Starting October 27, 2025, Airbnb will implement a major change to how service fees work on their platform. Under the new structure, hosts using property management software (PMS) will pay a single 15.5% fee, while guests will no longer see separate Airbnb service fees at checkout.
Airbnb’s rationale: “Knowing what your guests pay makes it easier to price competitively.”
What’s Changing
Until now, service fees were split between hosts and guests. A typical reservation looked like this:
- Host sets the nightly rate at $100
- Host pays ~3% in fees, earning $97
- Guest pays $100 plus ~14–16% in Airbnb service fees, totaling about $115
With the new structure:
- Host needs to increase the nightly rate to $115
- Airbnb deducts 15.5% ($17.82)
- Host earns about $97.18
- Guest pays $115 flat
In short, guest-facing prices stay the same, but Airbnb’s fee is now hidden and 100% host-funded.
Host Concerns
While Airbnb presents this as a simplification, host communities have major concerns:
1. Search Visibility Penalty
It's not as simple as just raising prices. Airbnb's own documentation says their algorithm favors lower-priced listings in search results. So hosts who raise rates to offset the higher fee risk dropping in visibility and losing bookings
2. Shifting Guest Perception
Under the old model, guests saw Airbnb adding fees to the base price. Now, guests will assume hosts are charging more. If everyone raises prices by 15% to protect margins, the net result is price inflation across the platform.
This psychological impact shouldn't be underestimated: Guests who previously directed pricing frustration at Airbnb's visible fees will now blame hosts directly for higher rates, potentially damaging host-guest relationships.
3. Unequal Impact Across Hosts
This change only affects hosts using PMS tools. Those who don’t use a PMS retain the split-fee model, giving them a ~12% pricing advantage. That gap could pressure professional operators (especially in highly competitive or price-sensitive markets) to abandon their PMS tools just to protect margins.
The irony? That may reduce listing quality and reliability. Without high quality PMS automations (like automated turnover scheduling), hosts are more likely to miss cleanings or deliver a subpar guest experience - the exact opposite of Airbnb’s push to improve quality.
4. Strategic Tightening
Critics argue this is another step in Airbnb’s steady move to consolidate control. Other recent updates have restricted guest-host communication, restricted third-party tools, and prohibited off-platform payments. The host-fee shift continues that trajectory.
In particular, this impacts direct bookings. Guests no longer see Airbnb’s cut, which weakens the incentive for them to seek direct bookings. And hosts can no longer use the long-standing selling point of “no Airbnb fees” to get a guest to book directly.
5. Future Commission Hikes Are Likely
Hotels often pay 18–22% commissions to online travel agencies (OTAs). At 15.5%, Airbnb has room to raise its rate further while still calling it “industry standard.”
Our Take
While Airbnb frames this as a guest experience improvement, the change is a very strategic way to strengthen the platform's market position at hosts' expense.
By making its cut invisible and pushing fees entirely to hosts, Airbnb is following a classic pattern used by other dominant platforms: once a platform controls demand, it can offload more costs onto suppliers with minimal resistance.
Hosts who don't adjust rates will see dramatic profit drops. The jump from 3% to 15.5% is substantial, and in an already challenging booking environment, a 12%+ revenue decrease could drive some hosts out of business. Those who do raise rates must test adjustments carefully. A flat 15% markup may protect revenue but could hurt occupancy, so hosts will have to continually test different options to balance the trade-off.
The Bigger Picture
Airbnb is aligning itself with the hotel OTA model: one clean price for travelers, commission hidden behind the scenes. It’s a win-win for Airbnb: It actually eliminates the pricing transparency that previously helped guests understand the true cost of platform convenience, and regulators can’t target "junk fees" since the charges are invisible to guests.
But the long-term implications are harder to ignore. Hosts are beginning to understand that relying solely on Airbnb is riskier than ever, and host communities are increasingly discussing diversification through Vrbo, Booking.com, niche platforms, and direct booking tools.
Airbnb is betting that hosts will adapt because they have no choice. Smart operators will adjust, but they'll also recognize this as a turning point. The question isn't whether you adjust rates on October 27th, it's whether you're building a long-term strategy that doesn't leave your business fully dependent on Airbnb's evolving terms.
