Airbnb Host Fees 2026: The 15.5% Host-Only Fee

What actually changed in 2025 and 2026

For years, Airbnb split its service fee: about 3% came out of the host payout, and roughly 14% was added on top of what guests paid. Guests saw a higher total than the nightly rate you set, and you kept most of what you advertised.

That model is gone. Airbnb completed its move to a single 15.5% host-only service fee by December 2025, and its April and July 2026 Resource Center updates confirmed the last remaining hosts — those on connected property management software — are now on the same single fee. Guests no longer pay a separate Airbnb service fee. The whole commission comes out of your payout.

The old split fee vs the new 15.5% host-only fee

The easiest way to see the shift is on a $200 booking:

• Old model: host sets $200. Guest pays about $228 (nightly + ~14% guest fee). Host keeps about $194 after the 3% host fee.
• New model: host sets $200. Guest pays $200. Host keeps $169 after the 15.5% host-only fee.

Same headline rate, roughly $25 less in your account. That is the shift. The upside: your listing looks cheaper to guests, which can help conversion. The downside: your payout drops unless you reprice.

What the 15.5% applies to (it is more than the nightly rate)

The most missed detail: the fee applies to the full booking subtotal, not just the nightly rate. That means Airbnb takes 15.5% of your cleaning fee, your pet fee, and most other extras baked into the booking. On a $90 cleaning charge, roughly $14 goes to Airbnb.

For hosts with high cleaning fees relative to the nightly rate, this hits harder than the headline number suggests. Building the real fee into your Airbnb income calculator is the only way to see it clearly.

The repricing formula that keeps your payout flat

If you want the exact same money in your account under the new model, multiply your old nightly rate by roughly 1.132. That is the ratio between the old 97% payout and the new 84.5% payout.

• $180 old rate → about $204 new rate to net the same
• $250 old rate → about $283 new rate to net the same
• $400 old rate → about $453 new rate to net the same

A more common approach is to raise the nightly rate part of the way — enough to offset the fee without pricing yourself out. Guests are now comparing "all-in" numbers directly with hotels and Booking.com, so a modest bump usually still wins the click.

What this means for small Australian hosts

For AU hosts, the change lands on top of GST rules, state-based short-stay levies (Victoria's 7.5% levy from 1 January 2025, for example), and rising cleaning costs. The practical effect: the gap between "gross booking" on Airbnb and what actually deposits in your account is now bigger than it has been in years.

If you have not repriced since 2024, you are almost certainly earning less per booking than you think. It is the single biggest thing to check this quarter.

How to track the real number without a spreadsheet

Homsies reads your Airbnb payout emails and shows the real deposit — after the 15.5% fee, after cleaning payouts, after platform-collected taxes. No manual entry, no channel manager, no PMS integration. For the wider picture on lifting income, read how to increase Airbnb revenue.