Airbnb’s 15.5% host fee: how much should you raise your prices?
On paper, Airbnb’s fee to hosts has gone up fivefold. In fact, most of it has just moved from the guest’s side to yours. Let’s run the sum on an example, then on your own figures.
On 13 October 2026 Airbnb published a page answering a plain question: how much does it charge hosts? The answer fits in a line: a single fee of 15.5%, paid by the host, on the nightly price and on any fees you add, cleaning included (Airbnb, read on 11 November 2026).
At first glance, it’s a shock. Before this, most hosts paid 3%. Going from 3 to 15.5 is more than five times the bill. But that’s half the story, and the other half is the one that sets your prices.
I quit Google to build PocheBnB, an all-in-one tool for B&Bs and small holiday lets. Before any talk of software, I wanted to do this sum by hand, because it changes the answer.
What actually changed
Under the old system the fee was split. The host usually paid 3%, and the guest paid a separate service fee of 14.1 to 16.5% of the subtotal, according to Airbnb’s help centre. Under the single fee, the whole fee comes out of the host’s payout, and the guest pays no separate service fee. The same page says most hosts now pay 15.5%, and other hosts generally between 14 and 16%. The change applies only to new bookings: anything booked before your account switched keeps the old sum.
In other words, Airbnb hasn’t invented a new commission. It has moved the guest’s share onto your side of the ledger.
A worked example
An invented stay, for illustration only: two nights at €100 plus €40 for cleaning, €240 in all. To keep it readable I’ve left VAT aside (Airbnb says the fees it shows include VAT where it applies).
- Before, split fee: the guest paid €273.84 with a 14.1% service fee, and you received €232.80.
- Single fee, price unchanged: the guest pays €240, you receive €202.80. You’re €30 down on this one stay.
- Single fee, price up 14.8%: at €275.50 you receive €232.80 again, and the guest pays €1.66 more than before.
That’s the real story. Leave your prices alone and you lose about an eighth of what you used to take home. Raise them by about 15% and you end up roughly where you started, with the guest paying about the same as before. A host who kept their old prices has, without noticing, given themselves a pay cut.
Check your own figures
Your figures will differ from mine. For yours, open a booking made after your account moved to the single fee and divide the fee taken by what the guest paid: that’s your real rate. Then open an older booking for a similar stay and divide what you received by 0.845, or by 1 minus your real rate if it differs. That’s the price to charge to take home what you used to.
If the result looks steep, compare it with what the guest paid on the older booking, service fee included: that’s the fair comparison. A higher price also changes the figures you declare; for tax, ask your accountant, not me.
The case for direct bookings that still holds
It’s tempting to conclude that this fee forces you to go direct. I don’t think it does: Airbnb’s share has mostly moved, and barely changed. In the example, Airbnb kept €41.04 before; at the raised price it keeps €42.70.
The argument that holds was already true before the change. The same €240 stay, paid direct with a standard card from the European Economic Area, costs 1.5% plus €0.25 with Stripe, so €3.85. UK and international cards cost more, and you have to count your software, your time and everything the platform did for you. Even so, set against forty-odd euros, the gap is wide, and it doesn’t depend on how Airbnb splits its fees.
Those direct bookings don’t come from Airbnb. Its rules forbid asking a guest to contact you outside Airbnb before booking, putting links to other sites in a listing or message, and offering a discount for booking off the platform (Airbnb’s rules). Your Airbnb guests stay on Airbnb. Direct means the people who find you elsewhere: your own website, Google, the tourist office, word of mouth. If you open that second channel, your calendars have to agree.
If you remember one thing: 15.5% isn’t a rise to swallow, it’s a price to reset. A recent booking, an older one and a division by 0.845 are all it takes.