Airbnb bars hosts from making guests do checkout chores

Airbnb hosts will no longer be able to make guests strip beds, wash dishes, start laundry or take out the trash before checkout, under new house rules that apply to reservations booked on or after Nov. 20.

The home-sharing company announced the change Wednesday, TechCrunch and ABC News reported. In a statement, Airbnb said feedback from its community found house rules “confusing, onerous and hard to manage,” and that the new policy is meant to keep hosts’ requests reasonable, “with no surprises.”

Hosts can still make simpler requests, such as asking guests to leave used dishes in the sink, ABC News reported. TechCrunch reported that hosts may also ask guests to conserve water during droughts or to use bear-proof garbage containers where wildlife is a risk.

The new rules also bar hosts from charging guests their own fines, ABC News reported, and limit separate rental contracts to cases such as legal requirements or homeowners’ association rules. Hosts will choose from seven standard house rules and can add their own reasonable requests. Airbnb said the rules will appear more prominently on listings, in guests’ Trips tab and in reservation reminders, and that it will flag requests that break the policy. Hosts can appeal.

The change follows years of guest complaints about long checkout to-do lists and fines for not taking out garbage, TechCrunch reported. Many guests have asked why they should clean a rental after paying a separate cleaning fee. In 2023, more than 260,000 hosts cut or eliminated their cleaning fees, TechCrunch reported, and since May 2025 the platform has shown total prices, including fees but before taxes, by default in search results worldwide.

Some hosts pushed back on Airbnb’s community forums, arguing that basic tidying keeps homes sanitary and protects their property, and that hosts bear the cost of getting a unit ready for the next guest, TechCrunch reported. One host who said they had listed on Airbnb for 12 years wrote that “guests are given complete freedom to be lazy while the hosts bear the risk” and said they might pull their listing.

Neither report mentioned any change to Airbnb’s cleaning fees tied to the policy, and neither said Canada or any other country is exempt.

Canadian hosts already work under a patchwork of provincial and municipal short-term rental rules, including British Columbia’s rules, which Airbnb said put thousands of B.C. reservations at risk, and Kelowna, where tourism operators celebrated relaxed short-term rental restrictions.

“Airbnb cleaning fee” was among the fastest-rising searches on Google in Canada on Thursday, with more than 10,000 searches, alongside “Airbnb” and “Airbnb hosts.”

Fees are also changing elsewhere in travel. Air Canada this month began charging $30 per passenger to book by phone.

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Sources: TechCrunch, ABC News.