Buyers ask us which of these three is better. They are not three grades of one market, so the useful question is which one fits what you are trying to do.

The short version, measured over the twelve months to July 2026, and the rest of this post is the evidence for it:

Punta Cana if you want the deepest, most liquid market in the country and a wide resale pool, and you accept the lowest earnings per unit of the three and the most competition.
Cabarete if you want the watersports economy on the Puerto Plata coast at a smaller scale, and you accept a winter market.
Las Terrenas and the Samaná peninsula if you want the highest earnings per listing of the three by a wide margin, and you accept the smallest market and the slowest resale.

That last point surprises people, so it goes first.

What a listing actually earns in each

This is the comparison that matters to most buyers and almost nobody runs it properly, because it has to be the same source, the same measure and the same twelve months or it means nothing.

AirROI tracks active Airbnb listings by market. For the twelve months from August 2025 to July 2026:

Las Terrenas. 32.0 percent occupancy, average nightly rate of $231 USD, average revenue of $18,722 USD per listing, across 2,424 active listings.
Cabarete. 33.1 percent occupancy, $170 USD a night, $12,638 USD per listing, across 1,026 listings.
Punta Cana. 34.2 percent occupancy, $155 USD a night, $10,793 USD per listing, across 2,197 listings.

Read the occupancy column first. All three sit between 32 and 34 percent. On how full a property is, these markets are the same, which kills the usual assumption that Punta Cana is busy and Samaná is empty.

The difference is the nightly rate. Las Terrenas commands about 49 percent more per night than Punta Cana and about 36 percent more than Cabarete, and because occupancy is level, that carries straight to the bottom line. The average Las Terrenas listing earned about 73 percent more than the average Punta Cana listing and about 48 percent more than Cabarete over the same year.

Three honest caveats before anyone builds a projection on that.

It measures short-term rental only. Punta Cana’s economy runs on all-inclusive resorts and hotel inventory that never appears on Airbnb, so this is the slice of that market rented out privately, not the whole of it.

It is revenue, not yield. Yield needs the purchase price beside it. We put a net yield of 5.6 to 7.7 percent on Las Terrenas on our investment page, and we label it there as our own estimate rather than a third-party figure, because no index publishes a Las Terrenas breakdown. That estimate cannot be stretched into a three-way comparison either, since no entry-price series built the same way exists for all three of these markets.

And 32 percent is a market average that includes badly run listings. In Las Terrenas the top ten percent of listings clear 70 percent occupancy, the peak season averages 49 percent and March runs at 55 percent. The gap between the average and the top decile is management, not market.

Punta Cana

The resort belt on the eastern tip, in La Altagracia, built around the all-inclusive model and the country’s largest airport.

What works. Depth. It is the most liquid property market in the Dominican Republic, and when you sell there are buyers in a way there are not on the peninsula. Rental demand has a floor under it every month of the year. Management is a solved problem, with established operators everywhere.

What does not. You are one of thousands. The rental stock is homogeneous, mostly apartments and condos with two-bedroom units the largest single slice, so you compete on price against near-identical product. That is what the $155 nightly rate reflects. Only a small share of listings is professionally managed, so the competition is largely amateur and priced accordingly. Construction constraint is commercial rather than legal, which means supply can answer demand.

Cabarete

The kitesurfing and watersports town on the Puerto Plata coast, smaller than its reputation suggests.

What works. A real economy that is not only tourism, built on a sport that brings people back annually and for longer stays. The airport serving it handled about 564,000 passengers in the first seven months of 2026, so access is not marginal. And Cabarete commands a higher nightly rate than Punta Cana over the twelve months measured above, on a fraction of the listing count.

What does not. It is a winter market, and on current flight data the most seasonal of the three. Supply grew about 13 percent over the same twelve months and nightly rates rose with it, but average revenue per listing still finished the year about 12 percent lower. That is a market absorbing new competition rather than one running out of rooms, and it is the line to watch if you are buying to rent out rather than to use yourself. And the demand is narrower than it looks: a property that suits a kitesurfer is not automatically one that suits anybody else.

Las Terrenas and the Samaná peninsula

The smallest of the three, and the only one where the buyer and the guest tend to be the same kind of person.

What works. The earnings figures above. Beyond them, supply is constrained by law rather than by the market: roughly a quarter of the country’s land sits inside the protected areas system, Los Haitises National Park runs across the province, and the northern waters sit inside the Bancos de La Plata y La Navidad marine mammal sanctuary, expanded again by decree in 2024. Punta Cana can build more. A meaningful part of this peninsula cannot.

