A villa in Tulum costs money every month whether or not anyone sleeps in it, and four of those bills are set by law. Predial, the municipal property tax, is levied at 0.17% or 0.50% of the property’s taxable value. On Tulum’s tariff, electricity jumps to about 6.08 pesos per kWh once a house averages more than 400 kWh a month. Water starts at about 200 pesos a month, plus 40% for drainage and sanitation. And a full-time employee at the 2026 minimum wage costs at least 120,660 pesos a year before social security. We are Villas Ambar, a property manager in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico, and these are the ten recurring bills on a Tulum villa: the official figure where one exists, and what sets the price where none does.
This page is the cost side of a ledger whose income side we have already published. If you want to know what a Tulum villa earns, with occupancy, nightly rates, commissions, platform fees and withheld tax, that is in what Tulum villa owners actually earn. Here we cover what the house costs you, rented or not. Pesos are converted at 17.6 to the dollar, the European Central Bank reference rate on September 24, 2026. Nothing here is tax or legal advice.
How Much Does It Cost per Year to Own a Villa in Tulum?
Before any rental income, a Tulum villa’s official bills start at a predial of 0.17% or 0.50% of its taxable value, about 290 pesos a month for water, about 6.08 pesos per kWh for electricity above 400 kWh a month, and at least 120,660 pesos a year for each full-time employee. Those four have an official price. The other six — insurance, gas, HOA fees, internet, accounting and upkeep — depend on the house and on who you hire, so a manager who quotes you a single annual total for “a villa” without seeing it is guessing. Here is each line, what sets it, and who pays it once the house is under management.
| Bill | What sets it | Official figure | Under our management |
|---|---|---|---|
| Predial (property tax) | Municipality of Tulum | 0.17% or 0.50% of the taxable value a year; up to 30% off if paid in January (2026 campaign) | Owner’s bill |
| Electricity | CFE, the federal utility | Domestic high-consumption tariff (DAC) above a 400 kWh/month average: about 6.08 pesos/kWh + 145.85 pesos/month, before VAT | Billed separately |
| Water | CAPA, the state water commission | Domestic minimum 196.22 pesos/month (0–10 m³, November 2025), +35% drainage, +5% sanitation | Billed separately |
| Staff | Federal labor law | Minimum wage 315.04 pesos/day; at least 120,660 pesos/year per full-time employee, before social security | Housekeeping, pool and garden included in the commission |
| Insurance | Your insurer | No official price. Hurricane deductible typically 2% of replacement value, 5% beachfront, plus 10% co-insurance | Billed separately |
| Gas | Your supplier | Delivered LP gas, priced per liter; no current figure checked for this article | Billed separately |
| HOA fees | Your development’s rules | No official figure; set by each condominium regime | Owner’s bill |
| Internet | Your provider | No official figure; varies by provider and area | Billed separately |
| Accounting (tax ID, returns) | Your accountant | No official fee; the taxes themselves are in our rental income guide | Billed separately |
| Upkeep (pool, garden, humidity, salt) | The house itself | No official figure; varies, ask for a quote | Routine upkeep included; major works billed separately |
The last column is why two owners of identical villas can have very different annual bills. A house that is rented out under full management carries the staff and routine upkeep inside the commission. A house that stands empty, or that the owner runs alone, carries them directly. The rest of this page takes the lines one at a time.
How Much Are Property Taxes (Predial) in Tulum?
Tulum’s predial is a flat rate on the property’s taxable value, not a progressive scale: 0.0017 (0.17%) for built urban property, and 0.0050 (0.50%) on the line the law labels “Predios Tulum”. On every million pesos of taxable value, that is 1,700 pesos (about $97) or 5,000 pesos (about $284) a year. The rates are set in article 32 of the Tulum municipal revenue law, in the version published on December 10, 2025, and they are unchanged since 2012.
| Property line in the law | Annual rate | Per 1,000,000 pesos of taxable value |
|---|---|---|
| Built urban property (“predios urbanos edificados”) | 0.0017 | 1,700 pesos (≈$97) |
| “Predios Tulum” | 0.0050 | 5,000 pesos (≈$284) |
| Urban property in Akumal and Chemuyil | 0.0050 | 5,000 pesos (≈$284) |
| Vacant plots in other urban areas | 0.00567 | 5,670 pesos (≈$322) |
| Rural property | 0.00380 | 3,800 pesos (≈$216) |
We are not going to tell you which of the first two lines applies to your villa, because the law does not say clearly whether “Predios Tulum” covers every property in town or only some of it. Your annual statement from the municipal treasury shows the rate actually applied. Check it once rather than assuming.
