An Airbnb cleaning fee is a one-off charge set by the host and included in the total reservation price. For a London owner, the useful question is not simply what other hosts charge. It is how to cover the work between guests while keeping the complete stay competitively priced.
This guide explains how to assess the charge using your own costs and booking lengths. For the practical work behind each turnover, see our London cleaning and linen guide.
Separate the guest charge from the supplier cost
Keep two figures in your records: what the guest pays towards cleaning, and what preparing the property actually costs. They need not be identical. A host might recover some turnover costs through the nightly price, but those costs still exist even when the listing has no separate cleaning charge.
Build your cost estimate from recent invoices or a written supplier quote. Check whether cleaning labour, laundry, linen delivery, consumables and an arrival-readiness check are included. Record any weekend or short-notice charges separately, and use a consistent treatment of VAT when comparing quotes.
Do not count the same expense twice. If the housekeeping invoice already includes laundry, adding a second laundry allowance would overstate the normal turnover cost. Equally, a low labour-only quote should not be compared directly with a fully inclusive service.
Compare the price across different stay lengths
A fixed charge has a larger effect per night on a short booking. As a simple illustration, a £90 cleaning fee adds £45 per night across two nights, £18 across five nights and £10 across nine nights. These are arithmetic examples, not suggested London cleaning rates.
Build a small comparison for the booking lengths your property actually receives. For each, record the nightly accommodation amount, cleaning charge, other charges and the total shown to the guest. Use the same dates and guest count when checking comparable listings.
Airbnb's cleaning-fee guidance advises hosts to consider both costs and bookability. A fee that looks modest in isolation can still make the complete short stay unattractive. Conversely, removing the separate charge without adjusting the wider price can leave you under-recovering costs.
A worked comparison: separate fee or nightly allowance?
Illustrative figures only: suppose the accommodation price is £180 per night with a £90 cleaning charge. Before other fees, taxes or discounts, the subtotal is £450 for two nights and £990 for five nights.
If you instead charge £198 per night with no separate cleaning fee, the corresponding subtotals are £396 and £990. Both approaches produce the same five-night subtotal, but the two-night booking produces £54 less under the second approach. Your cleaner's invoice has not automatically fallen by £54.
This is why an average stay length is useful but insufficient. Test the short bookings as well as the average. Compare what remains after actual booking costs, and check the account's platform deductions rather than treating the subtotal as your payout. Our Airbnb platform-fees guide covers that separate calculation.
Consider the short-stay cleaning setting
Airbnb allows a lower cleaning fee for stays of one or two nights, alongside a standard fee. Its current setup instructions explain the options. A lower guest charge is a pricing decision: it does not mean you can omit the normal preparation required for the next arrival.
Before using it, calculate the contribution from a typical short booking after its turnover cost. Also check whether accepting it leaves an awkward gap in the calendar or changes the number of cleans required that week. Coordinate these decisions with your pricing and availability strategy.
Check special offers and booking changes
Airbnb says the cleaning fee is not automatically included when creating a special offer. Review the offer's total before sending it. If a reservation is altered, check that its cleaning charge matches the final terms rather than assuming the original calculation still applies.
Changing the listing's fee is not the same as adding a charge to a confirmed reservation. Airbnb's confirmed-booking guidance requires a trip-change request with the new total, which the guest must accept. Do not present an unapproved increase as already payable.
Is the cleaning fee refunded if a guest cancels?
Check the reservation's terms and booking date. Airbnb's guest cleaning-fee guidance says a cancellation within an applicable free-cancellation period returns the fee in full. Outside that period, its refund treatment follows the host's cancellation policy as part of the nightly price. The page separately identifies older reservations made before 21 April 2025.
Avoid relying on the old blanket assumption that every pre-arrival cancellation refunds cleaning in full. For the wider policy choices, see our London host cancellation guide.
Review the result using completed bookings
Keep a dated record of any change and compare completed stays by length. Track the total charged, actual cleaning and linen costs, booking deductions and the amount left before fixed property costs. Record refunds and exceptional expenses separately so one unusual stay does not distort the normal cost estimate.
Review guest feedback as well as the numbers. If preparation is inconsistent, changing the price alone will not fix the underlying service. Keep the cleaning specification and quality checks clear, regardless of how the charge is presented.
Bring housekeeping and pricing together
StayinLondon coordinates housekeeping, guest communication and pricing as part of its London Airbnb management service. Request a property-specific assessment to discuss the operating costs and booking mix for your home.
Airbnb guidance checked on 8 October 2026. Worked examples are hypothetical and exclude other fees, taxes and discounts unless stated.
