Furnishing and equipping an apartment in Lima: what budget to let it?

You have the keys. The property is in your name, the partida registral is working its way through, and a very concrete question arises: how much more must you spend to make this apartment genuinely lettable, and what is worth putting money into? That is the subject of this guide, and nothing else.

What follows covers neither the acquisition costs, dealt with in our guide to the total cost of buying property in Lima, nor the choice between long and short-term letting, nor the rules applying to the platforms. We start from the moment the home is yours, empty or partly equipped, and stop the day it is ready to receive its first tenant.

One methodological note before we begin. The amounts in this guide are not a "market average", a notion that does not exist here. They are budgets built from a basket of representative items whose prices were collected on 14 September 2026 from the websites of four retailers operating in Peru. They give you a defensible order of magnitude for your financing plan. They do not replace quotations.

Decide the use before buying anything

This is the decision that governs everything else, and also the one most often skipped. The same apartment, depending on what you intend to do with it, calls for very different equipment, quantities and budget.

Unfurnished long-term letting

Let us start with what surprises many European buyers: in Lima, an unfurnished apartment lets perfectly well. The classic long-term market largely works that way, and an empty home is not an unlettable one. You remain responsible, all the same, for what counts as part of the property: kitchen units, hob, extractor hood, water heater, light fittings, and curtains or their fixings. The budget is then limited to those items, plus making good and the photographs for the listing. It is by far the lightest option, and a perfectly respectable one if your horizon is a long-term asset.

Furnished long or medium-term letting

You provide a home that is immediately habitable: full furniture, appliances, bedding, tableware. The difference from short-term letting lies less in the level of finish than in the quantities: one set of linen per bed is enough, tableware can be limited to the stated capacity, and you do not need to build up spares. This format often suits expatriates, staff on assignment or exchange students, for stays of a few months to a few years.

Short-term letting

This is the most demanding format in terms of equipment, and not only in quality. Turnover calls for spare sets, items that can be replaced like for like, tableware beyond the advertised capacity, and equipment guests expect to find without asking. Anything that breaks must be replaceable quickly and locally, without interrupting the booking calendar. The regulatory and tax framework for this format is covered in our guide to Airbnb in Lima, and the choice between the two models in our guide to long or short-term letting.

A personal base let between your own stays

This is a frequent case among our clients, and it follows its own logic. You equip the home for yourself, but you must also make it neutral and secure between occupations. The most useful practical point is simple: provide a lockable storage space, a dedicated cupboard or a sealed room, for your personal effects, your papers and anything you care about. It avoids discussion and spares you emptying the place on every departure. Some owners add a small safe for documents.

Take stock of what is already delivered

Second habit, and second source of savings: do not pay twice for what you already have. Many new-build homes in Lima are handed over with part of the equipment in place, and what that covers varies widely from one developer to another.

Take your contract, the memoria descriptiva de acabados (the finishes specification) and the handover record, then check in the home what is actually there. Our guide to taking delivery of a new apartment in Lima sets out that inspection; here the aim is only to turn it into a shopping list.

Three columns are enough: what is included and working, what is missing, and what is present but needs installing or connecting. The items to check first:

• Bedroom wardrobes. If they are built in, you save a wardrobe per bedroom, one of the most expensive items.
• Kitchen units, wall and base, and the worktop. Almost always supplied in new builds, rarely in older stock.
• Hob, oven and extractor hood. Frequently included in new developments. Check the supply type, mains natural gas, bottled gas or electric, because it determines your further purchases.
• The water heater (terma). Often supplied, sometimes not. It is a several-hundred-sol item, and its absence is noticed immediately by a tenant.
• Light fittings. Distinguish the ceiling point, almost always present, from the fitting itself, often absent. A home delivered without a single shade is a common situation.
• Curtain fixings. Rarely provided, and fitting them sometimes means drilling into a concrete wall.
• Connections left ready. Socket and waste for the washing machine, supply for the hood, sockets in the bedrooms: what is there determines where you can install what.

This inventory takes an hour and it often changes the budget by several thousand soles. Do it before ordering anything, and keep it as a shared file: it will then serve as the basis for the shopping list.

The budget item by item

Here are the items to plan for. Not all of them apply to you, which is precisely why it is worth listing them separately rather than thinking in terms of one global envelope.

Furniture

Living and dining areas. A sofa, a coffee table, a unit for the television, a table and chairs. On these items the price range in Lima is very wide: an entry-level two-seater and a better-built three-seater can differ by a factor of two. Tables and chairs are sold as complete sets, often cheaper than the pieces bought separately.

