Every property brochure on the Red Sea has a yield figure on it somewhere, usually in a font size normally reserved for fire exits. Eight per cent! Ten per cent! Guaranteed! (It is rarely guaranteed, and it is almost never net.) If you have ever sat in a drizzly Manchester kitchen at 6 pm in November, laptop open, wondering whether a flat in Hurghada could pay for itself, you will know the feeling: the numbers look wonderful right up until you start asking what they actually include.
This guide is the version we would give a friend over an espresso at the Marina. We will separate gross from net, walk through a worked example you can redo with your own figures, look at what the occupancy data really says, and be honest about the risks, including the one that most brochures forget to mention: the currency.
Gross yield versus net yield: the only distinction that matters
Gross yield is the annual rent divided by the purchase price. Net yield is what is left after you have paid everyone who needs paying. The gap between the two is where optimism goes to die.
For orientation, a Global Investments guide to Egyptian rental returns cites gross yields of roughly 6–9% for Hurghada apartments and studios, and 6–10% for Red Sea coastal short-lets, depending on the age and condition of the property, the quality of management and the distance to tourist infrastructure. The same guide notes that a gross yield of about 8% can fall to something like 4–5% net once costs are taken out, and that this is still a figure in Egyptian pounds before any currency effect. That is a useful sanity check, and it is broadly the range we see when owners show us their own statements.
So if a listing promises a double-digit return, the sensible response is the one you would give a stranger offering you a very good price on a watch: polite interest, followed by a lot of questions.
What actually eats into the rent
Here are the usual suspects. None of them is scandalous; they are simply real.
- Management fees. According to the same Global Investments guide, full-service short-let management typically costs 15–25% of gross rental income, on top of the commissions charged by online travel platforms. Management covers check-ins, cleaning, laundry, repairs and answering a guest’s 2 am message about the air conditioning.
- Service charges. Gated resorts charge quarterly or annual fees for security, landscaping, pools and common areas. They vary enormously between developments, so ask for the actual last-twelve-months figure rather than the sales estimate.
- Vacancy and seasonality. The coast is not equally busy every week of the year. More on that below.
- Maintenance and replacement. Sun, salt and a steady stream of guests are hard on sofas, mattresses and kettles. Budget for a refresh every few years.
- Taxes. The same guide states that rental income is taxed in Egypt, with an automatic 50% deduction for costs and progressive rates on the remainder, and that many properties also attract an annual real estate tax of 10% of the assessed annual rental value. Your own home-country tax position is a separate question. Take independent Egyptian and home-country tax advice before you model anything.
A worked example you can redo with your own numbers
The figures below are an illustration, not a quote and not a promise. We have used round numbers per £100,000 of purchase price so you can scale them to your own budget. The management fee sits inside the range cited above; the other lines are placeholder assumptions that you should replace with figures from the specific development you are looking at.
| Line | Assumption | Per £100,000 invested |
|---|---|---|
| Gross rent | 8% gross yield | £8,000 |
| Management | 20% of gross rent | −£1,600 |
| Service charges | Illustrative 1.0% of price | −£1,000 |
| Maintenance, utilities, refresh | Illustrative 0.8% of price | −£800 |
| Net before tax | £4,600 (4.6%) |
A net figure of 4.6% before tax lands neatly inside the 4–5% net range mentioned earlier, which is reassuring rather than coincidental. It is also an honest number. It is not the number on the brochure, but it is the number you could actually bank, subject to occupancy and tax.
Now change one thing. If your gross yield is 6% rather than 8%, the same costs leave you with roughly 3.0% net (the management fee shrinks to £1,200, but the fixed-ish costs do not). That is the quiet cruelty of fixed costs: a small drop in rent produces a large drop in profit. Run the sums at three occupancy levels before you fall in love with anything.
What the occupancy data really says
Short-let analytics firm Airbtics tracks Airbnb performance in Hurghada. For the twelve months from September 2025 to August 2026, its published data shows average occupancy of 52%, an average daily rate of about EGP 2,786 (roughly $59), and average annual revenue of about EGP 541,000 (around $11,000) per listing. It also reports that demand peaks in October and August and is weakest in February.
