On Airbnb's single fee, the 15.5% always comes out of your side. What changes with a cancellation or refund is whether there is still a payout for it to come out of. If a guest cancels inside the free window, they get everything back, you are paid nothing, and Airbnb keeps nothing either. The case that costs you is the refund you send yourself. Money sent from the Resolution Centre comes out of your payout, while Airbnb's fee on those same nights stays with Airbnb.
That is the question hosts keep asking in the 493-comment r/airbnb_hosts thread about the 15.5% switch: "if a guest cancels who pays airbnb the service fee? The host?" Another host, who refunded six of eight days to a guest who left over a smoke smell the owner could not find, asked in a separate thread: "is there a way to get the 15.5% service fee back from Airbnb?" Sometimes there is, but only if you use the right button.
This is one of the quieter money leaks in a small business: it never shows as a charge. It shows up as a smaller payout.
Who pays the 15.5% in each situation
Short answer: you pay the fee on whatever you end up being paid. The fee disappears only when the whole booking is refunded. Here is each case, using a $1,000 booking subtotal (four nights at $200 plus a $200 cleaning fee) on the single fee. On a completed stay you keep $845 and Airbnb keeps $155.
| What happened | Guest gets back | You receive | Who carries the fee | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guest cancels inside the free window | Everything, including taxes | $0 | Nobody | Cancellation policies |
| Guest cancels late, policy pays you 100% | Pro-rated taxes only | About $845, as if they stayed | You, as normal | Cancellation policies |
| Guest cancels late, policy pays you 50% | Half, including full taxes | Half the nights | Not documented: read the fee line | Cancellation policies |
| You send a refund through the Resolution Centre | What you send | $845 minus what you send | You, on the full original subtotal | Refund your guest |
| You remove nights with Change reservation | The removed nights plus their taxes | Payout on the new subtotal | You, on the smaller subtotal | Modifying a reservation |
| Airbnb refunds the guest under its Rebooking and Refund Policy | Airbnb decides | Payout reduced by the refund | You | Rebooking and Refund Policy |
| You cancel the guest | Everything | $0, plus a 10% to 50% penalty | You | Host Cancellation Policy |
If the guest cancels inside the free window, nobody pays the fee
A free-window cancellation is a clean reversal: the guest is refunded in full and you are paid nothing. Airbnb's cancellation policies page defines "full refund" as "the price that you set for your listing including taxes." Under the single fee, the price you set is the price the guest pays, so a full refund returns Airbnb's share along with yours.
All standard policies for stays under 28 nights include a 24-hour cancellation period "as long as the reservation was confirmed at least 7 days before check-in." After that, the window depends on your policy:
- Flexible: full refund until 24 hours before check-in.
- Moderate: full refund until 5 days before check-in.
- Limited (for reservations booked on or after October 1, 2025): full refund until 14 days before check-in.
- Firm: full refund until 30 days before check-in.
That 24-hour period also covers the discounted non-refundable option.
If the guest cancels late, the fee comes out of what you keep
After the free window, your policy decides what you are paid, and the fee is deducted from that payout. Under Firm, for example, a guest who cancels less than 7 days before check-in gets "a refund of pro-rated taxes, and you'll be paid 100% for all nights." On the $1,000 booking, that pays out as if the guest had stayed.
The 50% bands are where Airbnb's documentation stops. Firm and Limited both say that a guest cancelling in the middle band gets "a 50% refund including full taxes, and you'll be paid 50% for all nights." Airbnb does not say whether the 15.5% is then charged on the original $1,000 or only on the $500 you keep. One r/airbnb_hosts commenter says Airbnb "keeps the service fee associated with the original total" once the free period has passed. That is an owner's account, not policy text.
Check it yourself. Airbnb's fee page says where: Today > Menu > Earnings, open the transaction, and under Earnings find the Airbnb service fee line. Divide that line by the subtotal on the transaction. If it is 15.5% of the original total on a booking that paid you half, you have a concrete question for support.
Note
Old bookings follow old rules. Airbnb says the single fee "applies only to new bookings. Bookings made before the switch are unaffected, even if they occur after the switch." A guest who booked in August and cancels in November is on the split fee: you paid about 3% and the guest paid their own 14.1% to 16.5% guest fee. Check which structure a booking is on before you work out a refund.
If you refund the guest yourself, how you send it decides who eats the fee
This is the expensive one. When you refund through Send money, the refund comes out of your payout, and Airbnb keeps its fee on the full original booking. Airbnb's Terms of Service state it plainly: "Except as otherwise provided on the Airbnb Platform, service fees are non-refundable."