Bedrooms. Mattresses, bed base or tarima, bedside tables, and a chest of drawers or wardrobe if there are no built-in cupboards. The mattress is the one item on this list where we would firmly steer you away from entry level, for reasons set out below.

Appliances

Fridge. Choose on usable volume rather than on features. A 180 to 250 litre model is ample for two people; beyond four beds, aim for 300 litres or more. No frost models avoid manual defrosting, which matters when nobody lives on site.

Washing machine and drying. A washing machine is expected in almost every letting format in Lima. Drying, on the other hand, deserves a conscious decision: electric tumble dryers are uncommon and expensive to run, and most Lima homes dry laundry in the open air, on a service terrace or an airer. A sturdy folding airer, placed somewhere ventilated, is the most common and cheapest solution. We come back below to what that means in the austral winter.

Microwave and small appliances. Microwave, kettle, blender, and possibly a coffee machine and a toaster for short-term letting. These are modest purchases individually, but the total is noticeable.

Textiles and light

Curtains and blackout. Systematically underestimated. You need the curtain and its fixing, for every opening, and genuine blackout in the bedrooms. Blackout roller blinds are the cheaper option; curtains on a pole cost more once the pole is counted.

Lighting. If the home is delivered with bare lamp holders, every room needs a fitting. A floor lamp in the living room and a bedside lamp per bed make a considerable difference to how the home reads, in photographs as in use.

Household linen. Sheets, duvets, pillows, mattress protectors, towels. The quantity follows directly from the use: one set per bed for long lets, two for medium-term, three for short-term to absorb turnover and laundering.

Kitchen and cleaning

Tableware, utensils and pans. A set of pans, a frying pan, a service for the stated number of guests, glasses, cutlery, a few utensils. In short-term letting, expect breakages: buy from a range that is available and easy to top up.

Cleaning equipment. Vacuum cleaner or broom, mop and bucket, iron and ironing board, bins. If you are outsourcing the cleaning, ask the provider what they bring and what they expect to find on site: one question settles it and avoids buying twice.

Digital and work

Television, internet and a work space. A television is expected in furnished and short-term lets, far less in unfurnished ones. The internet connection, however, has become a first-order criterion, including for long lets: many tenants work from the home. A work corner, even reduced to a table and a decent chair, is a genuine argument with tenants who work remotely.

The items people forget

They almost never appear in improvised budgets and yet they weigh.

• Delivery, assembly and installation. Charged by store, according to volume, district and floor. The amount is worked out when you order, not before.
• The initial clean after deliveries and assembly, which leave dust, cardboard and marks.
• Photographs for the listing. A modest item relative to its effect on marketing, whatever the letting format.
• Restrained decoration: a mirror, a rug, a few cushions, two or three framed pieces. Enough that the home does not look bare in photographs, and no more.
• An explicit contingency provision. A piece that will not fit in the lift, a colour out of stock, a curtain to be remade to measure: this happens on almost every furnishing job.

Separating the initial outlay from recurring costs

Two different budgets coexist, and confusing them distorts yield calculations.

On one side, the initial purchase: furniture, appliances, textiles, decoration, delivery, assembly, cleaning, photographs. It is a one-off cost, added to the capital you commit to the operation.

On the other, the recurring costs: the internet subscription, consumables, upkeep, repairs and the gradual replacement of what wears out. For internet, Lima's fibre providers were advertising, on 14 September 2026, residential offers at around S/ 120 to S/ 150 per month at the standard rate, IGV included and router supplied, with markedly lower promotional prices in the first month. The rest is covered in the section on replacement.

Three budgets built from real prices

The three scenarios below were built by assembling a basket of genuinely available items and recording their listed prices on 14 September 2026 on the websites of four retailers operating in Peru: Promart, Oechsle, Estilos and Casaideas. The retailers are named as examples of comparison points accessible online from Europe, with no commercial link and no ranking.

The three assumptions

Scenario A: one bedroom, compact and functional. Around 45 to 55 m², two beds, for a furnished long let. The assumption is a new-build home delivered with built-in bedroom wardrobes, kitchen units, hob, extractor hood and water heater. Level of finish: everyday local brands, reliable, with no search for prestige. Included: all the missing furniture, the appliances, the textiles, delivery, cleaning and photographs. Excluded: building work, air conditioning, tumble dryer.

Scenario B: two bedrooms, comfortable and durable. Around 70 to 85 m², four beds, furnished medium or long let. The same equipment is assumed delivered, but there are more openings to dress and two bedrooms to furnish. Mid-range, with mattresses from a national brand and appliances from brands distributed throughout Peru, and therefore repairable. Inclusions and exclusions as in scenario A.