Two details in the law matter more to an owner who rents it out than to anyone else. First, the taxable value is the highest of four figures: the cadastral value, a bank valuation, the value you declare, or “the rent the property produces or could produce” (article 30). A house earning vacation-rental income can be assessed on that income. Second, the cadastral values themselves are old. The 2026 revenue law applies the land and construction value tables drawn up for 2021, and by June 2026 the municipal cadastral office had published a proposed new set of tables for 2027, open to owners’ written objections until July 30. If the state congress adopts it, your 2027 bill can rise without any change in the rate.
When predial is due, and what paying early saves
The law sets predial as payable every two months in advance, in the first ten days of January, March, May, July, September and November, or as a single annual payment. The early-payment discount only applies to the annual payment. For 2026, the municipality announced 30% off in January, 15% in February and 10% in March. Note that the law itself caps the discount at 25% before January 31 and 15% to the end of February, and provides nothing for March. We found no published council resolution authorizing the 2026 figures, so treat next January’s percentage as whatever the municipality announces, not as a right.
Late payment adds a monthly surcharge at the rate the federal Treasury publishes, and the municipality can collect up to five years of arrears. If you hold the villa through a fideicomiso (bank trust), the law makes the trustee bank the taxpayer and you, as beneficiary in possession, jointly liable. We explain how the trust works when you buy separately. In practice the bill is still yours, and the law lets anyone pay it on your behalf, which is how an owner abroad usually settles it. Counter payments are made at the Dirección de Ingresos in the town hall, Avenida Tulum, Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.. The municipality also promotes online payment on its official social accounts. Take the payment address from there rather than from a search engine: at the time of writing, one of the top results for “predial Tulum” was a look-alike payment page hosted on an unrelated government website.
If you are still buying, ask the seller for the last predial receipt and the last twelve months of CFE bills. Together they show the rate the municipality actually applies to the house and whether it is already on the high-consumption electricity tariff described below.
Electricity: the 400 kWh Threshold
Above an average of 400 kWh a month, a Tulum villa’s electricity moves to CFE’s unsubsidized high-consumption tariff, at about 6.08 pesos per kWh before VAT. The surprise for owners is not the price per kWh but the switch itself. Mexican households pay subsidized domestic rates until their average consumption crosses a threshold; after that, CFE moves the whole account to DAC, with no subsidy at all. Local reporting puts Tulum on domestic tariff 1B, though CFE’s own pages do not list towns. The DAC threshold for tariff 1B is 400 kWh a month, averaged over the last twelve months.
| Item | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| DAC threshold, tariff 1B | 400 kWh/month, 12-month moving average | CFE tariff rules |
| DAC threshold, tariffs 1C / 1D / 1E | 850 / 1,000 / 2,000 kWh/month | CFE tariff rules |
| DAC price, South and Peninsular region, September 2026 | 6.080 pesos/kWh + 145.85 pesos/month fixed charge, before VAT | Published tariff tables, as reported; CFE’s pricing page was not accessible to us |
| Every 1,000 kWh in a month on DAC | ≈7,220 pesos (≈$410) with 16% VAT | Our arithmetic on the line above |
| Small-business tariff (PDBT), Peninsular division, August 2026 | ≈3.89 pesos/kWh + 45.26 pesos/month, before VAT | Diario Oficial, August 31, 2026 |
Four hundred kWh a month is about 13 kWh a day. Air-conditioned bedrooms and a pool pump that runs every day are exactly the loads that push a villa past that average. Because the average is a rolling twelve months, one heavy summer can keep a house on DAC well into the quiet season. The account only returns to the domestic tariff once the twelve-month average falls back below the threshold. The check takes a minute: the tariff code is printed on every CFE bill.
