Sherry Chin, Broker · CA DRE #020922677-year Airbnb Superhost · San Diego & Orange County
What does Airbnb’s 15.5% fee actually cost you?
Airbnb moved the service fee from your guest’s checkout onto your payout. Enter your numbers and see — per booking and per year — what you keep under the old split fee vs. the new host-only fee, and the price you’d need to charge to come out even.
At your numbers, host-only pays—per year less than the split fee, if you don’t reprice
Less per booking
—
same listed price
Reprice to break even
—
on rate + all fees
Legacy
Split fee
You pay 3% · guest pays 14.2% at checkout
$0
your payout per booking
Booking subtotal
$0
Airbnb host fee
−$0
You receive
$0
Guest pays $0 before taxes — your price plus Airbnb’s guest fee. That higher checkout total is what used to suppress bookings.
Host-only
Host-only fee
You pay 15.5% · guest pays $0 service fee
$0
your payout per booking, same listed price
Booking subtotal
$0
Airbnb host fee
−$0
You receive
$0
Guest pays $0 before taxes — exactly the price you set, nothing added at checkout. Cleaner price, smaller payout.
Difference: $0 less per booking$0 less per yearAt the same listed price, across your booked nights. Repricing — below — is how hosts close this gap.
Your year, side by side
Annual payout at your occupancy, same listed prices.
Split fee
$0
Host-only
$0
Bookings / yr
0
Gross booked
$0
Airbnb keeps / yr
$0
The fix: reprice, don’t absorb it
To take home the same payout you got under the split fee, raise every price component — nightly rate, cleaning fee, pet fee — by the same percentage. Raising only the nightly rate leaves the fee on your cleaning fee uncovered.
Raise prices by
+0%
applied to rate + all fees
New nightly rate
$0
was $0
New cleaning fee
$0
was $0
Why not exactly 15.5%? Because the new fee is charged on the higher price too. The break-even markup is (1 − old host fee) ÷ (1 − new host fee) − 1. If you set prices from a target net instead, list at net ÷ (1 − fee) — e.g. a $250 net target needs a $296 list price at 15.5%.
Copied — paste it anywhere.
Not every host moved at once — check which wave you’re in
The most common pricing mistake right now is assuming 15.5% already applies to you — or assuming it never will. Airbnb retired the split fee in waves, and your connection type, not your preference, decides your date.
Oct 27, 2025
PMS / channel-manager hosts moved firstIf your prices flow through Guesty, Hostaway, Hostfully, OwnerRez, Lodgify or a similar tool, you were switched to the 15.5% host-only fee automatically. There was no opt-out.
Dec 1, 2025
Hosts who had opted into single-fee pricingIf you’d voluntarily chosen simplified pricing (the old ~15% single fee), your rate was standardized to 15.5%.
Sep 15, 2026 (non-EEA) Oct 13, 2026 (EEA)
The final wave: hosts still on split feeIndependent hosts who never used a PMS and never opted in kept the 3% / guest-fee split the longest. Airbnb’s announced final deadlines were September 15, 2026 outside the EEA and October 13, 2026 inside the EEA & Switzerland — so by now, split fee is effectively gone for standard listings.
Exceptions worth knowing:
Hotels with direct contracts with Airbnb Travel LLC are exempt from the standard host-only rate.
Brazil and Mexico list at 16%, not 15.5% — and the broader range across countries, listing types, and cancellation policies runs roughly 14–16%. Super Strict policies have historically carried a higher host fee under both structures.
A pricing tool alone isn’t a PMS. Using PriceLabs connected directly to Airbnb did not by itself move you in the first wave — what mattered was a PMS/channel-manager connection or opting into single-fee pricing.
The fee base is everything you charge — nightly rate, cleaning fee, pet fee, extra-guest fee. Taxes and security deposits sit outside it.
How to check your actual fee in 30 seconds
1Open a past payout
In the Airbnb app: Earnings → pick any completed reservation → look at the “Host service fee” line.
2Do the division
Fee ÷ booking subtotal (rate × nights + cleaning + other fees, before tax). ≈3% means split fee; ≈15.5% means host-only.
3Check what the guest saw
Open your listing as a guest. If a separate “Airbnb service fee” appears at checkout, you’re still on split fee.
Repricing once isn’t the whole job
The hosts who came through this transition whole didn’t just add a percentage — they rebuilt their Airbnb markup separately from VRBO and direct bookings, adjusted cleaning and pet fees too, and checked the new checkout total against competitors. If you’d rather hand that off, that’s the work I do as a co-host and manager.