Scenario C: two bedrooms, higher specification. Around 75 to 90 m², four to five beds, intended for short-term letting with sustained turnover. The same equipment is assumed delivered. Higher specification, linen in triplicate, tableware beyond the advertised capacity, a second television, more considered decoration. Included: the same items, plus a small safe. Excluded: building work, air conditioning.

Comparative table

The dollar equivalents are calculated at S/ 3.37 to 1 USD, the banking system exchange rate published by the SBS and carried by the BCRP for 10 September 2026, the latest value available at the time of writing. They are indicative: most of your spending will be in soles, and soles are what you should think in.

Two useful readings of this table. First, the items that weigh most are not the ones that come to mind: bedrooms and living room alone account for about a third of the goods in all three scenarios. Second, the gap between scenarios does not come only from the level of finish. Scenario C equips a larger floor area, an extra bed and a fast-turnover use that requires spare sets: for an identical home, the gap would be narrower.

To place these amounts within your overall operation, our guide to the total cost of buying property in Lima sets furnishing alongside the Alcabala, the notary, registry inscription and the cash reserve.

Where to spend more, where to keep it simple

One framing remark, because it is often put the wrong way round: expensive furnishing guarantees neither a higher rent nor better occupancy. What quality changes fairly reliably is your operating costs and the number of incidents to handle from a distance. That is the ground on which a trade-off is judged.

What is worth paying for

The mattress and the bedding. It is the one element of the home with which a tenant spends a third of their time, and it is the first source of complaint when it is poor. An entry-level mattress sags within a year or two under continuous occupation and will need replacing long before a mid-range one. Always add a mattress protector: it costs around a hundred soles and doubles the useful life of the mattress.

Sturdy sofa and chairs. These are the most heavily used pieces, and the most tiresome to replace from a distance. A sofa whose frame holds and whose covering can be cleaned beats a larger but flimsy model. The same logic applies to chairs: four solid chairs beat six that work loose.

Bedroom blackout. Inexpensive and very apparent in use. A bedroom that does not black out properly is a recurring source of negative comments in short-term letting and a daily nuisance in a long let.

Appliances that can be repaired and replaced locally. This is the most underestimated trade-off. A brand distributed throughout Peru, with accessible after-sales service and available parts, will save you weeks of downtime. An imported appliance, better on paper, becomes a problem the day it fails and nobody in Lima knows how to fix it.

An internet connection matched to the use. For short lets and for tenants working remotely, this has become a selection criterion in its own right. A standard fibre package is enough in the vast majority of cases; what matters is that it is installed, tested and documented before the first letting, with the password recorded somewhere reliable.

What can stay simple

Occasional furniture. Coffee table, bedsides, TV unit, chest of drawers: these take entry level perfectly well, provided they are easy to clean. Favour smooth, washable surfaces, without pale fabric or fragile finishes.

Decoration. Restrained, sparing, replaceable. Fragile objects, one-off pieces, fine ceramics and pale rugs end up disappearing or deteriorating, and replacing them costs you more in time than in money. A simple rule: put nothing in a let home that you would be upset to lose.

Tableware and glassware. Buy everyday ranges, available individually, so you can top up without changing the whole set.

Matching the equipment to the home and to Lima's climate

Lima has real climatic particularities, but they do not justify the same equipment in every home. The right reflex is to start from your apartment, not from a general rule.

Damp and ventilation

It practically never rains in Lima, which misleads many European buyers, but relative humidity is high for much of the year, particularly during the austral winter, from June to September, when the garúa settles over the city. What that implies depends heavily on the home: a high-floor, dual-aspect, well-oriented apartment does not pose the same problem as a ground floor in the middle of a block, or a windowless bedroom ventilated through a duct.

The first reflex is not to buy an appliance but to check that the existing ventilation works: do the extracts in windowless rooms actually draw, do the windows open, is there a ventilated drying point? An electric dehumidifier is justified in a home with an identified problem, not as a matter of principle. The same goes for air conditioning, uncommon in Lima homes and rarely necessary given the temperatures.

Materials and textiles

Choose finishes that can be cleaned: washable covers, tightly woven fabrics, smooth surfaces. Avoid thick pale textiles that dry badly and mark quickly. For mattresses and sofas, a protector and removable covers make a very concrete difference over time.

