VRBO vs Airbnb Fees for Hosts: What Each One Takes in 2026
The short answer
Airbnb takes more from the host. VRBO takes more from the guest. Add the two sides together and the platforms keep a similar share of what the guest pays.
- Airbnb now charges most hosts a single service fee of 15.5% of the booking subtotal, taken out of the payout. The guest pays no separate Airbnb service fee.
- VRBO charges hosts on its standard pay-per-booking plan about 8%: a 5% commission plus a 3% payment processing fee. The guest then pays a separate VRBO service fee, usually 6–15%, on top of your price.
So VRBO’s deduction from your payout is roughly half of Airbnb’s, but a VRBO guest sees a higher total than the price you set, and an Airbnb guest does not.
VRBO vs Airbnb host fees, side by side
| Airbnb (single fee) | Airbnb (old split fee) | VRBO (pay-per-booking) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Host pays | 15.5% for most hosts (14–16% range; 16% in Brazil and Mexico) | 3% for most hosts | 5% commission + 3% payment processing |
| Guest pays on top | Nothing | 14.1–16.5% service fee | Service fee, usually 6–15% |
| Charged on | Nightly rate plus your cleaning, pet and extra-guest fees; not taxes | The same subtotal | Commission on rent and your fees; processing on the whole payment, including taxes and any refundable deposit |
| Taken from your payout | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Who is on it | Most hosts: anyone using property management software, hotels and serviced apartments, and hosts in a growing list of countries | Being phased out | Every new host |
Three notes on the table:
- Airbnb’s split fee is on its way out. Airbnb’s own help centre says the split-fee structure “is being phased out and will no longer be available after all hosts are migrated to the single service fee structure”. If you still see a 3% host fee on your payouts, expect that to change.
- VRBO’s annual subscription is closed to new hosts. Owners who already hold one pay a yearly fee in place of the 5% commission. If you are joining VRBO now, you are on pay-per-booking.
- Listings connected through property management software often pay VRBO the 5% commission only, because the software takes the payment in place of VRBO.
Rates change, and they vary by country. The only figure that is certain is the one on your own payout breakdown.
A worked example: a $1,000 booking
Take a stay where the nightly rate and cleaning fee come to $1,000, before tax.
| Airbnb (single fee) | VRBO (pay-per-booking) | |
|---|---|---|
| Guest pays, before tax | $1,000 | $1,060–$1,150 |
| Taken from the host | $155 | $80 |
| Host receives | $845 | $920 |
| Platform keeps in total | $155 | $140–$230 |
VRBO’s 3% processing fee is charged on the whole payment, so where tax applies it comes to slightly more than the $30 shown here.
The same price puts $75 more in your account on VRBO. But the guest paid up to $150 more for the same stay. Guests compare totals, so that difference comes back to you as fewer bookings or pressure on your nightly rate.
What to charge to earn the same on both
If you want $1,000 in your account from either platform:
- On Airbnb, set the price at about $1,183. The guest pays $1,183.
- On VRBO, set the price at about $1,087. The guest pays roughly $1,152–$1,250 once the VRBO service fee is added.
That is the comparison that matters. Many hosts copy one price to both platforms and wonder why the payouts differ by 7 or 8 percent.
Does Airbnb or VRBO have more fees?
For the host, Airbnb has the higher fee: 15.5% against about 8%.
For the guest, VRBO has the higher fee: 6–15% on top of the price, against nothing on Airbnb’s single-fee structure.
For the booking as a whole, they are close. In the example above Airbnb keeps 15.5% of what the guest paid, and VRBO keeps somewhere between 13% and 20%.
Is VRBO cheaper than Airbnb for owners?
On the payout statement, yes. Per booking, the owner gives up about 8% on VRBO and 15.5% on Airbnb.
Whether it is cheaper for your business depends on what each platform brings you. A lower fee on a platform that sends you two bookings a year is worth less than a higher fee on one that fills your calendar. Compare what each nets you over a season: bookings, average stay length and the nightly rate you can hold once the guest’s total is taken into account.
How each one pays you
Both platforms pay you net of their fee. The guest pays the full amount, the platform keeps its share, and the remainder lands in your bank.
That is where the bookkeeping trouble starts on either one. If you record only what arrives in the bank, you understate your income and the fee disappears from your books. On Airbnb’s single fee the gap is larger, because the whole 15.5% comes out before you are paid. On a $1,000 booking, recording the $845 payout as income hides $155 of revenue and $155 of expenses.
Payout timing and grouping differ too. Each platform releases money on its own schedule and may combine several bookings into one transfer, so a bank deposit rarely matches a single booking. We explain why in why your payouts don’t match your invoices and, across platforms, in OTA payouts don’t match.
What the fees mean for your books
The rule is the same on both platforms: record the full booking value as income, and the platform’s fee as an expense.
- Airbnb, single fee: one expense line of 15.5% of the subtotal.
- VRBO: two charges, the 5% commission and the 3% processing fee. Both are costs of the booking. Some hosts keep them on separate lines so the payment cost is visible.
- The guest’s service fee on VRBO is not your income and not your expense. The guest pays it to VRBO directly, so it stays out of your books.
The tax treatment of a platform’s fee depends on where you and the platform are registered. We cover that in tracking OTA commissions as expenses.
Everything else is identical work on both: separating accommodation from cleaning, keeping a contact per guest, converting currency consistently and tagging each booking by property. We cover the VRBO-into-QuickBooks flow in recording VRBO income in QuickBooks and the Airbnb-into-Xero flow in recording Airbnb income in Xero.
Listing on both
Many hosts list on VRBO and Airbnb to fill more nights. That is sensible for bookings and hard on the bookkeeping: two fee structures, two payout schedules, two email formats and two streams of net payouts feeding one set of books. We describe the full version in managing bookings from five platforms.
How Airflow handles both the same way
The two platforms feel like two problems because of the typing. Remove that, and VRBO and Airbnb become the same input.
You forward a booking email from either platform, or connect Gmail or Outlook so bookings are picked up automatically. Airflow’s extractor reads the email, whatever the platform’s format, and pulls out the guest, dates, nightly rate, cleaning fee, platform service fee, host payout, currency and reference. From that it builds a draft invoice in your accounting software with:
- Gross income on separate accommodation, cleaning and extras lines
- The platform commission recorded as its own expense, whichever fee structure applies, never netted away
- Correct tax treatment per line and the property tagged for per-property reporting
- Currency converted at invoice time with the rate, source and timestamp logged
- Deduplicated guest contacts, so repeat guests across platforms tie together
Every invoice lands as a draft you review and approve — nothing posts automatically. Airflow works with Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and FreshBooks.
To be clear about Airflow’s own fee: the commission it charges (it depends on your plan — see pricing) applies only to direct bookings it processes payment for, deducted from the host payout — it never applies to VRBO or Airbnb bookings, which are simply parsed and invoiced. More on that in commission on what you collect.
Compare on what you keep
Choose between VRBO and Airbnb on what each leaves you after fees, the guests it brings and how it suits your property. Whichever you choose, or if you run both, the accounting is the same: gross income recorded, fees expensed, currency handled, books that reconcile.
For the wider context, read the complete short-term rental accounting guide, and to see how the channels feed one workflow, see connect everything.
Get started — see plans and pricing. Connect your accounting software, forward a VRBO or Airbnb booking email, and review the draft invoice that appears. Paid plans start with a free trial: a card is required at checkout and isn’t charged until the trial ends.