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A 50 m² one-bedroom in Durrës Plazh at €1,400/m² costs about €72,500 all-in. At the zone's 7-11% headline yield it earns roughly €6,000 a year gross. The 15% DIVA tax and a 20-25% management fee leave about €4,050, a real yield near 5.6% on total cost. Below is the same unit, line by line.
Take a 50 m² one-bedroom in Plazh at €1,400/m². That price sits inside the zone's established €1,200-1,700/m² range and is no best-case number. The purchase price comes to €70,000. One caveat up front: per unit, Plazh doesn't earn the most in the country. Average host income in Vlorë runs higher, at roughly €1,163 a month before deductions. Plazh costs meaningfully less to buy into, though, and this walkthrough tests that trade-off with real numbers.
Transaction costs in Albania run roughly 3-4% of the price: the notary (~0.35% plus a fixed fee), ASHK registration (~5,000 lek) and, if an agent is involved, a commission on top. Use 3.5% here, which is €2,450. Total cost to own the unit before any income: €72,450.
Investropa's zone-level tracking puts the Durrës Plazh gross yield at 7-11%. DomLivo's own review treats that as a single-source estimate, because no second provider publishes a Plazh-specific yield to check it against. Take the middle, 9%, and you get €6,300 a year gross, before tax, management or any other deduction.
Two deductions come off that €6,300, and you pay both. DIVA tax is a flat 15% on the amount left after the platform's commission. With a 3% commission, €6,111 is taxable, the tax comes to roughly €917, and €5,194 stays in hand. A local property manager typically takes 20-25% for cleaning, guest communication and turnover. At 22% of the remaining €5,194, that is another €1,143. You end up with €4,051 net, against the €6,300 the gross figure implies.
Filing the DIVA declaration costs nothing beyond paperwork. This route needs no NIPT business registration. The declaration for the prior year is due by 31 March, and the tax authority already gets booking data directly from Airbnb and Booking.com, so in practice the income won't go undeclared. The full DIVA mechanics, filing deadline and non-resident tax-ID requirement are covered in more depth separately. For this worked example only the 15% rate matters, and it is already applied above.
€4,051 net on €72,450 total cost gives a 5.6% net yield. The number is real and defensible, and it is lower than the 7-11% headline most listings quote, because that headline is gross and comes before the two deductions above. By regional standards the return is still competitive. It is simply a different number from the one used in the marketing.
Occupancy is the biggest lever by far. Plazh's own occupancy estimates range from 33% to 56% depending on the provider, and that spread alone moves the gross figure more than the management fee does.
| Scenario | Occupancy assumption | Gross income | Net after tax + management |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low end | 33% (bottom of the range) | ~€4,700 | ~€3,000 |
| Midpoint (used above) | ~45% | €6,300 | €4,051 |
| High end | 56% (top of the range) | ~€7,900 | ~€5,100 |
The gap between the low and high scenario, roughly €2,100 a year, is bigger than the whole management-fee deduction. Keep that in mind before you treat any single headline number as the plan. None of the three scenarios includes a first-year renovation or furnishing reserve either. A realistic budget should carry one, and it pushes the true break-even point later than any of these figures suggests.
The same math holds proportionally at other budgets. A smaller studio in the same zone at €45,000, with the same 9% gross assumption, would earn roughly €4,050 gross and net around €2,600. That is a similar 5.6% net yield on a smaller base. The zone-by-zone price range behind this scenario is covered in full separately, together with the price band of every other Durrës zone, if you want to run the same math on a different unit.
The mechanics of actually closing the purchase stay the same in every scenario. Only the return changes.
Run one realistic Plazh unit end to end and you get roughly 5.6% net against a 7-11% gross headline. The gap comes from the 15% DIVA tax plus a typical 20-25% management fee, and you pay both, one on top of the other.
A flat 15%, charged on income after the platform's commission. On a €6,300 gross estimate that comes to roughly €917 a year.
A manager typically costs 20-25% of gross income, a real and material cost. That fee is also what makes remote ownership realistic for a non-resident buyer who isn't cleaning and handling bookings personally.
Occupancy, by a wide margin. Published estimates for Plazh range from 33% to 56%, and that spread alone swings net income more than the tax or the management fee.
