Pretty much everyone hates Airbnb cleaning fees -- those pesky charges tacked on to your vacation rental bill that supposedly cover the costs to get the place ready for the next visitors. Travelers don't like the expense, and hosts don't like charging them, either.
Dennis Shirshikov, an Airbnb host who owns a rental property in upstate New York, says cleaning fees are the most common complaint he gets from customers.And Shirshikov might get his way. Airbnb is set to roll out big changes that won't end cleaning fees but could make them more transparent for customers and incentivize hosts to reduce or forgo them altogether.
Besides the cost, Airbnb cleaning fees can feel especially brutal simply given their presentation. Airbnb's search page displays the nightly rate on most interfaces in big, bold lettering, masking the total price. So the total price, presented in lightly colored lettering, can be easy to overlook. The company in November 2022 also adjusted its search algorithm to rank listings by the best total price rather than simply accounting for the nightly rate, which may sway hosts to lower or remove cleaning fees.A minority of listings don't charge cleaning fees. Airbnb says 45 per cent of listings worldwide don't charge those fees. Yet only 15 per cent of the available listings in NerdWallet's analysis didn't have a cleaning fee.
"With a higher fee, guests may expect to just walk away from your space at checkout as they would a hotel room," according to a memo posted to Airbnb's website before the cleaning changes kicked in."If they pay a cleaning fee, they sometimes leave the place looking like it's been lived in and uncleaned for months," he says, adding that he has returned to find food all over the floor and drinks spilled on the beds.
The cleaning costs for Airbnb hosts are often higher than those for hotels because they likely can't take advantage of economies of scale. For example, hotels have commercial-size laundry machines. Plus, listings are typically spread out geographically, so there's the inefficiency of traveling miles between properties. And short-term rentals typically are much larger and have more space to clean than hotel rooms.
And then there are the hosts who charge cleaning fees and still ask guests to clean up after themselves. That, too, will likely end soon. Along with more transparent cleaning fees, Airbnb said it also plans to require hosts to post the cleaning requirements on the listing before guests book. Guests will also be able to leave feedback on the checkout process.
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