Corrosion near the ocean

If your apartment is right by the seafront, in Miraflores, Barranco, Magdalena or Chorrillos, salt-laden air attacks exposed metal. This mainly concerns what stays outdoors: balcony furniture, airers, ironmongery, terrace light fittings. Cheap outdoor furniture in poorly protected steel degrades quickly in these conditions. Indoors, the effect is marginal.

Drying the laundry

This is the practical point most often overlooked. In the austral winter, with high humidity and little direct sun, laundry dries slowly. Provide a ventilated drying spot, an airer of sufficient size, and check that the utility area or service terrace has a minimum of air movement. If laundry dries in a closed room, you simply move the damp problem inside the home.

Sun protection and supplementary heating

The Lima summer, from December to April, can make a very exposed apartment distinctly hot by late afternoon: suitable curtains or blinds generally suffice, and a fan usefully completes them. Conversely, Lima homes practically never have central heating, and the winter, without being cold by European standards, is felt in a damp, poorly lit apartment. A portable heater is a simple, inexpensive answer, provided you choose it for occasional use. Here too, the right decision depends on orientation and floor, not on a general rule.

Buying and having it installed in Lima

The Lima market offers several routes, and it is rare for one alone to suit every item.

The available routes

• The large retail chains. Home equipment chains, department stores and appliance specialists. Their advantage lies less in price than in everything else: a catalogue you can consult online from Europe, visible stock, a proper invoice, identified warranty and after-sales service, organised delivery. For appliances, it is the safest route.
• Specialist shops. Bedding, lighting, household textiles. The advice is better and the range deeper, particularly for mattresses.
• Local made-to-measure. This is a real strength of the Peruvian market, particularly for joinery: a unit fitted to an alcove, a headboard, a worktop. Value for money is often excellent, but the lead time and the follow-up need someone on site. Do not commission bespoke work if nobody can visit the workshop.
• Second hand. Relevant for occasional furniture and decorative objects, much less for bedding and appliances, where the absence of a warranty and hygiene weigh more than the saving.

These routes are named as categories, not as recommendations of particular retailers. Compare, and above all check the points in the next section.

What to check before confirming an order

• Dimensions and the route in. Not just the piece of furniture: the front door, the lift, the landing and the stairwell. A sofa that will not fit in the lift becomes a crane job or a return.
• Actual availability and lead time. An item listed online is not always in stock in the colour and size you want. Have the delivery date confirmed in writing.
• Delivery and assembly charges. They do not appear in the advertised price and are worked out when you order. Ask whether assembly is included and, for large appliances, whether the old one is taken away.
• Warranty, returns and after-sales service. Duration, procedure, point of contact, and above all who can claim under the warranty if you are not in Peru.
• Proof of purchase. Keep every invoice, in the owner's name, with the serial numbers of the appliances. That is what lets you claim a warranty and evidence a cost.
• Installation constraints. Drilling into a load-bearing wall, co-ownership consent for work on a façade or balcony, delivery slots imposed by the building, booking the service lift. These rules are in the reglamento interno and are checked with the building's management.

What about importing furniture from Europe?

It is an idea that comes up often and stands up poorly to arithmetic. Between sea freight, insurance, import duties and taxes, customs clearance, inland transport and lead times, the final cost of a piece shipped from Europe far exceeds that of an equivalent bought in Lima, leaving aside after-sales service, which becomes non-existent. If you are nonetheless considering it for a particular piece, have the complete operation costed by a freight forwarder before deciding, and check the applicable regime: it is a customs subject in its own right, which this guide does not cover.

Organising the furnishing from Europe

Equipping an apartment 10,000 kilometres away is perfectly feasible, provided you replace improvisation with method. Here is the one we apply.

1. A plan and reliable measurements. Take, or have taken, the actual dimensions of every room, the ceiling height, the width of the doors, the position of sockets and water supplies, and the width of the openings to be dressed. Photograph every wall. A dimensioned plan beats a series of photographs.
2. An approved shopping list. A table: room, item, maximum dimensions, intended reference, listed price, retailer. You approve it before any order, item by item.
3. A budget ceiling. A total not to be exceeded, and an explicit rule for what happens if one item overruns.
4. Prior agreement on substitutions. A stock-out always happens. Decide in advance who chooses the replacement, within what price limit, and what requires your approval.
5. A delivery schedule. Coordinate the dates: deliveries must arrive when someone can receive them, and in a logical order. Large furniture before textiles, assembly before cleaning.
6. Checked receipt. Every delivery is verified on arrival: conformity, condition, completeness, working order. One photograph per item received.
7. Keeping invoices and warranties. Scan everything as you go, into a single folder, with serial numbers.
8. A final inventory with photographs. Room by room, item by item, with the initial condition. This is your reference for the inventory of fixtures and for insurance.
9. A check before the first tenant. Everything is tested: hot water, appliances, internet, locks, lighting. Nothing is discovered by the tenant.

