Airbnb is retiring the split-fee model for good. Every host still on the old structure, roughly 3% paid by the host and 14 to 16.5% paid by the guest, moves to a single host-only fee: 15.5% of the entire booking subtotal for most hosts, deducted straight from your payout. The deadline is September 15, 2026 for hosts outside the European Economic Area, and October 13, 2026 for hosts in the EEA and Switzerland.
This isn't a test running in a handful of markets; it's the final stage of a rollout Airbnb has pushed through host by host since 2020. Hosts connected to channel managers and pricing software were moved back in October 2025, and this wave covers everyone left. Once your date passes, the switch happens whether you've looked at your pricing or not. What follows is the math and the checklist to make sure it doesn't cost you money.
What actually happens on September 15
If you're still on the split-fee model, Airbnb switches your listing automatically. There's no opt-in, no prompt to accept, and no way to stay on the old structure. Bookings confirmed before your switch date keep the split fee, even if a guest modifies them later; everything booked after runs on the new math.
The host-only fee is 15.5% for most hosts. Airbnb's own range is 14 to 16% depending on country, listing type, and cancellation policy: hosts in Brazil and Mexico pay 16%, and Super Strict cancellation policies carry a higher rate. The fee is calculated on the full booking subtotal, meaning the nightly rate, cleaning fee, pet fee, and any other charge you add. Taxes aren't part of the base, but your cleaning fee is, and that detail catches hosts off guard.
Your listed prices don't move on their own. Calendar, minimum stay, cancellation policy: all unchanged. What changes is what lands in your account after each booking. Guests never see the difference. It only shows up in your payout report, which is why hosts tend to miss it until a full month has passed.
The payout math: a $150 night under the 15.5% host-only fee
Under the split-fee model, your payout was roughly 0.97 times your listed price after the 3% host-side fee (4% in Brazil). Under the host-only model it's 0.845 times the price.
Run a typical stay: $150 a night for three nights plus a $60 cleaning fee makes a $510 subtotal. At 15.5%, the service fee is $79.05 and the payout is $430.95. The same booking under the split model paid out $494.70. That's $63.75 gone from one three-night stay, and a host running 20 similar bookings a year is looking at roughly $1,275 that no longer arrives, unless the listing price moves to account for it.
The 14.8% repricing rule (and why the 18.34% you've seen overshoots)
To keep the payout you had under the split model, raise your listed price by 14.8%. The math: 0.97 divided by 0.845 equals 1.1479.
Most guides quote a different number, 18.34%, from dividing 1 by 0.845. That answers a different question: how much to raise prices so the fee costs you nothing at all. But you were never keeping 100% of your price; the old model already took 3%. If your goal is to keep the payout you actually had, 14.8% is the number, and pricing 18.34% up puts you above competing listings for no reason.
Applied to the example: $150 a night becomes $172, and the $60 cleaning fee becomes $69 on the same rule. New subtotal: $585. Fee at 15.5%: $90.68. Payout: $494.32, within cents of the old $494.70.
Raising your price 14.8% doesn't raise your guest's total 14.8%. Under the old model, guests paid their own service fee of 14.1 to 16.5% at checkout, so their all-in total was already 1.14 to 1.165 times your listed price. That line item disappears with the switch. At your new price, the guest's total is about 1.148 times your old price: within about 1% of what they were paying, and in some markets slightly less. Hosts who skip repricing aren't protecting guests from an increase; they're discounting their own payout by around 13%.
Two checks before applying the full raise in one move. First, compare against similar listings nearby: if your market has already repriced, matching it keeps your position, and if it hasn't, phasing the increase over a few weeks is safer. Second, if you're in a country where VAT applies to the service fee and you can't reclaim it, the raise you need is larger, closer to 18 to 19%; run your own country's numbers before locking prices.
Cleaning fees take the 15.5% cut too
A cleaning fee is a pass-through cost, not profit, and the fee doesn't care. A $60 cleaning fee loses $9.30 before it reaches your cleaner, so you're paying out of pocket just to cover the turnover. Same for every add-on: a $40 pet fee gives up $6.20.
The fix is the same repricing rule. Raise the cleaning fee 14.8% ($60 becomes $69) to keep the economics you had, or divide your actual cleaning cost by 0.845 ($60 becomes $71) if you want the fee alone to fully cover the cleaner. Moving the cleaning cost into your nightly rate doesn't change the fee math, since the nightly rate takes the same 15.5%. It can make your listing read cheaper in searches that sort by nightly price, but that's a conversion decision, not a fee decision.
A checklist to run this week
- Confirm your fee model and date. Check your listing's payment settings. If you use a channel manager or pricing software, you were likely moved in October 2025 and this deadline doesn't apply to you.
- Compute your break-even raise. Multiply your current nightly and cleaning rates by 1.148. See our deep dive on the 15.5% fee for the full breakdown.
- Adjust smart pricing floors and rules. If you use dynamic pricing, raise the minimum and base prices so automation doesn't undercut your break-even number during slow weeks. Our pricing guide covers the fundamentals.
- Re-check every add-on fee. Cleaning, pet, extra guest: each one now sits inside the 15.5% base, so each one needs the same look.
- Watch your first post-switch payouts. Compare actual payouts against your math. Bookings confirmed before the deadline still pay out under the old split fee, so mixed numbers in the first weeks are normal.
The structural takeaway
When the platform takes 15.5% of every dollar, including the cleaning fee, a booking that doesn't go through the platform is worth about 15% more than it used to be. On the $510 example, a direct booking now keeps roughly $79 more than the same stay booked through Airbnb, before your own payment processing costs. If you've been putting off a direct booking site or a repeat-guest workflow, this fee change is a reasonable trigger to revisit it: our guide to getting direct bookings walks through where to start.
