Airbnb Bans Hosts From Asking Guests to Do the Dishes and Take Out the Rubbish: Guests Already Pay for Cleaning, and Some Hosts Are Up in Arms

You pay a cleaning fee, and on your way out a list awaits you: strip the beds, wash the dishes, run the washing machine, take out the rubbish. For rubbish left behind in the flat, a hefty fine sometimes followed too. That's the complaint Airbnb guests have been repeating on social media for years, and the platform is finally reacting.

Under the new rules, hosts will no longer be allowed to ask guests to strip the beds, wash and put away the dishes, run a wash or take the rubbish out of the property. The rule applies to bookings made on November 20 or later. The exceptions are few and practical: during a drought a host can still ask guests to save water, and in areas where bears are a risk - to throw rubbish into bear-proof bins.

Some hosts aren't thrilled. On the platform's forums they explain that basic cleaning is a matter of hygiene and protecting the property, and that the cost of getting the place ready for the next guest falls on them. One host wrote that guests are being given "complete freedom to be lazy, while hosts carry the risk." "The big difference between hotels and my private home is the personal touch," he added, threatening that after twelve years he would pull his listing and quit Airbnb.

The argument sounds reasonable until you look at what the guest has already paid. They pay a separate cleaning fee, and then clean themselves - once with money, a second time with their own labour. Airbnb knows this well: in 2024 the platform was under scrutiny because hosts were adding cleaning fees after the guest had already booked, and back in 2023 the company boasted that more than 260,000 hosts had cut or scrapped those fees. Since May 2025, prices in search results everywhere in the world are shown as totals by default, including fees but excluding taxes.

Step by step, the platform is moving closer to a hotel, while hosts defend something they say a hotel can't offer. How many of them will actually leave remains to be seen. Guests, wherever they come from, are unlikely to miss the chore list stuck to the fridge.