Getting your Big Sky rental ready for ski season

I manage short-term rentals in Big Sky, Bozeman, Belgrade and Ennis, so I have a stake in this topic. This is general information, not legal or tax advice: check the official sources linked below for your own situation.

Checked on October 25, 2026. I’d like to manage your Big Sky home, so weigh what follows knowing that.

If you rent your Big Sky home short-term, the next four months are most of your year. The clearest public number comes from the Big Sky Resort Area District: December through March brought in 57% of the district’s resort tax in fiscal 2026 (July 2025 to June 2026), a record year of $26.8 million, up 15% on the year before. One caveat: resort tax is charged on lodging and on many other goods and services sold in the district, not only on rentals, so it shows the whole town’s winter, not rentals alone. The shape is still hard to miss. Here is how I would spend the next three weeks on your house, your people and your calendar.

When Big Sky earns, month by month

Month	Share of FY2026 resort tax
March	17.2%
February	16.1%
January	12.4%
December	11.3%
July	8.2%
August	7.6%
November	2.6%
May	2.5%

The shares are my own arithmetic from the district’s collections sheet, dated October 13, 2026. The district notes that unaudited figures can still change as late payments come in.

The plain read: March brought in $4.6 million of resort tax and May brought in $675,000. March out-earned May almost seven times over. Summer matters here. July and August are real months. But winter carries the year.

Montana as a whole runs the other way. Statewide, 46% of nonresident visitors arrive July through September and 11% arrive January through March, according to the University of Montana’s tourism research institute, as reported by the Daily Montanan.

This fiscal year has started well. July 2026 resort tax was up 27% on July 2025, and August was up 8%. The district posts new months by the second Wednesday of each month, about six weeks after the month ends.

The dates to plan around this winter

• Opening day: Wednesday, November 25, 2026, the day before Thanksgiving, as Big Sky Resort announces it.
• Thanksgiving: Thursday, November 26, 2026.
• Christmas and New Year’s Day: both fall on a Friday this year, December 25 and January 1.
• Martin Luther King Jr. weekend: Saturday, January 16 to Monday, January 18, 2027.
• Presidents’ Day weekend: Saturday, February 13 to Monday, February 15, 2027.
• Spring break: in the homes I manage, the second half of March fills most, and those stays usually book two to four months ahead.

How guests get here this winter, honestly

Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN) served 3,004,991 passengers in the 12 months to September 2026. Calendar 2025 was already a record at 2,809,419, up 6.3% on 2024. But the airport itself expects “a relatively flat fall and winter travel season,” after airlines adjusted how often they fly in response to high fuel prices and other factors.

One new piece: Delta’s Austin flight goes daily from December 19, 2026 to March 28, 2027.

The 2026/27 schedule was not posted when I checked, so here is last winter’s pattern. Seven airline brands flew nonstop to 21 destinations. Many seasonal flights ran only around the holidays, or from mid-February to late March. United flew Newark daily from December 18 to April 5. JetBlue flew Boston four days a week over the holidays, then daily from February 12 to March 30.

What I take from it: price the holiday weeks and February through March firmly, and expect roughly last winter’s lift, not a surge.

Three weeks out: the house

This is the list I work through before a winter of back-to-back stays.

• Service the heat: the boiler or furnace, before the first cold snap, not during it.
• Service the hot tub or sauna if the home has one.
• New batteries in every smoke and carbon monoxide detector.
• Snow removal and ice melt arranged for the driveway and the walk.
• Firewood stacked and dry if there is a fireplace.
• Ski storage and boot trays by the door, so wet gear stays off the floors.
• Extra towels and linens, enough for stays that turn over the same day.
• A spare of everything that breaks in a full week: light bulbs, a coffee maker, a toilet plunger, remote batteries.

Two weeks out: the people

Book your cleaning schedule for the holiday stretch now. Turnovers stack up on the same few days. With Christmas and New Year’s Day both on a Friday this year, expect them on the weekends right after: December 26 and 27, and January 2 and 3.

Line up a backup for every one of those turnover days. Ask your cleaner now who covers if they are sick, and write the name down.

Put your snow contractor on call, not on request. A guest arriving in a storm should not wait for someone to answer a voicemail.

Decide who answers a guest at 11 PM on December 31. Someone has to. For the homes I manage, that is me.

One week out: the calendar and the price

Block your own stays now, before they collide with the best weeks. If you want New Year’s week for your family, take it on purpose, and know what it costs you.

Set minimum stays for the holidays. A short stay that takes the middle of Christmas week can leave you with nights nobody can book on either side.

Then price. Hold the holiday weeks and February through March firmly, against the flight and resort tax pattern above. Leave the quieter gaps in early December and early January open, and price them closer in, when you can see what is still empty. For the homes I manage, rates are set every day from market data, and I make the decisions.

Paperwork that expires on December 31

If your home holds Montana’s public accommodation license (the category that covers tourist homes), it expires every December 31. Unpaid by then, it carries a $25 late fee that the state says cannot be waived, and a license still unpaid three months after it expires is canceled. Renewal invoices are available after October 1, so yours may be waiting now.

If your home is inside the Big Sky Resort Area District, check that your resort tax registration is current too. The district says every business operating there must register, even one that collects no tax, registration is free, and short-term rentals register every year.

This is not legal or tax advice. Check your own case with those two offices.

For Bozeman and Belgrade owners

BZN is in Belgrade, a short drive from Bozeman, so the flight calendar reaches you too. Last winter the seasonal routes clustered around December 18 to January 5 and from mid-February to late March. Those are the weeks to price firmly near the airport, even if your guests aren’t skiing every day. More on each town: Bozeman and Belgrade.

What I do before ski season

For the homes I manage, this list is the November work. Once the season starts, I answer every guest message and call myself, holidays included. It can pay: a Big Sky home on the golf course paid its owner $30,000 net in its first winter with Snowy Peaks, after commission and cleaning fees.

If you own in Big Sky and want to talk it through, here is how I work with owners and what I do in Big Sky.