The product is different too. The humpback season from mid-January to the end of March is regulated by the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, which licenses the operators, and that nature-led draw brings independent travellers and second-home buyers rather than package volume. Road access does not depend on the airport, since the Autopista del Nordeste and the Boulevard Turístico del Atlántico carry weekend demand from Santo Domingo that never shows up in flight statistics.

What does not. It is small, and the resale pool is small with it. The people who will buy your property later look a great deal like the people flying in now, which in Samaná means heavily Canadian and European. Price discovery on resale is slower here than in a market with published data. The peninsula is not a single market either. Playa Cosón, El Portillo and Las Ballenas each have their own price range and their own rental demand, which our comparison of the nine Las Terrenas areas sets out side by side.

What the flight data adds

Access is the input behind all of the above, and it moved sharply this year. From the Junta de Aviación Civil’s monthly reports, comparing the first seven months of 2026 with the same months of 2025:

El Catey, the Samaná airport, carried 106,057 passengers against 60,100, a rise of 76 percent, already ahead of the 93,259 it managed in the whole of 2025.
Punta Cana carried 7,479,633 and Puerto Plata 564,174.

Punta Cana still moves roughly seventy times what El Catey does, and that is the structural fact. But the growth landed where it matters for a rental owner. El Catey’s high-season months grew 54 to 67 percent while May, June and July grew 134, 191 and 95 percent, so the quiet season is filling faster than the busy one. The JAC credits new operations and added frequencies from WestJet and Air Canada.

The same fact is the risk from the other side. Three airlines from one country drive this airport, and it has no other markets to cushion a withdrawal.

What none of these numbers tell you

Anyone quoting you a measured appreciation figure for Las Terrenas specifically is quoting something that does not exist. The Banco Central publishes consumer prices, and there is no official house price series broken out by province.

What does exist is national and it is asking prices. The Properstar apartment index, via Global Property Guide, showed 7.7 percent nominal growth in the year to Q1 2026, close to 3 percent after inflation, and it has fallen three years running from 12.5 percent in 2024. We publish it on our investment page with those labels attached, because an asking price is not a sale price and a national figure is not a Las Terrenas figure. That page also carries a 6 to 8 percent outlook for the area, and an outlook is a view about the future rather than a measurement of the past.

So valuation here rests on actual comparable sales, which only a broker working the area holds. Ask for the comparables behind any valuation, with addresses, dates and what the property actually closed at rather than what it was listed at. If nobody will show you closed transactions, you are being shown an opinion.

How to choose

None of the national rules vary by region. CONFOTUR is a project-level benefit rather than a regional one, and whether you get the transfer tax and IPI exemptions depends on the development’s certification and on your being the first buyer. Closing costs, the title checks in our guide to a property’s legal status and the requirement to insure with a Dominican insurer in our property insurance guide are the same wherever you buy.

What does vary is what you are buying into. Punta Cana buys you liquidity and a floor, and charges you for it in nightly rate. Cabarete buys you a cheaper entry into a narrower, winter-weighted market. Samaná buys you the highest revenue per listing of the three in the year to July 2026, plus a supply constraint written into law, and charges you in resale speed.

Underwrite the low season rather than January, ask for closed comparable sales, and check the JAC’s monthly report yourself before relying on any figure here.

Figures confirmed 15 September 2026. Rental data are from AirROI for the twelve months to July 2026, and passenger data from the JAC’s monthly reports through July 2026, the most recent published.

This is general information, not legal or financial advice. Consult a licensed advisor before making a purchase or tax decision.

Our properties for sale in Las Terrenas show what is on the market now. If you want the comparable sales behind a specific property or area, rather than an index that does not exist, that is a conversation we are happy to have.

Sources

AirROI, short-term rental data for the twelve months to July 2026: Las Terrenas, Punta Cana, Cabarete
Junta de Aviación Civil, Reporte Estadístico julio 2026 and the monthly reports index
Junta de Aviación Civil, Informe Estadístico enero a diciembre 2025
Global Property Guide, Dominican Republic house price history
Banco Central de la República Dominicana, estadísticas de precios
Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, Áreas Protegidas and Decretos 194-24 y 195-24
Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, Autorización Temática Ambiental para Observación de Ballenas
Presidencia de la República Dominicana, Autopista del Nordeste y Bulevar Turístico del Atlántico

Samaná vs Punta Cana vs Cabarete: An Honest Comparison