One question we cannot settle for you. CFE’s domestic tariffs are defined for “exclusively domestic use”, and a house rented to paying guests is arguably not that. We found no official source that moves a vacation rental onto the small-business tariff, and none that keeps it off. The numbers in the table show why the question is worth asking: per kWh, the business tariff is cheaper than DAC. Put it to CFE or to your accountant before you change anything.
Water: Cheap Per Month, Uncertain Per Day
Water from CAPA is the smallest of the official bills: the domestic minimum is 196.22 pesos a month for up to 10 m³, on the November 2025 tariff sheet, the latest official one we could read. The state water tariff law adds 35% for drainage and 5% for sanitation on top of the water charge, and, as the local press reports the bill, VAT applies to those two additions only. That puts the minimum monthly bill at about 287 pesos, or roughly 3,450 pesos ($196) a year. The law indexes the tariffs every month, and the local press reported the domestic minimum at 203.50 pesos in March 2026.
| CAPA tariff, November 2025, before VAT | Base charge | Per additional m³ |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic, 0–10 m³ | 196.22 pesos | — |
| Domestic, 21–40 m³ | 572.24 pesos | 37.16 pesos |
| Domestic, 61 m³ and above | 3,070.07 pesos | 116.34 pesos |
| Hotel use, 0–10 m³ | 474.38 pesos | — |
| Hotel use, 51–1,500 m³ | 2,434.13 pesos | 62.12 pesos |
Two things follow for a villa. The domestic scale is steep at the top: above 60 m³ a month, every extra cubic meter costs 116.34 pesos, and filling or topping up a pool from the mains can push a month into that band. And the law has a separate hotel category, defined as lodging visitors and tourists, whose minimum is 2.4 times the domestic one. Whether a rented villa belongs in it is the same open question as the electricity tariff.
The price is the easy part. Supply is the uncertain part. In May 2025, Por Esto reported that La Veleta and three other Tulum neighborhoods were receiving mains water about four hours a day, at low pressure. A villa that runs on a cistern refilled during those hours, or topped up by water truck, carries a cost that never appears on the CAPA bill: the cistern, the pump and the truck deliveries.
Staff: What the Law Requires If You Employ Directly
The legal floor for one full-time employee in Tulum in 2026 is 120,660 pesos a year (about $6,860), before social security. That figure is a floor, not a market rate: experienced house staff in Tulum are paid more, and we will not publish a market average without payroll data to back it. It applies if you employ someone yourself. If a manager runs your villa, housekeeping, pool and garden are usually part of the commission. Ours are, and the full list of what our commission covers and what we bill separately is on our property management page.
| Obligation | 2026 figure | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| General minimum wage (Tulum is in the general zone) | 315.04 pesos/day × 365 = 114,990 pesos | Diario Oficial, December 9, 2025 |
| Christmas bonus (aguinaldo) | At least 15 days’ wages, before December 20: 4,726 pesos | Federal Labor Law, art. 87 |
| Paid vacation and vacation premium | 12 working days in year one, plus a premium of at least 25%: 945 pesos | Federal Labor Law, arts. 76 and 80 |
| Floor, before social security | 120,660 pesos (≈$6,860) | Sum of the three lines above |
| Social security (IMSS) and housing fund (INFONAVIT) | Registration is mandatory (from the first day of work under the domestic-worker rules); employer pays IMSS contributions plus 5% for housing | Social Security Law; IMSS |
| Working week | 48 hours maximum in 2026, falling by two hours a year to 40 in 2030 | Diario Oficial, May 1, 2026 |
Two cautions. Mexico has a special regime for domestic workers, with its own minimum wage of 342.47 pesos a day. But the law excludes from it work that brings the employer a direct economic benefit, and staff at establishments that receive paying guests. Staff at a villa rented to vacationers may therefore fall under the ordinary regime instead. That is a question for a Mexican accountant, not for a blog. And the shorter working week matters for cost: as the legal maximum falls from 48 hours to 40, covering the house seven days a week takes more staff, or more overtime, each year until 2030.
