Cleaning fees are one of the hottest topics in the vacation rental world. While they may seem like a minor detail, they can have a serious impact on your booking activity. We recommend you brush up on the latest data, trends, and recommendations in order to set the right cleaning fees for your properties. 

Airbnb Cleaning Fees: What Hosts Need To Know | AirDNA

Cleaning fees are one of the hottest and most polarizing topics when it comes to vacation rentals.

This is unlikely to come as a news flash, but it bears repeating. Because cleaning fees—and guests’ attitudes toward cleaning fees—can have a real impact on your reviews and booking activity.

The COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on rental cleanliness, but it’s the fees that have captured long-term attention. Airbnb and Vrbo cleaning fees trended on social media throughout 2022, with countless posts buzzing about one question: What exactly is a reasonable cleaning fee? 

Given the maturation of the short-term rental (STR) industry over the past three years, it’s evident that cleaning fees have become another detail hosts can’t afford to overlook. And that's precisely why we wrote this guide—to ensure you have the necessary insights to establish the right fees for your properties.

Let's jump right into the need-to-know facts on cleaning fees.

#1 - Cleaning fees are one piece of the revenue puzzle.

American STR owners and hosts earned $62 billion in revenue in 2022. Only 13% of that—$8.1 billion, to be exact—is due to cleaning fees. 

The perception is that all STRs charge cleaning fees. Our data tells a slightly different story. 

Globally, 45% of properties listed on Airbnb and Vrbo do not charge a cleaning fee. But this varies by country. In the U.S., only 15% of STRs don’t charge cleaning fees, compared to over 52% of properties in the U.K. 

#3 - Property size & location influence cleaning fees.

Every property is unique. Cleaning sand out of a coastal home takes more time and effort than sweeping a private room. To that end, cleaning fees are also unique. Our data shows that cleaning fees vary based on two major characteristics: size and location. 

The larger the property, the more labor-intensive it is to clean. That’s why cleaning fees often correspond with property size. In 2022, the average cleaning fee in the U.S. for a private/shared room on Airbnb was just $47 per stay, while the average fee for a house with five or more rooms reached $333.

Unique STRs are a traveler’s dream—from a cozy A-frame in the woods to a charming farm stay. But they can also be costly to clean. Many vacation rental properties are located in remote areas where the distance between properties can significantly increase cleaning costs. Labor to clean the properties can also be hard to find. 

Labor costs also make their mark in cities, where cost-of-living can contribute to higher cleaning costs—and higher fees—in larger cities compared to their small and midsize counterparts. The cleaning fees for a three-bedroom listing are highest in coastal locations, where it averages $230, compared to listings in small cities throughout the U.S. that average just $122. 

#4 - It's true; cleaning fees are really on the rise.

Social media users are right about one thing: Cleaning fees have gone up. Since 2019, cleaning fees have increased by an average of 28%. There are a few reasons for this: 

Guests have a higher cleanliness standard in the post-COVID-19 era. In 2020, Airbnb rolled out its five-step enhanced cleaning process, which requires hosts to adhere to minimum cleaning and sanitation guidelines. This boosted the amount of time it takes to adequately clean a property, which contributed to the 11% increase in cleaning fees in 2021.


Hosts pass higher labor costs onto guests. From 2014 to 2019, the average wages for workers in the leisure and hospitality industry increased an average of 3.5% per year, reaching $16.60 per hour in 2019. This may sound high, but the average wage has only continued to climb. Demand for travel and restaurants boomed in 2021, but by then, many workers had already exited the industry. For the workers that remained, wages rose by 7.6% in 2021 and another 9.8% in 2022, reaching $20.44 by October 2022. This increase in labor costs helps explain the 7.9% increase in cleaning fees in 2022, which was actually lower than the rise in wages and significantly higher than the 5% increase in average daily rates for STRs in 2022. 


Larger properties are more popular. Guests have opted for different property types and locations in the past three years than in the years prior. This shift has impacted the perception of cleaning fees. Fewer guests rent studio or one-bedroom apartments, and more rent larger homes in coastal and mountain destinations, where cleaning fees are typically higher. This feeds the perception that cleaning fees have gone up since changing preferences are exposing guests to different markets with different standard fees.  

#5 - Airbnb vs. Vrbo cleaning fees—what’s the difference?

Many guests have the perception that Airbnb is more expensive—and that includes cleaning fees. But when it comes to Airbnb vs. Vrbo, the cleaning fee situation is largely the same: Hosts set their own fees, and those fees often vary by location and property type. With either platform, hosts need to decide for themselves not only what their cleaning fee should be but whether to charge a fee at all. 

American vacation rentals are more likely to charge a cleaning fee than almost any other country in the world. Yet, there are many markets where guests are much less likely to pay a cleaning fee. In Aspen, Colorado, 38% of properties do not have a cleaning fee. Neither do 36% of properties in the Outer Banks, North Carolina. There are also many markets where the opposite is true: 96% of properties at both Broken Bow Lake, Oklahoma, and Big Bear, California, charge a cleaning fee. 

Because cleaning fees really do vary, the question remains: Should you charge a cleaning fee, and what is a reasonable cleaning fee in your market?  

This is one area where your competitors may hold the key to the proverbial castle. Whatever you charge should be in line with other similar properties in your market. Our team at AirDNA created a cleaning fee dashboard so you can see what percentage of listings in your market charge a cleaning fee, as well as the average fee by bedroom count. 

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Use average cleaning fees as a benchmark for your own properties. The reality is that outrage around cleaning fees is rarely around the fees themselves and more about how cleaning fees inflate the ADR after guests decide to book. While “reasonable” varies by market, charging a fee that’s within the range of other similar properties should cover your costs and protect your potential guests from sticker shock. 

What about cleaning fees & all-in pricing?

All-in pricing is on the rise, at least on Airbnb. While cleaning fees can be used to help manage the length of stay (a higher cleaning fee discourages guests from booking shorter stays at your property), recent changes in the Airbnb algorithm may change how you think about cleaning fees. 

Airbnb CEO Peter Chesky said during Airbnb’s Q3 2022 earnings call, “Our search rank algorithm is prioritizing all-in pricing and hosts with the best value.”

It’s not all about the algorithm, either. Many guests are actually asking for all-in pricing, so they can evaluate the total cost for your STR rather than be surprised by cleaning fees after they’ve chosen a property. With these changes, hosts should prioritize real-time vacation rental data—like benchmarking their bookings against their competitors—to make sure that their listings are not being down-ranked.

Contrary to what social media may say, cleaning fees aren’t bad, and you don’t have to avoid them. But getting it right, especially in light of all-in pricing, can impact your booking activity. 

If you are seeing a change in your booking activity, it may be time to adjust to “all-in” pricing and incorporate your cleaning fee into your average daily rate. If your value rating is low relative to competing properties, lowering your cleaning fee may be one way to increase that rating.

This decision, like any decision you make for your STR, should all come down to the data. Benchmarking your vacation rental data over a longer period of time will help you identify if cleaning fees have a positive, negative, or neutral impact on your listing. The next step is to optimize your listings accordingly. 

Cleaning fees are one of the hottest topics in the vacation rental world. While they may seem like a minor detail, they can have a serious impact on your booking activity. We recommend you brush up on the latest data, trends, and recommendations in order to set the right cleaning fees for your properties.

Airbnb Cleaning Fees: What Hosts Need To Know | AirDNA

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