In r/AirBnB, a host whose month-long booking shrank to 7 nights refunded the rest after payout and "lost 150€ Airbnb fee for 7 days stay." In r/airbnb_hosts, a host who refunded a night over an electrical fault found the amount taken was larger than the amount they had typed, and a commenter summed it up: the Resolution Centre "pulls the full gross payout including fees and taxes when you initiate a refund from your side so you end up covering airbnb's cut too."
Airbnb's own rules point you to a second route for nights. Its Resolution Centre page says: "You can't use the Resolution Centre to collect payment for additional costs or provide refunds for modifications to nights, guest count, or pet count. You must use Change reservation."
| Send money (Resolution Centre) | Change reservation (trip change request) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Goodwill refunds: a broken amenity, a noisy night, an apology | Removing nights, lowering the price, fewer guests or pets |
| Where the money comes from | Your payout | The booking is repriced |
| Airbnb's fee | Stays on the original subtotal | Calculated on the new subtotal |
| Taxes | Not recalculated | "Always recalculated" when the change is accepted |
| Guest must accept | No | Yes |
| When you can use it | Up to 60 days after checkout | Future or current reservations only |
On the $1,000 example, say you agree to refund one $200 night:
- Send money: you receive $845 and send back $200, so you keep $645. The guest does not get that night's taxes back.
- Change reservation: the subtotal drops to $800, the fee drops to $124, and you keep $676. The guest gets the night and its taxes back.
The difference is $31 on one night, which is 15.5% of the $200. Hosts in the same thread confirm the route works: one said that after changing a stay from "May 10-15 to May 11-15," the guest "will get refund for one night including that portion of the taxes and fees," and another said it will "adjust the service charge and I believe taxes." Those are host reports, so confirm the fee line on your first one.
What a Send money refund costs you at your rates
What the wrong button costs: 15.5% of each refund that comes out of your payout.
| Refund you send | Airbnb's fee you keep paying | 6 refunds like it a year |
|---|---|---|
| $100 | $15.50 | $93 |
| $150 (one night or a cleaning fee) | $23.25 | $139.50 |
| $250 | $38.75 | $232.50 |
| $400 | $62.00 | $372 |
| $600 (a long weekend) | $93.00 | $558 |
The fee also sits on your cleaning fee, which Airbnb takes 15.5% of like any other host fee. If you refund a cleaning fee to guests who left the place spotless, lowering the price with Change reservation during the stay is the version that reprices the fee. After checkout it is Send money or nothing.
Refunds sent the expensive way never show up as a charge, only as a smaller payout, and they are easy to miss across a season. Our free money leak scan goes through the payout and fee reports you already have and lists every refund and cancellation where more left your account than had to.
Where Change reservation stops working
Change reservation has limits:
- Past reservations can't be changed. After checkout, Airbnb's modification article says to use the Resolution Centre, and you have 60 days.
- The guest has to accept. If they decline or ignore it, nothing changes. Message them first so they expect the request.
- Limits: 3 changes a day and 10 per reservation.
- Discounts can shift. Shortening a week can drop the guest out of a weekly discount, which moves the total. The request shows the guest the original and new totals before they accept, so check it before you send.
- Not every booking lets you edit the price. The r/AirBnB host above said they could change the dates but not the price. Changing dates still works for removing nights.
Before check-in, you can also refund from the reservation with Send or request a payment, according to Airbnb's refund article. That is still money out of your payout. If the reason is fewer nights or guests, send a trip change instead.
When Airbnb refunds the guest, you pay
If Airbnb decides a guest is owed money under its Rebooking and Refund Policy, the refund comes out of your payout. The policy says the host "will receive no payout or will have their payout reduced by the amount refunded to their guest." The Terms add that the payout can also be reduced "by any other reasonable costs we incur," and that Airbnb "may delay release of any payout" while it decides.
If you were already paid, it becomes an adjustment that is "automatically deducted from the next scheduled payout(s)," including co-host payouts. Guests have 72 hours from discovering an issue to report it, and on a mediation request you get 1 hour to respond. The practical defence is evidence: dated photos from the turnover and a written reply inside that hour. It is the same payout-deduction fight restaurants have with delivery apps, and the playbook for disputing DoorDash error charges carries over: document first, dispute in writing, track every deduction. If a guest skips Airbnb and goes to their card issuer instead, that is a different process. Our guide to handling a chargeback covers the evidence that wins those.
The one exception is a Major Disruptive Event, such as a government travel ban or a declared emergency. Under that policy, guests are refunded, you are not paid for the cancelled dates, and you can cancel without fees. The policy also lists what it does not cover: guest illness, flight cancellations, and foreseeable weather such as "hurricanes in Florida during hurricane season." Outside it, Airbnb says any refund beyond your policy "is at the host's discretion."
