Airbnb co-host payouts: what the percentage is taken from

Open your listing, go to Co-hosts, and read two settings for every person on it: their permission level and their payout. Those two settings decide who can move your prices and how each booking splits, and most owners set them once, on the day of the invite.

The percentage comes after Airbnb's fee

Airbnb's co-host payouts page (read 20 October 2026) is precise about the base. Co-host payouts are calculated from the host's potential earnings for each booking: the nightly price times the nights, plus charges like the cleaning fee, minus the host service fee and any taxes and fees that apply.

That base got smaller this autumn. Airbnb's service fee page (read 20 October 2026) says most hosts on the single fee structure pay 15.5%, deducted from the host's payout. Our post on the 15.5% host fee runs the full math.

Take an invented booking: five nights at $180 plus a $100 cleaning fee, $1,000 in total. At 15.5%, Airbnb keeps $155 and the host's potential earnings are $845. A co-host on 20%, cleaning fee included, receives $169, not $200. If the owner and the co-host agreed on "20% of revenue" and each meant a different number, one of them is $31 short on every booking like this one.

Neither number is wrong. Agree which one you mean, in writing, before the invite goes out.

The four payout options

Airbnb offers four shapes, and only the listing owner can set them:

• Cleaning fee: the co-host gets the amount you set as your cleaning fee in your listing details.
• Cleaning fee plus percentage: the cleaning fee, plus a percentage per booking that excludes it.
• Percentage: a percentage per booking, with the cleaning fee included or excluded.
• Fixed amount: a set amount per booking.

Airbnb's own worked examples treat a $100 cleaning fee as $100 of potential earnings and leave the service fee out of the picture. If you use either cleaning fee option, open one confirmed reservation in the Earnings dashboard and check exactly what lands with each of you.

Three rules on the same page catch people. The co-host has 14 days to confirm a proposal. A change applies only to bookings that start after the co-host confirms it. And a shared cleaning fee follows your listing: change the cleaning fee and the co-host's payout changes with it, with no new proposal. They are only notified.

Co-hosts are paid first

This is the line most owners have never read. When the host's potential earnings cover everyone, co-hosts are paid first and the host receives whatever remains. With two or more co-hosts, Airbnb pays in a fixed order: the cleaning fee, then cleaning fee plus percentage, then percentages excluding cleaning, then percentages including it, then fixed amounts, highest first within each group.

Airbnb's second example shows the risk. On $500 of potential earnings, with proposals that add up to more than $500, the last co-host on a $50 fixed amount gets $40, and the host gets $0. Stack a cleaner on the cleaning fee, a co-host on a percentage and a fixed amount for someone else, and a cheap one-night booking can leave the owner almost nothing.

Tax follows the full amount. Per the same page, the listing owner gets a tax document on the full booking amount, and each co-host gets one for what they received.

Permissions decide who moves your prices

Airbnb's co-host permissions page (read 20 October 2026) has three levels:

• Full access: edit the calendar, manage price settings including seasonal pricing and longer stay discounts, accept and decline requests, handle cancellations and damage requests, and invite or remove other co-hosts without the owner's approval, though not add another full-access one.
• Calendar and messaging: message guests and view the calendar, without editing it.
• Calendar: view the calendar only.

Two details matter. Co-hosts added before 3 May 2023 have full access by default, so an old invite may carry more power than you remember. And Airbnb says the listing owner is responsible for every co-host, including those added by a full-access co-host. You can invite up to 10 co-hosts per listing, per Airbnb's add co-hosts page (read 20 October 2026).

Payouts and permissions are separate settings. Changing a permission does not change a payout.

What Hostomat does here

Hostomat prices every night up to 365 days ahead against the listings actually competing with you, never below the floor you set, with the reason next to every price in words an owner can read. Prices are shown as what the host keeps after Airbnb's fee, the same base Airbnb uses for the co-host split. It re-prices every day. If a price is changed in Airbnb after Hostomat set it, by hand or by Airbnb Smart Pricing, you are told, at most weekly.

For co-hosts there is one honest limit. On a direct Airbnb connection, a co-host can connect only listings they own on Airbnb, not the ones they co-host for someone else. Through Hospitable, every listing comes along and the owner invite is handled by Hospitable. It works with Airbnb only. No Vrbo, no Booking.com yet. It is a young product, and the setup guide shows the comparables before anything moves.

By hand, if you would rather

For each listing, write down three things: the payout option, the percentage, and whether it includes cleaning. Run one recent booking through it: the total, minus 15.5%, then each co-host's share in Airbnb's order. Compare that with what each of you expected. Move anyone who does not set prices from full access to calendar and messaging. Remove co-hosts who no longer help.

Where this can go wrong

"20% of revenue" with no base agreed. A full-access co-host from 2022 who can still edit your price settings. Two people changing prices in the same week, each undoing the other. Fixed amounts stacked on short stays. Raising the cleaning fee and forgetting that it moves a co-host's payout too.

Open Co-hosts tonight, run every payout against a real booking, and match each permission to the job that person does. Pricing on Hostomat is 14 days free with no card. Start at hostomat.io/guide.

Sources

• Help article 3389, How co-host payouts work, read 20 October 2026
• Help article 1534, Co-host permissions, read 20 October 2026
• Help article 1244, Add co-hosts to your home listing, read 20 October 2026
• Help article 1857, Airbnb service fees, read 20 October 2026