Planning for upkeep and replacement

A furnishing budget that stops at installation is an incomplete budget. Linen wears out, tableware breaks, small appliances give up, mattresses sag. This cost is certain; only its date is uncertain.

A method rather than a percentage

Rather than applying an arbitrary percentage, estimate a realistic life for each block of equipment, given the intensity of use, and divide its cost by that life. The sum gives you a defensible annual provision, which you can adjust year after year against what you actually observe.

A hypothetical example, built on scenario B in furnished long letting, using mid-range amounts:

The same calculation applied to short-term letting with sustained turnover gives a very different result, because the useful lives collapse: linen renewed every two years, tableware every three, small appliances every two. On scenario C, the annual provision then approaches S/ 4,800, more than double. It is one of the hidden costs of short-term letting, and it almost never appears in improvised yield calculations.

What furnishing does to the capital committed

A simple point of arithmetic, but one with a real effect. Furnishing is not an operating cost: it is capital you tie up, in the same way as the purchase price and the acquisition costs. It therefore belongs in the denominator of your yield calculation.

One final distinction, which comes up often in our conversations. The replacement provision described above is a cash-planning tool: it tells you how much to set aside. The accounting and tax treatment of these costs, depreciation, deductibility on the Peruvian side, and how they are handled in your Swiss or European return, is a separate question, to be dealt with by a Peruvian accountant and your usual tax adviser. Do not confuse the two: making a provision is not the same as taking a deduction.

The mistakes that cost money

They are always the same, and they can all be avoided in advance.

Buying before measuring. Mistake number one. A sofa too big for the living room, a table that blocks the way through, a wardrobe that will not fit through the door. A return costs transport both ways and sometimes a penalty, when it is accepted at all.

Choosing to your own taste. You will not live in this home, or only rarely. A strong aesthetic statement reduces the number of tenants who can picture themselves there and complicates replacing a broken item. Neutrality is not blandness: it is what allows someone else to feel at home.

Underestimating delivery, assembly, curtains and lighting. Added together, these four items represent a significant share of the budget, and they are exactly the ones left out of an estimate made off the top of your head.

Over-equipping a small apartment. A 45 m² flat crammed with furniture looks smaller in photographs and cleans badly. Empty space is an argument in a small home.

Buying flimsy furniture. Non-moisture-resistant chipboard in a utility area, pale non-removable covers, thin glass on an everyday table. The initial saving is repaid in replacements.

Neglecting storage and cleanability. A home without enough storage deteriorates faster, because belongings end up piling up. And a finish that does not clean easily becomes a point of conflict at every inventory.

Ordering without coordinating the dates. Three deliveries on the same day with nobody to receive them, or assembly booked before the furniture arrives: every slip costs an appointment, and sometimes a fresh delivery charge.

Letting without testing. The first tenant must not be the one who discovers that the water heater does not reach temperature or that the wifi does not reach the back bedroom. Everything is tested beforehand, including what seems obvious.

Checklist: apartment ready to let

To run through before publishing the listing or handing over the keys.

Preparation

• Letting use decided and capacity settled.
• Inventory of what is already delivered, in three columns.
• Dimensioned plan, openings measured, door and lift widths recorded.
• Shopping list approved, budget ceiling set, substitution rule agreed.
• Building rules checked: delivery slots, service lift, drilling.

Equipment

• Beds complete: mattress, protector, bedding, pillows, spare sets as the use requires.
• Bedrooms blacked out, every opening fitted with a curtain or blind and its fixing.
• Every room has a working light fitting, bulbs included.
• Kitchen usable: pans, tableware and cutlery at least matching the number of beds, basic utensils.
• Ventilated drying spot and airer in place.
• Cleaning equipment present, or the provider's role clarified in writing.
• Lockable storage for your personal effects if the home is also your own base.

Tests before letting

• Hot water tested at every outlet, temperature rise verified.
• Every appliance run at least once, a full cycle for the washing machine.
• Internet installed, speed checked in the furthest room, credentials recorded.
• Locks, keys, fobs and remotes tried and counted.
• Full clean carried out after the last works and assembly.

Records

• Invoices and warranties scanned, serial numbers recorded.
• Final inventory photographed, room by room.
• Listing photographs taken after cleaning and staging.
• Annual replacement provision costed and budgeted.
• Instruction manuals gathered and left in the home.

Frequently asked questions