaging, cleaning, team management, payments, and direct booking. Founded in 2015, iGMS serves over 6,000 hosts worldwide and is an Airbnb Preferred Software Partner.