An occupied home pays rent and a vacant one doesn't, so occupancy is one of the first things property owners ask a manager about. The Occupancy Rate certification verifies yours from your own system data. This guide covers exactly what we need to calculate it.
Connect your software instead
The fastest way to earn Occupancy Rate is to skip the export. Connect your property management software, and we recalculate your occupancy from your synced units after every sync, so there's nothing to re-upload. Our team verifies the result before the certification goes live. We only read your data, and we never change anything in your software.
As of September 2026, syncing calculates Occupancy Rate from:
- AppFolio (Plus plan or higher): yes. How to connect AppFolio
- Rentvine: yes. Connect it in Connect Tools.
- Buildium: yes. Connect it in Connect Tools.
- Any other software: upload a rent roll, using the checklist below.
Leasing tools like RentEngine don't feed this certification, because they only see the homes you're marketing.
How we calculate it
Occupancy Rate = occupied units ÷ actively managed residential units × 100
- It's a snapshot. We calculate it for the day we run it, not as an average over past months.
- Occupied means someone lives there. Tenants on notice and units in eviction count as occupied. A vacant unit that's already pre-leased counts as vacant until the new tenant moves in.
- Every active unit counts, vacant ones included. If more than 10% of your units have no status, we can't calculate a result.
- You need at least 10 active units for us to calculate a result.
Any verified result earns the certification. Higher occupancy earns a bigger lift in how you rank when property owners search by rental address:
- 97% or higher: top tier
- 94% or higher: second tier
- 92% or higher: third tier
- Below 92%: certified at the base level
Thresholds as of September 2026.
What we exclude
- Homes you don't actively manage, such as tenant-placement or lease-only clients, properties you've offboarded, and archived records.
- Units that aren't homes, such as commercial suites, garages, storage, and owner-use or model units.
- Short-term rentals, meaning units run as nightly, vacation, corporate or mid-term rentals, plus stays on leases shorter than 165 days. A furnished home on a normal lease stays in.
- Test and placeholder records, plus your own office space.
What we need from your report
Any rent roll or unit directory works if it has one row per unit, vacant units included, and these fields:
- Unit and property, with your software's unit ID if it has one
- Status for every unit (occupied, vacant, notice, eviction, and so on)
- Property type, such as single-family, multifamily or commercial
- Tags or unit type, if you use them to mark lease-only placements, short-term rentals or storage
- The as-of date, which should be today
Include every active property. Don't filter by property, tag or status, and don't edit the file before you upload it. CSV or Excel works best, and a full-report PDF is fine too.
Screenshots don't count for Occupancy Rate, with one exception: when your software prints its own occupancy percentage for your whole portfolio, as of a date you choose, a screenshot of that figure works. Today that's AppFolio's rent roll.
AppFolio
AppFolio's Rent Roll covers Occupancy Rate, and with a few extra columns, Rental Price Accuracy too.
- Go to Reporting, then Reports, and open Rent Roll.
- Set As of to today's date. Include all active properties, and set Units to Show Active Units.
- Leave Include Non-Revenue Units unchecked, and don't filter by tags.
- Open Customize and make sure Unit ID, Status, Property Type and Tags are in the report. Earning Rental Price Accuracy too? Add the address and rent columns listed in that guide.
- Export to Excel.
Screenshot option: the last line of the Rent Roll shows your unit count and occupancy percentage (for example, Total 412 Units, 94.2% Occupied). Screenshots of the report work on their own if they show the As of date and the Properties and Units settings at the top, the Total line at the bottom, and your AppFolio account. We certify the percentage as AppFolio shows it.
Any other software
Using Rentvine, Buildium, Rent Manager or something else? Rentvine, Buildium and Rent Manager all export a rent roll or unit directory that works. Check yours against this list before you export:
One row per unit, vacant units included
An occupancy status on every row
Every active property included, with no property, tag or status filter
Property type, plus any tags or unit types you use
Run as of today
Not sure which report to use? Email support@propertymanagement.com before you upload.
How to upload it
- In your dashboard, open Certifications and choose Occupancy Rate. Open Occupancy Rate
- Choose Upload evidence manually and attach your file. You can add more than one (PDF, JPG, PNG, CSV, XLS or XLSX, up to 10 MB each).
- Click Submit for Review. Your upload doesn't reach our team until you do.
Earning Rental Price Accuracy too? Upload the same file under that certification as well.
Our team recalculates your occupancy from the rows in your report, under the rules on this page. Once it's approved, the certification appears on your public profile. An uploaded result reflects your portfolio on the date of the report, and certifications stay valid for 12 months. To refresh yours, upload a newer rent roll or connect your software. Check your file against the list above before you submit: a complete report is the fastest way through review.
Common questions
Do pre-leased vacant units count as occupied?
No. A vacant unit with a signed lease counts as vacant until the new tenant moves in. Tenants on notice and units in eviction count as occupied, since someone lives there.
Why a snapshot instead of an average?
A snapshot shows your portfolio as it stands today, under the same rule for every company. If you're connected, we recalculate after every sync, so an improvement shows up quickly.
I manage some commercial space. Does it count?
No. Commercial suites, garages and storage come out of the calculation, because Occupancy Rate measures your residential portfolio.
Do homes I only placed a tenant in count?
No. A home you leased but don't manage says nothing about the portfolio you run, so it's left out. Keep your placement tags in the export so we can find those homes.
Will my certified rate match my software's occupancy figure?
Usually within about a point. The difference comes from the exclusions above, like placement-only homes, commercial units and short-term rentals.
Keep going: How to get certified on PropertyManagement.com · What property owners see in Occupancy Rate · How to earn Rental Price Accuracy