Insurance: Read the Deductible Before the Premium
Hurricane cover on a Tulum house typically carries a deductible of 2% of its replacement value per storm, 5% on the seafront, plus 10% co-insurance, and it is an option rather than a default. Mexico’s financial consumer agency, CONDUSEF, notes that standard home insurance does not usually include hydrometeorological cover, and that it must be added. When it is, the deductible matters more than the premium. In one major insurer’s published home policy conditions, the Yucatán Peninsula zone, which names Quintana Roo, carries a hurricane deductible of 2% of the replacement value of the insured property, per event. It rises to 5% for houses facing the sea, a lake or a lagoon, houses with glass facades or light walls, and houses with palapa, palm or thatch roofs. A further 10% co-insurance on the remaining loss stays with the owner.
| A $40,000 storm loss on a house insured at $500,000 | Standard house | Beachfront or palapa roof |
|---|---|---|
| Deductible (2% or 5% of $500,000) | $10,000 | $25,000 |
| Co-insurance (10% of the rest) | $3,000 | $1,500 |
| Left with the owner | $13,000 | $26,500 |
| Paid by the insurer | $27,000 | $13,500 |
The figures in that table are illustrative, and your own policy schedule sets the real percentages. Two exclusions in the same policy are worth reading twice. “Facing the sea” means a first-line building within 500 meters of where the waves break at high tide. And damage caused by a loss of water or electricity supply is excluded, even when the outage itself was caused by the storm. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, according to the US National Hurricane Center. Review the policy before June, not in October.
The Bills Nobody Can Average Honestly
Apart from insurance, five lines have no official figure here, and we will not invent one. Gas is delivered LP gas, priced per liter by the supplier; we did not find a current Tulum figure to publish. Accounting depends on your tax registration and regime, which our rental income guide sets out. The other three need more than a sentence. HOA fees are set by each development’s condominium rules: ask for the last two years’ statements and the reserve fund balance before you buy, not after. Internet varies by provider and by street: check coverage at the exact address before you count on it.
Upkeep (pool, garden, humidity and salt) depends on the size of the pool, the garden, and how close the house is to the sea. In this climate, an empty house deteriorates faster than an occupied one: air-conditioning units, pumps, hinges and anything metal suffer first. Upkeep also includes major works and replacement furnishings, which come in lumps rather than every month. Each of these is “varies, ask for a quote”, and a manager who gives you a single figure for them without seeing the house is not quoting, but guessing.
From Gross to Net: Where These Bills Sit
On the four-bedroom villa we modeled in our rental income guide, 63% of gross revenue reaches the owner after platform fees, a 20% management commission and withheld tax: $43,229 a year at the market-median 44% occupancy, $68,762 at 70%. The bills on this page come out of that figure. The staff and routine upkeep lines do not, because they sit inside the commission. Predial, electricity, water, gas, internet, accounting, insurance, HOA fees and major works do. Both figures assume a normal year; we set out what Tulum’s 2026 correction means for owners with the official occupancy figures.
We are not going to subtract a made-up total from it. What we will say is where the big swings are. On the official lines, the swing factors are the DAC tariff and the predial base, not the rates themselves. On the unofficial lines, they are insurance and major works. One more variable cuts the other way this year: these are peso bills paid from dollar income, and the dollar bought 16.9 pesos on September 4, 2026, against 17.6 on September 24. That is about 4% more pesos for every dollar of rent, for as long as it lasts.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much are property taxes in Tulum, Mexico?
Tulum’s property tax, predial, is a flat annual rate on the property’s taxable value: 0.17% for built urban property, and 0.50% on the line the municipal revenue law labels “Predios Tulum”. That is 1,700 or 5,000 pesos for every million pesos of taxable value, about $97 or $284. The taxable value is the highest of the cadastral value, a bank valuation, the value you declare, or the rent the property produces or could produce. In 2026 the cadastral values still come from the tables drawn up for 2021, and a new set has been proposed for 2027. The law does not make clear which of the two rates applies to every villa in town, so check the rate printed on your annual statement from the municipal treasury. For 2026, the municipality announced discounts of 30% in January, 15% in February and 10% in March for owners who paid the year in full.