Two caveats, because we would rather you hear them from us. First, these are averages across all listings the platform tracks, from tiny city flats to large villas, so they are a market temperature check and not a forecast for any particular apartment. Second, the same source counted 3,897 active listings in mid-October 2026, up almost 70% on a year earlier. More supply means more competition for the same guests, which is good news for guests and a reason for owners to care a great deal about location, photography, reviews and pricing.
Demand, at least, is not the weak link. According to a statement from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities reported by Business Today Egypt, the country received about 19 million tourists in 2025, a rise of roughly 21% on 2024, with Hurghada named among the leading airport gateways alongside Cairo, Sharm El-Sheikh and Marsa Alam. Plenty of people want to be here. The question for an owner is how many of them will book your sofa bed.
Hurghada versus Sahl Hasheesh: where the yield comes from
Yield is not only about the area; it is about what kind of guest the area attracts. Hurghada has the airport, the restaurants, the marina and a large, steady stream of visitors, which tends to support more consistent bookings at moderate nightly rates. Sahl Hasheesh is a planned resort town with a long promenade, a quieter feel and a higher-end positioning, which suits longer stays and owners who want to use the apartment themselves. Neither is automatically “better”; they suit different strategies. If you are still weighing up the bigger picture, our comparison of Sahl Hasheesh and El Gouna walks through how the personalities differ.
As a rule of thumb, apartments within walking distance of a beach or promenade, with a pool, reliable hot water and strong Wi-Fi, tend to outperform the rest. This is not glamorous advice, but it is the kind that shows up in occupancy figures.
The currency question nobody puts on the brochure
Rent is earned in Egyptian pounds or in foreign currency, depending on how you let; costs are mostly in Egyptian pounds; and your life, if you live in Leeds or Leipzig, is probably in sterling or euros. A healthy yield in pounds can look rather different once translated.
The macro backdrop matters here. As reported by Ahram Online, the Central Bank of Egypt kept its overnight deposit rate at 19% and its overnight lending rate at 20% at its 24 September 2026 meeting, noting that annual headline inflation had eased to 14.5% in August 2026 and revising its inflation forecast downwards, with headline inflation expected to converge towards its 7% (plus or minus 2 percentage points) target during the second half of 2027. That is encouraging for stability, but it is also a reminder that you are investing in an economy where nominal rents and prices move with inflation, and where local interest rates are high enough to offer an alternative to bricks and mortar. Our practical view is to treat the rental income as a way of making the property pay its own way, and to treat any capital growth as a bonus rather than the plan.
Short-let or long-let?
Short lets earn more per night and need more work. Long lets are quieter but rarely pay as much on the Red Sea, where much of the housing stock is built for visitors rather than year-round residents. Many owners split the difference: they use the apartment themselves for a few weeks in winter, let it to holidaymakers in the busier months and keep a fixed management arrangement so that nothing depends on them being on the coast.
Ask any prospective manager for three things: occupancy history for comparable units in the same development, a sample owner statement showing every deduction, and the names of two current owners you can talk to. A good manager will hand these over cheerfully. A less good one will start talking about how everyone is very happy.
Five questions to ask before you buy for the rent
- What did a comparable unit in this exact building actually earn last year, after fees? Not the developer’s projection; the owner’s statement.
- What are the service charges, and how often have they risen? They are a fixed cost that does not care about your occupancy.
- Is the title sorted? A beautiful yield on a property you cannot properly register is a pleasant hobby, not an investment. Our guide to the Green Contract versus Sahha Wa Nafaz explains what to check.
- Who handles the tax paperwork, and have you had it confirmed in writing by an independent adviser?
- What is your exit? Resale liquidity varies by development, and a flat that lets well but is hard to sell is only half an asset.
Putting it together
Our honest summary is that a well-located, well-managed Red Sea apartment can pay its way and produce a modest net return, in the region of the 4–5% net figure cited earlier, with upside in good years and a few quiet months in the bad ones. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something other than property. It is, for the right buyer, a way to own a place in the sun that is not a pure cost.
If you would like to see what is actually on the market, browse our current properties for sale or explore the developments we work with, and if you are still working out the buying process itself, our guide to buying property in Hurghada as a UK citizen is a good next stop. Tell us your budget and how much you want to use the place yourself, and we will tell you, frankly, which units are worth a second look and which are just pretty.
