The price that you see on an Airbnb listing will finally be the price that you actually pay. On Monday, the rental app announced that it will display the full price of a stay, including fees and taxes (in most locations), by default from the start of listings worldwide. The shift in pricing policy comes as a Biden-era Federal Trade Commission rule aimed at cracking down on junk fees and misleading pricing is set to go into effect starting next month.
One of the biggest issues that any Airbnb user has likely run into on the platform over the last few years is the often exorbitant surcharges, including so-called “cleaning fees” that often get tacked onto the cost of a stay. Typically, that price did not appear in the list price that would be displayed on the map view of available stays, nor on the listing page, but would rather appear at checkout. A 2022 NerdWallet analysis of Airbnb listings found the median cleaning fee for a one-night stay was $75, and often amounted to 25% of the total price or more.
Airbnb has listed the total price by default in Europe, Australia, Canada, and Korea since 2019, primarily because those regions had existing regulations that required transparency when it comes to prices, and gave users in the United States and other countries the option to toggle on the full price in 2022. The company claimed that 300,000 listings removed or lowered their fees after it launched the price toggle tool, including about 40% of listings that straight up ditched the cleaning fee.
“Toggle on” is the key phrase there, as the feature was essentially something you had to opt into—which Airbnb claims 17 million guests have done. Which…duh? On the consumer side, there is no real reason to want to hide the full price, given that it is what you will ultimately end up paying. There is no functional difference in terms of those final dollars as to how the cost is split up between the list price and additional fees.
It’s likely no coincidence then that this “full price by default” move comes with a looming Federal Trade Commission rule set to go into effect. The “Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees,” introduced under the Biden administration and finalized in January of this year, just before Trump took office, will become law starting May 12. The rule, part of the previous administration’s crackdown on “junk fees,” requires businesses to “clearly and conspicuously” display the total price with fees included from the jump.
Now, just how long this rule stays in effect—assuming it makes it to the finish line—is still in question. The Trump administration is already attempting to roll back other junk fee-related protections that the Biden administration launched, including trying to undo caps on late fees for credit cards and bank overdraft fee limits. Because if there is one thing consumers just can’t get enough of, it’s getting nickel and dimed to death.
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