If you cancel the guest, you pay much more than 15.5%
Cancelling on a guest costs you the whole payout plus a penalty of 10% to 50% of the booking. Airbnb's Host Cancellation Policy, effective October 9, 2023, sets the fee by timing:
| When you cancel | Penalty | On the $1,000 booking |
|---|---|---|
| More than 30 days before check-in | 10% of the reservation amount | $100 |
| 48 hours to 30 days before | 25% | $250 |
| 48 hours or less, or after check-in | 50% of the nights not stayed | up to $500 |
The reservation amount "includes the base rate, cleaning fee, and any pet fees, but excludes taxes and guest fees," and any penalty under $50 is raised to $50. The penalty comes out of your next payouts, and the calendar can be blocked for those dates. Airbnb waives it for a Major Disruptive Event or "certain valid reasons," but even then "the host will not receive a payout."
Two rules make this matter for fees. First, "A host may not encourage the guest to cancel the reservation." Pushing a guest to cancel so you avoid the penalty breaks the policy. Second, a double booking counts as your cancellation "regardless of who initiates" it. If you list on more than one site, a calendar sync gap costs you this penalty, not just an awkward message.
Your cancellation policy decides most of this
The biggest lever you control is the policy, not the refund. A looser policy fills the calendar but hands more free-window refunds back. A tighter one protects the payout but can cost bookings. Airbnb's own fee guide adds a wrinkle: "Hosts with super strict cancellation policies may pay a higher fee."
A few things to check:
- Match the window to your booking lead time. If most guests book 10 to 20 days out, Firm's 30-day window gives them no free period beyond the 24 hours, while Limited's 14-day window gives some of them one.
- Look at your cancellation dates. Hosts in r/airbnb_hosts were describing a wave of October cancellations on September 28, 2026. If yours cluster just inside the free window, your window is doing its job for guests, not for you.
- Policy changes only apply to future bookings. Airbnb says changes "don't affect any pending or confirmed reservations," so a change today protects next season, not this one.
The same thinking applies outside Airbnb. If you run a service business, our guides to setting a cancellation fee and to how much of a deposit to keep walk through pricing the cost of a lost slot.
A 10-minute check on your last 90 days
Run this on your own account. It is the only way to know which of these cases you are actually paying for.
- Confirm your fee structure. Open a booking made after your switch and read the Airbnb service fee line. Divide it by the subtotal. Most hosts should see 15.5%, but Airbnb says "remaining hosts typically pay 14%-16%."
- List every refund you sent. In the Resolution Centre, note each Send money refund, its amount and its reason. Any refund for fewer nights, fewer guests or a price cut that happened before checkout could have been a trip change.
- Price the leak. Multiply those refunds by your fee rate. That is what Airbnb kept on money you gave back.
- Check partial cancellations. For each late cancellation that paid you 50%, compare the fee line to the subtotal. Write down what you find, booking by booking.
- Look for adjustments. In Earnings, find any adjustment deducted from a payout and match it to a guest refund or a cancellation penalty.
- Check double-booking risk. If you list on more than one platform, confirm every calendar syncs both ways.
- Read your policy against your lead times. Note how many cancellations landed inside the free window, and whether a different policy would have paid you for them.
The fee line is the same idea as reading an effective rate on a merchant statement: divide what was taken by what came in, then look for the transactions that break the pattern.
If steps 2 to 4 turned up refunds sent through the Resolution Centre, fee lines you can't reconcile or penalties you did not expect, send us the reports. We will send back a written list of each refund and cancellation that cost more than it had to, and what to change.
Can you just do this yourself?
Yes, for one or two listings. The fix is a habit: refunds for nights, guests or price go through Change reservation before checkout, and only goodwill refunds go through Send money. Keep a note of every refund so you can check the fee line on your next payout. Many hosts refund to head off a bad review; if that is the reason, a calm public reply is often cheaper, and the approach in responding to bad reviews works for hosts too.
It stops being worth your own time once refunds come from several people. A co-host, a cleaner who promises a guest a credit, or a manager on another platform can each send money the expensive way, and nobody sees it until the payouts come in lower. At that point it is a reporting problem more than a hosting one, the same kind of back-office task worth automating: a monthly check of refunds, fee lines and adjustments across every listing, or a line item for whoever does your books if you already have a bookkeeper. The same approach, reading every fee line on a statement instead of the headline rate, is how we look at card processing across the payment fees hub.
Don't solve it by going off-platform
Refunding or rebooking a guest you met on Airbnb outside Airbnb breaks its Terms. They say: "Do not request, make, or accept a booking or any payment outside of the Airbnb Platform to avoid paying fees, taxes, or for any other reason."
Keep every Airbnb guest's money on Airbnb and use the route that reprices the booking. If you want bookings that carry no platform fee, build that channel for new guests who find you on their own, not for guests Airbnb sent you.