New Airbnb rules in 2026: what owners and concierge businesses can no longer ask guests to do

For every reservation booked on or after November 20, 2026, Airbnb no longer lets hosts ask guests to wash dishes, strip the bed, start a load of laundry or take the trash out of the home. Simple requests are still allowed: dishes in the sink, used towels gathered, trash sorted.

Airbnb announced the change to hosts on October 20, 2026, one month before it takes effect. For a concierge business, it hits three things at once: listings to fix, cleaning time at every checkout, and the margin on every turnover.

This article covers what changes, what happens if you do nothing, and how to adapt your operations. It is part of our guide to help you grow your concierge business.

What changes on Airbnb on November 20, 2026?

The reference text is called “Reasonable house rules and requests”. It applies to all reservations booked on or after November 20, 2026. The booking date is what counts, not the arrival date: a December stay booked in October is not affected.

Three changes matter for hosts and concierge businesses:

• One place for all rules. House rules and checkout instructions now live together in the listing editor. Checkout instructions no longer have their own tab.
• Seven standard rules. Hosts choose from: maximum overnight guests, quiet hours, events, pets, smoking, commercial photography, and locking up at checkout. They can add requests, as long as those requests are reasonable.
• Everything is disclosed before booking. A rule or request added elsewhere on the listing page, or sent after booking, does not comply with Airbnb’s policy.

This is a platform policy, not a change in the law. The legal framework for short-term rentals in France, covered in our article on Airbnb regulation for concierge businesses, stays the same.

Dishes, sheets, trash: what is still allowed?

Airbnb gives the examples itself. The principle: guests should not have to do tasks that take significant effort or time and that a cleaner would normally handle.

Topic	Can no longer be requested	Still allowed
Dishes	Washing and putting away dishes	Putting used dishes in the sink
Laundry	Stripping the bed, starting a load of laundry	Gathering used towels
Trash	Taking trash off-site	Sorting trash into the designated indoor bins
Amenities	Avoiding a listed amenity, such as air conditioning	Turning amenities off when leaving

The policy also bans fining or penalizing guests, restricting access to an advertised amenity, asking guests to sign a separate contract, or asking for a government ID, unless required by law and in other limited circumstances.

Exceptions remain possible depending on local conditions. Airbnb’s example is limiting shower time during drought-related water restrictions.

What happens to a listing that keeps its old checkout instructions?

Airbnb applies a step-by-step escalation:

1. 1

   Flag in the listing editor

   Non-compliant requests are highlighted in the listing editor, with a tip on how to fix them.

2. 2

   Email to the host

   The host receives an email with tips to comply and the option to appeal if they disagree.

3. 3

   Alert visible to guests

   If the issue persists, the listing may show an alert such as "includes cleaning requests".

4. 4

   Reduced visibility

   Persistent violations can reduce the listing's visibility in search results.

For a concierge business managing twenty listings, a “cleaning requests” alert on just one of them is visible to guests and to the owner. The safest move is to fix every listing before November 20, without waiting for the first flag.

Cleaning fees: who pays the difference?

The new policy does not touch cleaning fees: neither the policy nor the announcement to hosts changes them. What changes is the work required at each checkout.

The tasks guests will no longer do fall to the cleaning team: stripping the bed, washing and putting away dishes, taking out the trash. Time per turnover goes up. Someone has to carry that extra cost, and there are three options:

• The concierge business absorbs it. The price stays the same, the margin per turnover drops.
• The guest pays it. Cleaning fees go up. Airbnb requires the price shown to guests to be the total price, so the increase is visible in search results and can weigh on bookings.
• The owner covers it. The concierge business renegotiates its pricing or its mandate, with numbers to back it up.

No option is right by default. Choose property by property, based on the time actually added to each cleaning, measured with your cleaning providers.

What does it mean for owners and concierge businesses?

The main risk for a concierge business is discovering the extra cost too late, on December’s cleaning invoices. The provider bills the actual time, the owner expects the same income, and the gap comes out of the commission.

How to adapt your business before November 20?

1. 1

   Review every listing in the new editor

   Non-compliant requests are already flagged there: it is the most reliable to-do list.

2. 2

   Rewrite checkout instructions

   Replace each banned task with its allowed version: dishes in the sink, towels gathered, trash sorted, amenities turned off.

3. 3

   Remove instructions sent after booking

   Automated messages, house manuals, signs: anything that adds a rule outside the listing has to go.

4. 4

   Measure the extra cleaning time

   With your cleaning providers, measure the time added per turnover, property by property.

5. 5

   Update your pricing with owners

   Show the extra cost in numbers and agree on who carries it, before the first affected bookings.

Why reduce your dependence on platforms?

Between the October 20 announcement and the November 20 start date, hosts had one month to adapt. A platform sets its own rules, and a concierge business that relies on a single channel absorbs every change in its costs.

What you control are your money flows: what the owner pays, what you invoice, what your cleaning providers receive. With split payment, every payment is split on receipt between the owner, your commission and your providers. A higher cleaning fee then flows through automatically on every payout, with no invoice to redo and no reminders to send. Split payment is available from €50 excl. VAT per month, with no volume commitment.

To see what it costs for your properties, check our split payment pricing.