The Homeowner’s Guide to Short-Term Renting for the 2026 FIFA World Cup

Should You Rent Your Home for the 2026 FIFA World Cup? Here’s What Homeowners Should Consider First

For the first time since 1994, the World Cup will return to the United States, bringing record-breaking travel demand to key host cities across the nation, which has many homeowners asking the same question: Should I rent my home for the World Cup? 

With hotels already projected to sell out and nightly rates expected to skyrocket, the opportunity is real: booking for a few weeks during the World Cup may generate more income than an entire season of typical travel. When FIFA announced that 11 U.S. cities would serve as the primary host for the 2026 soccer championship, homeowners in Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, Houston, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and New York/New Jersey began seriously considering whether opening their home to guests made sense for them.  

For many, renting your home for the World Cup seems like a smart move—a chance to earn meaningful income in a short time span. But high demand doesn’t automatically equal “easy money.”  Short-term renting or Airbnbing your home during a global tournament isn’t the same as a casual weekend booking. Travelers from around the globe arrive excited, stay out late, are likely unfamiliar with the area, move through the home with less caution, and expect a higher level of readiness and responsiveness from the host. 

What Does Short-Term Renting Actually Entail?

If you’re new to short-term rentals, it helps to remember that hosting isn’t just handing over your keys and deciding whether to rent is about more than solidifying nightly rates. It’s about understanding what hosting actually requires:

• Start with what you’re comfortable offering: Renting your entire home feels very different from renting an ADU or separate apartment, and each option changes how much privacy you give up and how much preparation you’ll need. 
• Know your own risk tolerance: World Cup guests travel in groups, stay out late, and use the home heavily. If the idea of strangers using your space or belongings makes you uneasy, that’s an important signal. 
• Understand how event-driven hosting changes guest expectations: Guests operate on match schedules and expect fast communication, clear instructions, and a more professional level of hospitality than a typical weekend stay. 
• Talk to your neighbors early: Event weeks mean more activity, more cars, and more noise; a quick heads-up and clear parking expectations can prevent complaints or enforcement issues. 
• Consider the preparation required: You’ll likely need to remove valuables, secure personal items, and ensure everything works. Event weeks also strain local resources—cleaners, handypeople, and supply stores are busier than usual—so small issues can take longer to resolve. 
• Set house rules: Visitors may be traveling domestically or internationally to a home and city that’s unfamiliar. By creating house rules in a printed manual or QR code resource, you can supply guests with crucial safety information like the location of fire extinguishers and first aid kits, emergency contact numbers, and plans of action during an emergency. Having a clear source of information and making guidelines for paying guests in your home can help garner more trust, but more importantly, maintain safety and support for visitors during their World Cup stay.  
• Address safety issues before guests arrive: The quirks of your home that you’ve learned to live with can quickly become hazards for guests. A hallway rug that slides, a loose stair tread, a dimly lit walkway, or a wobbly deck rail might feel minor to you, but a guest won’t know how to avoid them—and that can create real safety and liability exposure. 

If this level of activity and preparation matches your comfort level, hosting may be a rewarding opportunity. If not, that’s important to recognize early. A clear understanding of the risks associated with World Cup hosting should guide your next steps. 

What to Anticipate When Renting Your Home for the World Cup   

Hosting during the World Cup can be one of the most financially rewarding short-term rental experiences a homeowner can take on. With heightened nightly rates and a steady stream of soccer fans, your property can perform exceptionally well during this short period of time. But high demand also changes how guests use a home — the pace, pressure, and expectations feel very different from a normal stay. 

Major events require hosts to be intentional and prepared, especially when converting a property into a short-term rental. To help you make an informed decision, here are the three biggest changes you can expect when hosting during the World Cup: 

The Risks of World Cup Hosting: Elevated Exposure to Accidents, Incidents, Injuries, and Claim Denials 

Short-term rentals already come with everyday risks. Layer in enthusiastic soccer fans, and a compressed event schedule, and those risks become far more concentrated.  

As your short-term rental becomes a home base for global travelers, there is a higher chance for slip-and-falls on stairs or patios, cuts and burns in the kitchen, fire-pit accidents, and hot-tub mishaps—all of which could be tied to you, the host of the property, who handed a guest the keys.  

Your largest exposure as a host during the World Cup isn’t damage, it’s liability. 

This elevated pace means accidents, incidents, and injuries can happen more easily, especially when so much activity is packed into a short window—and if you don’t have the right insurance in place, it becomes even more complicated. 

Short-Term Renting Your Home Is a Violation of Your HO Policy 

Once you allow paying guests to stay in your home, your standard Homeowners (HO) policy becomes void entirely. HO policies are written for personal use only, not business activity like hosting on Airbnb or Vrbo. These policies contain a “business activity exclusion” which ultimately grants the insurer the right to deny any claim.  
 
Even a single World Cup stay is considered a business activity, and because most Homeowners policies are an annual contract, a two-day World Cup rental in June can be the reason a tree damage claim gets denied in November.  

So, How do Homeowners Get Insurance Coverage for Short-Term Renting for the World Cup? 

The recommended comprehensive solution would be a full replacement policy like the Commercial Homeowners policy by Proper Insurance, which is built to respond to injuries, liability risks, property damage, and other STR-specific risks. 

There is a band-aid solution most insurance brokers will suggest: an endorsement to remove the business activity exclusion in your policy. However, that still leaves you as the host vulnerable to guest injury and other key liability protections, has low coverage for content damages (~$2,500), weak income protection, and more. 
 

Think of it like moving a couch. You could strap it to the roof of your everyday sedan because “you already paid for the car,” but that doesn’t mean the car was built for the job—it can wreck the roof, void the warranty, and leave you footing the repair bill. 

 Short-term renting your home under a HO policy is the same idea. The only way that protects both the coverage of your property and addresses your short-term rental activity is to get a comprehensive vacation rental insurance policy. Skipping this step or trying to rent your home under a Homeowners policy is a violation of your annual contract, exposing you to claim denials or policy cancellations.  

Without a specialized STR policy, you’re facing the same (if not heightened) risks of hosting on your own. The correct process may be a hassle, but even worse would be dealing with an uncovered water damage or slip-and-fall claim.