What it costs to bank a one-unit rental LLC

A one-unit rental LLC can run its banking, card and books for $0 a year, and the most common way to overpay is a $15 monthly checking fee that the owner assumed his existing bank relationship would waive. It usually does not. Chase’s Business Complete Banking account charges $15 per statement period, and an ordinary linked personal Chase checking account is not on the list of things that waive it.1 Only five conditions are, and two of them are hard to meet before a rental has guests.

The stakes are small in dollars and large in hours. The account, card and ledger chosen at formation decide how clean the records are when a CPA needs to split construction costs, trace loan interest or support a cost segregation study three years later. Cheap and simple is the goal. The two candidates for an owner who already banks at Chase are an all-Chase setup and a split one: Mercury for checking, a Chase Ink card for spending.

What the Chase fee actually requires

Chase lists five ways to waive the fee, and any one is enough: a $2,000 minimum daily ending balance, $2,000 of QuickAccept or Chase Payment Solutions deposits, $2,000 of purchases on a Chase business card in the prior billing cycle, a linked Chase Private Client or J.P. Morgan Private Client checking account, or Chase Military Banking.1 New accounts also skip the first two monthly fees.

For a rental under construction, most of those fail. There are no card-reader deposits, so QuickAccept is out. Monthly business card spending will sit well under $2,000 until furniture is bought, and an Airbnb unit’s recurring costs (cleaning, supplies, internet, a share of utilities) may stay under it after opening too. That leaves parking $2,000 in a checking account that pays no interest, or holding a Private Client relationship, which Chase extends to clients with $150,000 or more in combined balances.2

With no waiver, the account costs $150 in its first year and $180 a year after that.

The bonus changes the math for a while

Chase is paying $500 to open Business Complete with $10,000 of new money, or $400 with $2,000, through October 15, 2026. The money has to arrive within 30 days, stay 60 days, and the account needs five qualifying transactions within 90 days; Zelle, ACH debits and payments to Chase cards do not count toward the five.3 Holding $10,000 idle for 60 days at roughly 4% forgoes about $65 of interest, so the bonus nets about $435.

That covers 29 months of unwaived fees. A rental that opens in year three of a build lands almost exactly at break-even against Mercury, before counting anything else.

Where the two accounts actually differ

Fees aside, the accounts are close for this use. Airbnb pays hosts by ACH, and neither bank charges for incoming ACH. The difference shows up in wires and in deposit insurance.

A single short-term rental rarely sends a wire. The one moment it might is paying a contractor or closing on furniture, and that is a handful of transactions over the life of the business. Mercury also sweeps deposits across partner banks for up to $5 million of FDIC coverage,4 which is irrelevant at this scale; one unit’s operating account will not approach the standard $250,000 limit.

The real case for Chase is convenience, not cost. For an owner whose mortgage, personal checking and personal cards are already there, a business account and business card appear under the same login, and a branch is down the street. The case against is concentration: one bank holding every account, and a fee that comes back the month a waiver lapses.

The card matters more than the bank

The account receives Airbnb payouts. The card is where the expenses live, and expenses are what the tax return is built from. Chase’s Ink Business Unlimited has no annual fee and pays 1.5% on every purchase, with a current offer of $750 after $6,000 of spending in three months.6 Putting every rental purchase on one card keeps those charges off personal statements, which is most of what “separating” business and personal spending means in practice.

Corporate cards are the wrong tool here. Ramp requires at least $25,000 held in a U.S. business bank account,7 and its approval workflows and receipt policies are built for companies with employees spending on the company’s behalf. One owner with one Airbnb has nothing to approve.

Software sized to one unit

Stessa’s free tier links bank and card accounts, categorizes transactions and supports short-term rentals; the Schedule E report starts on the $12 tier.8 An owner who uses a CPA does not need that report, because the CPA prepares Schedule E from the categorized ledger. Five receipt scans a month is enough for one unit if receipts are also kept in a folder.

Three records do not fit any of these products cleanly, and a spreadsheet handles them better: hours worked on the rental (the evidence for material participation), days of personal use, and construction costs split between the rented space and any space the owner keeps.

Denver’s taxes ride on top

Denver’s lodger’s tax is 10.75%, on top of 4% Colorado sales tax and 4.81% Denver sales tax, roughly 19.56% combined on short stays.9 Airbnb collects and remits the lodger’s tax as a licensed Denver vendor, but hosts are still expected to hold their own lodger’s tax account and file returns.9 Those figures come from host guides, not the city; confirm them with Denver Excise and Licenses before the first booking.

Where I land

The swing factor is the Private Client relationship. If the owner already holds one, or will within a few months, the all-Chase setup costs nothing, pays $400 to $500 to open, and puts every account behind one login; take it. Without one, I would open Mercury for checking and still use the Ink card for spending, because the card is a Chase product either way and the checking fee is the only piece that needs a waiver. Put Stessa’s free tier on top and keep the three logs in a spreadsheet.

The uncertainty I would watch is the bonus. It ends October 15, 2026, and Chase rewrites these offers often. Bank pricing in general moves faster than a rental build, so every fee here is worth rechecking the week the account is opened.