Holiday apartment management in the Allgäu

The Allgäu is one of the most popular holiday regions in Germany. The combination of mountains, nature, winter sports and summer holidays offers attractive opportunities for letting holiday apartments.

At the same time, letting requires a professional approach to seasonal demand, pricing and operational organisation.

Immohost combines experience from Alpine holiday regions in Switzerland with modern technology and professional letting processes.

Professional letting throughout the Allgäu

Our regional focus includes in particular:

• Oberstdorf

• Oberstaufen

• Fischen im Allgäu

• Sonthofen

• Bad Hindelang

• Füssen

• Schwangau

• Pfronten

Demand in the Allgäu: summer carries the year

In the Bavarian Allgäu, the Bavarian State Office for Statistics counted almost 4 million guests and 13.5 million overnight stays in 2025, with guests staying 3.4 nights on average. Only establishments with ten or more beds are counted; most holiday apartments of smaller hosts come on top. Private hosts with fewer than ten beds account for around a quarter of all beds offered in the Allgäu, according to the tourism figures of Allgäu GmbH.

Contrary to what many assume, the Allgäu is above all a summer destination: around two thirds of overnight stays fall in the summer half of the year. The strongest month in 2025 was August with 1.87 million overnight stays, followed by July and June. From December to March, the months were at around 0.8 million, and the quietest was November with 0.58 million. In Oberstdorf, according to the 2025 tourism report, beds let purely to tourists were 70 percent occupied from May to October, and in August the resort reached its highest occupancy ever measured, at 86.5 percent.

With the tourist tax (Kurbeitrag), your guests receive a guest card. In Oberstdorf, Oberstaufen, Fischen, Sonthofen and Bad Hindelang, this is the digital Allgäu-Walser-Pass, with which they use buses and local trains in the region free of charge. In Füssen, guests travel free in the southern Ostallgäu with the Füssen Card, and in Pfronten the tourist tax funds the PfrontenCard. On top of this come programmes for participating hosts such as Oberstaufen PLUS, Bad Hindelang PLUS or the KönigsCard, which include mountain railways and leisure activities at no extra cost to guests. Whether taking part pays off for your property, we work out with you.

Guests arrive easily: Memmingen Airport handled almost 3.7 million passengers in 2025, and since July 2025 the royal castles with Neuschwanstein in Schwangau have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Letting at its best in the summer and winter seasons

Different seasons, school holiday calendars and booking habits call for a flexible pricing strategy.

Instead of using just one fixed seasonal price, we take account of demand, booking lead time, length of stay and occupancy.

Listings, prices and booking rules are reviewed regularly and adjusted where necessary.

More time for what matters

Whether you own a holiday home or run several apartments: we support you with professional booking management, guest communication and the organisation of the services required.

In doing so, we bring together the technologies and processes that would often be too much effort for a single smaller operator.

What owners in the Allgäu need to know

Tourist tax and tourism contribution

All eight places charge a tourist tax (Kurbeitrag) per guest and day of stay. The host registers the guests, collects the tourist tax and settles it with the municipality. As of October 2026, according to the municipal statutes (in German):

In addition, all eight places charge hosts a tourism contribution (Fremdenverkehrsbeitrag), depending on the place between 5.5 and 8 percent of the share of profit from tourism, usually with advance payments per overnight stay. There is no overnight accommodation tax in the Allgäu; the Bavarian Municipal Levies Act prohibits it.

Guest registration

Every guest is registered via the local electronic registration system, depending on the municipality no later than the day of arrival or the following day; this also generates the guest card. Where the Federal Registration Act also requires a registration form, since 2025 only foreign guests sign it, including guests from Switzerland and the EU. As part of the agreed service, we take care of registration and settlement for you.

Second home and own use

If you also use the apartment yourself, second home tax applies in most places, usually 18 to 22 percent of the annual rent or rental value. Several places reduce it if the apartment is let through a letting agency and your own use is limited by contract. In Bad Hindelang, for example, the tax is only a quarter of the full rate of 22 percent if you use the apartment yourself for no more than four weeks. Under similar conditions, Oberstdorf also reduces the annual flat-rate tourist tax for your own stays.

Some places, including Oberstdorf, Oberstaufen, Fischen and Pfronten, also require a permit under Section 22 of the Federal Building Code if residential property is newly divided or an apartment is used as a secondary residence that stands empty for more than half the year. If an apartment that has so far been lived in permanently is to be let to holiday guests, a building permit for the change of use may also be required, depending on the zoning, because under the Land Use Ordinance holiday apartments do not count as residential use. Which rules apply to your apartment, we clarify together before the start; this does not replace legal or tax advice.

Experience from our operation in Switzerland

We know summer and winter in the mountains from Switzerland: in the Bernese Oberland, in Engelberg and in Davos, we let holiday apartments with two seasons. These figures come from our Swiss operation:

• 4.8 out of 5 stars on Airbnb, with the Guest Favourite award

• Guest service around the clock, with a response within 15 minutes

• 23.6 percent more revenue for a holiday apartment in Grindelwald, in 2025 with Immohost compared with 2024