What is the DAC electricity tariff, and why do villa owners get moved onto it?
DAC is CFE’s high-consumption domestic tariff, and it carries no government subsidy. An account is moved onto it when its average consumption over the last twelve months exceeds the threshold for its local tariff. For tariff 1B, which local reporting gives for Tulum, the threshold is 400 kWh a month. In September 2026 the DAC price for the South and Peninsular region was reported at 6.080 pesos per kWh plus a fixed charge of 145.85 pesos a month, before VAT, which is about 7,220 pesos with VAT for every 1,000 kWh. Villas cross the line because of air-conditioned bedrooms and pool pumps. Because the average is a rolling year, one heavy summer can keep the account on DAC for months, and it only returns to the domestic tariff when the twelve-month average falls below 400 kWh. Your tariff code is printed on every CFE bill.
Does renting out my villa change the tariff I pay for electricity and water?
It may, and no official source we found settles it either way. CFE defines its domestic tariffs for “exclusively domestic use”. A house rented to paying guests is arguably outside that definition, but we found no CFE rule that moves a vacation rental onto the small-business tariff, PDBT. Per kWh, that tariff was about 3.89 pesos in the Peninsular division in August 2026, which is less than the high-consumption domestic tariff. Water raises the same question. Quintana Roo’s water tariff law has a separate hotel category, defined as lodging visitors and tourists, and its minimum monthly charge is 474.38 pesos, against 196.22 for a home, on the November 2025 tariffs. Whether a rented villa falls into that category is not written anywhere we could find. Ask CFE, CAPA and your accountant before you change a contract, and keep their answers in writing.
Do I have to register my villa’s staff with IMSS?
Yes. Mexican law requires an employer to register employees with the social security institute, IMSS, including house staff, and under the domestic-worker rules registration runs from the first day of work. The employer pays IMSS contributions plus 5% of wages into the INFONAVIT housing fund. On top of the minimum wage, which is 315.04 pesos a day in 2026, the law requires a Christmas bonus of at least 15 days’ wages before December 20, 12 days of paid vacation in the first year with a premium of at least 25%, and a working week capped at 48 hours this year, falling to 40 hours by 2030. Which regime applies is less obvious. The special domestic-worker regime excludes work that brings the employer a direct economic benefit, so staff at a villa rented to guests may fall under the ordinary regime. Settle that with a Mexican accountant before you hire, not after an inspection.
Does home insurance in Tulum cover hurricanes?
Not automatically. CONDUSEF, Mexico’s financial consumer agency, notes that standard home insurance does not usually include hydrometeorological cover, and that it has to be added. Once it is, the deductible matters more than the premium. In one major insurer’s published home policy conditions, the Yucatán Peninsula zone, which includes Quintana Roo, carries a deductible of 2% of the replacement value per event. It rises to 5% for houses facing the sea or a lagoon, houses with glass facades or light walls, and houses with palapa or palm roofs. A further 10% co-insurance on the remaining loss stays with the owner. On a house insured for $500,000, a $40,000 storm loss would leave $13,000 with the owner, or $26,500 for a beachfront house. Your own policy schedule sets the actual percentages, so check it before the season starts on June 1.
Written by the Villas Ambar team in Tulum. The predial, electricity, water, labor and hurricane-season figures were checked against the Tulum municipal revenue law and its 2026 income law, CFE’s tariff rules, the Diario Oficial de la Federación, CAPA’s tariff sheet and the state water tariff law, Mexico’s Federal Labor Law and the US National Hurricane Center. Where an official page was not accessible to us, the source is named in the text. Pesos are converted at 17.6 to the dollar, the European Central Bank reference rate on September 24, 2026. Nothing here is tax, legal or insurance advice: confirm tariffs, staff contracts and policy terms with CFE, CAPA, a Mexican accountant and your insurer. If you own a villa in Tulum and want to know what it would cost and earn under management, our commission and the full list of what it covers are on our property management page, where you can tell us about your villa; the houses we run are here.
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