The platforms that fill most UK holiday homes have rewritten fees, cancellations and how guest details are shared. Tax and registration tightened in the same window. An unadjusted Airbnb rate now pays less. Peak-week cancellation cover is weaker than Strict used to be. Welsh stock needs a registration diary from this week.
Late September 2026 reading of published help pages and partner notices, not legal advice. Settings still vary by account. Screening and damage cases sit in the host-disasters roundup. This page is the rulebook.
Airbnb’s single host fee
The old split is gone. Hosts used to pay about 3 per cent while guests saw a separate service fee of roughly 14 to 16.5 per cent on top. Airbnb has folded both into one host-only service fee, typically 15.5 per cent of the booking subtotal. Guests see the price you set. You take home what is left.
Airbnb’s own worked example is the one to keep. Leave a listing at £100 and the payout after 15.5 per cent is about £84.50. Raise it to £115 and the guest still sees £115 while you keep about £97, which is what the old split paid on a £100 night. Brazil and Mexico sit at 16 per cent. The fee usually applies to cleaning, pets and other official add-ons as well as the base night. UK VAT sits on Airbnb’s fee. If you are not VAT-registered you cannot reclaim it.
UK accounts were largely moved by 22 June 2026. The published deadline to reprice was 15 September 2026 for hosts outside the European Economic Area, which includes the United Kingdom, and 13 October 2026 for the EEA and Switzerland. Bookings made before your account switched keep the fee they were booked under. New reservations do not.
What to do: Use Airbnb’s bulk price tool. Recheck the guest-facing total against Booking.com and against the rate on a site you own. If advertised rates rise, watch the VAT registration threshold. The rest of the contract, including the off-platform ban, is in the Airbnb host-terms piece.
Cancellation: Strict is gone
Airbnb retired Strict for new listings on 1 October 2025. Existing Strict listings were moved to Firm. Super Strict 30 and 60 closed to new listings from mid-June 2026, with most remaining listings migrated by 15 September. Do not assume an invitation-only holdover is still live on your account.
Firm, in plain English: the guest gets a full refund if they cancel 30 or more days before check-in. Between 7 and 30 days they get 50 per cent. Inside 7 days you keep 100 per cent of the nights. On top of every standard policy sits a 24-hour free cancel after confirmation, but only if the stay was booked at least 7 days before arrival.
That is the bit that hurts a UK cottage in school holidays, event weeks and coastal peak Saturdays. A January booking for August can still walk away in July with a full refund. Strict used to lock much earlier.
What to do: Screenshot every listing’s cancellation policy before the next school-holiday release. Do not assume Strict is still live. Use minimum stays where the calendar can take them, and Booking.com non-refundable plans where you need a harder lock.
Other Airbnb changes that alter the week
A few operating rules now sit in the background of every stay.
- Search shows a total price. Extra charges belong in official fee fields, not in house-rules text.
- From 9 March 2026 the exact address, a contact number and the arrival guide go to the guest at confirmation, including during the free-cancel window. Detailed keypad codes still tend to land closer to arrival.
- House rules sit on a standard menu: quiet hours, smoking, pets, events, times, guest numbers, commercial photography. Custom rules need Airbnb’s review before they appear on the listing.
- AirCover terms from April 2026 want original, checkable evidence. AI images are out. Smoke odour is treated as its own claim. Fewer consumables are reimbursed. Do not treat AirCover as a promised percentage. Each claim is decided on its file.
- Messages are scanned for off-platform pitches and unofficial deposits. Party bans and reservation screening are still in force.
What to do: Put cleaning, pet and extra-guest charges in the official fields. Stop collecting deposits, ID scans or off-platform links in Airbnb chat. Photograph the house on the phone’s own camera at every changeover and keep the original file.
Booking.com: two September 2026 changes
Pricing in the EEA, from 28 September
The European Commission published a DMA factsheet on Booking.com on 28 September 2026. For properties in the European Economic Area, external prices are no longer used to decide Booking Sponsored Benefit eligibility. Partner pages now say more about how Genius, Preferred and Preferred Plus work. Competitive and non-competitive labels have been taken off the Extranet. Contractual parity clauses were already out of EEA terms. A cheaper rate on your own site is allowed there.
The United Kingdom is not in the EEA. Public partner paperwork still lists the UK as a narrow-parity country: the same or better rates and conditions on Booking.com as on your own online channels. Ranking and merchant-model discounting can still show a guest a lower figure than the rate you loaded. That is the caveat in one line. The longer UK parity story is in the rate-parity explainer and the Booking.com host-terms piece.
