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Guide · UK hosts

Airbnb’s 15.5% host fee: should UK hosts raise their prices?

Since 22 June 2026, UK hosts pay Airbnb’s whole service fee: 15.5%, taken from your payout. If you kept your price the same, Airbnb’s own example says a £100 night now pays you £84.50 instead of £97. Here’s the maths to get it back, and why you shouldn’t raise everything at once.

By the PeakRate team. We're UK holiday-let hosts. Facts checked on ; sources are listed at the end.

Prefer to watch? Airbnb 15.5% Host Fee: Should You Raise Your Prices? (UK) on our YouTube channel.

In short

What changed

Under the old split fee, most hosts paid 3% and guests paid a service fee of around 14.1% to 16.5% on top of your price. Airbnb has now moved to a single fee: most hosts pay 15.5%, all of it taken from the host's payout, and guests don't pay a separate service fee. Hosts who live in the UK switched on 22 June 2026, for reservations made after the switch.

Airbnb's own worked example shows what that means:

Your priceGuest seesYou earn
Before the switch£100£115£97
After, price unchanged£100£100£84.50
After, price raised£115£115£97

Airbnb Resource Centre, "Simplifying service fees on Airbnb" (7 July 2026, updated 24 August 2026).

Notice the middle row. A host who changed nothing became cheaper to guests overnight: what used to show as £115 now shows as £100.

The maths to keep your payout

If you paid 3% before, you kept 97% of your price. Now you keep 84.5%. To end up with the same amount:

Our maths: new price = old price × 0.97 ÷ 0.845, which is about +15%. A £140 night becomes about £161. A £100 night becomes about £115, which matches Airbnb's own example.

The UK VAT twist

Airbnb's Help Centre says its service fees in the UK are subject to 20% VAT. If you're not VAT-registered, you can't reclaim that, so the fee plus VAT works out at about 18.6% of your price (our maths: 15.5% × 1.2). To keep your old payout on that basis, you'd need to raise a little more than 15%.

Airbnb also points out that raising your prices could bring you to the VAT registration threshold sooner. If you're close to it, check with your accountant before putting everything up.

Before you raise: check your neighbours

Here's the part most hosts miss. Because unchanged listings got cheaper to guests overnight, raising your price by 15% while your neighbours stay put moves you from level with them to about 15% dearer on the same map. And Airbnb's own Help Centre says listings priced below comparable listings tend to rank higher in search.

Plenty of hosts haven't raised. In one host's check of their area, posted in September 2026, about 1 in 15 nearby listings had (an anecdote, not a survey, but a useful warning).

So before you change anything:

  1. Pick your five to eight real competitors: the listings a guest looking at yours would also consider. Same area, similar size, similar standard.
  2. Open each on Airbnb for the same dates and note the total for a two-night stay.
  3. See where you sit. Are you the cheapest, in the middle, or the most expensive?

Then decide night by night

You don't have to choose between "raise everything 15%" and "change nothing".

Airbnb also offered a one-time tool that raises every price for the next two years at once. That's the opposite of the night-by-night approach, and Airbnb says it's only available for a limited time after you switch, so check whether you can still see it before relying on it.

Not sure what to charge in the first place? Read how to price your Airbnb.

Questions hosts ask

What is Airbnb’s host-only fee in the UK?

Since 22 June 2026, most UK hosts pay a single 15.5% service fee, taken from their payout, instead of the old split where hosts paid about 3% and guests paid a separate service fee. It applies to reservations made after the switch.

How much should I raise my Airbnb price to cover the 15.5% fee?

About 15% to keep the same payout as under the old 3% host fee (our maths: old price × 0.97 ÷ 0.845). A £100 night becomes about £115, matching Airbnb’s own example. But check what your competitors charge first, and raise night by night rather than everywhere at once.

Do UK hosts pay VAT on Airbnb’s service fee?

Airbnb says its service fees in the UK are subject to 20% VAT. If you aren’t VAT-registered, the 15.5% fee plus VAT comes to about 18.6% of your price (our maths).

Will raising my prices hurt my Airbnb ranking?

It can if your competitors haven’t raised. Airbnb’s Help Centre says listings priced below comparable listings tend to rank higher, so compare your price with your real competitors before you change it.

Check it against your real competitors

The deciding question for the 15.5% fee is what your neighbours did. You can check by hand on Airbnb, or let PeakRate do it every night.

Audit your Airbnb listing free Or start your free 14-day trial →

Sources

  1. Airbnb Help Centre, "Airbnb service fees" (article 1857): the old split fee and the single 15.5% fee
  2. Airbnb Resource Centre, "Simplifying service fees" (22 March 2026, article 761): UK hosts switch on 22 June
  3. Airbnb Resource Centre, "Simplifying service fees on Airbnb" (7 July 2026, updated 24 August 2026, article 771): the £100 / £115 / £97 / £84.50 example and the VAT threshold warning
  4. Airbnb Help Centre, article 436: VAT on Airbnb’s service fees in the UK
  5. Airbnb Help Centre, "How search results work" (article 39): listings priced below comparable listings tend to rank higher
  6. Host reports on r/airbnb_hosts, September 2026 (anecdotal)
  7. Our maths: 0.97 ÷ 0.845 = 1.148; £140 × 1.148 = £160.72; 15.5% × 1.2 = 18.6%

PeakRate makes pricing and competitor-benchmarking software for hosts. Where this guide mentions it, we say so; everything else is sourced above.