Guest phone numbers, from 28 September
From 28 September 2026, new reservations no longer send the guest’s mobile to channel managers and property-management systems. Booking.com’s stated reason is phishing. The number still sits in the Extranet and the Pulse app. Older stored numbers stay. Names, dates, rates and availability still sync. The change is global for connected properties. Extranet-only listings do not move.
What to do: Replace any lockbox-by-text workflow that assumed the phone would land in the PMS. Review how deep the Genius discount now goes. If you have stock in Ireland, France, Spain or another EEA market, decide whether a lower direct rate is now worth running. A UK-only listing does not get that DMA freedom automatically.
The UK rulebook around the platforms
Treat this as a map, not a legal opinion.
Tax. Furnished Holiday Lettings relief ended on 6 April 2025. Holiday-let income is ordinary property income. Mortgage interest is a basic-rate reducer, not a full deduction. Business Asset Disposal Relief no longer attaches to an FHL sale. Council tax versus business rates is a separate live argument, covered in the holiday-cottage tax note.
London. The 90-day rule is Greater London planning law on a dwelling used as a short-term let. It is not a national cap.
Rest of England. There is still no statutory 90-night cap. The national short-term let register is confirmed in law and still described on GOV.UK as not yet in force. What to keep in the drawer is in the England register piece.
Scotland. Short-term let licensing has been mandatory since October 2022. Edinburgh’s visitor levy has been live since 24 July 2026.
Wales. WRA registration opens on 1 October 2026 as a public beta. You must be on the register by 31 March 2027 even if your council never brings in a levy. Cardiff owners already account, from 28 September 2026, for bookings of stays from 1 April 2027. The published self-catering rate is £1.30 per person per night, with a lower 75p band for some shared and camping stays. Several councils have not opted in. The levy and the register are unpacked in the visitor-levy piece.
England long-lets. The Renters’ Rights Act is private-rented law, not holiday-let law. The rental-bidding ban from 1 May 2026 applies to long-lets. The PRS database starts a regional rollout from 15 December 2026. Flag both only if the same building flips between a cottage week and an assured tenancy.
What to do: Wales owners diary the WRA portal this week. London owners do not assume the 90-day rule applies to a Cornish cottage. Mixed-portfolio owners keep the long-let rules off the holiday listing.
What to do this month
- Confirm the fee line in your Airbnb account and reprice for 15.5 per cent if the payout has dropped.
- Screenshot cancellation settings before the next school-holiday release.
- Put cleaning, pet and extra-guest charges in official fields.
- Stop collecting deposits, IDs or off-platform links in Airbnb chat.
- Rebuild the Booking.com guest-contact workflow so it does not depend on a phone number arriving in the PMS.
- Welsh stock: register when the portal opens. Cardiff owners are already accounting for 2027 stays.
- Review short-let insurance and claims evidence standards before the next high-risk booking.
The platforms still earn their keep as shop windows. Card fees on a booking that lands on a site you own are usually 2 to 3 per cent, not 15.5 per cent, and the cancellation text is yours. That is the bit you control. A working example of the page guests actually use is at cottage.demo-sites.uk. StayLocal is built to sit beside the big sites, not to replace tomorrow’s calendar.
The wreckage cases, when you need them, are in the disasters roundup.
Key sources
- Airbnb Resource Centre, Simplifying service fees on Airbnb, updated 24 August 2026: 15.5 per cent host-only fee, £100 / £115 worked example, reprice deadlines 15 September 2026 outside the EEA and 13 October 2026 in the EEA and Switzerland.
- Airbnb Help, cancellation policies: Firm terms, 24-hour grace on bookings made 7 or more days before arrival, Strict retired for new listings 1 October 2025.
- Host and PMS write-ups (BNBCalc, StaySTRA, TabiVista, Hostaway), 2026: UK fee move largely complete 22 June 2026; Super Strict wound down June to 15 September 2026; address and arrival guide at confirmation from 9 March 2026.
- European Commission DMA factsheet on Booking.com, 28 September 2026, and HOTREC reaction the same day: external prices no longer used for Booking Sponsored Benefit eligibility in the EEA.
- Smoobu and other connectivity notices, late September 2026: guest mobiles no longer sent to channel managers and PMS from 28 September 2026, global for connected properties.
- HMRC: Furnished Holiday Lettings regime abolished 6 April 2025.
- GOV.WALES, Registering visitor accommodation, updated 24 September 2026: portal 1 October 2026, mandatory by 31 March 2027. Cardiff levy accounting from 28 September 2026 for stays from 1 April 2027.
- GOV.UK Overnight Visitor Levy response, 10 September 2026; Renters’ Rights Act roadmap and draft PRS Database Regulations 2026 (bidding ban is long-let; database from 15 December 2026).