Setting an Airbnb Cleaning Fee That Actually Works
Optus Glean works with Irish short-term let hosts and operators every week, and the cleaning fee is one of the most commonly mis-set numbers on a listing. Set it too low and every changeover quietly erodes your margin; set it too high and your booking conversion drops, especially on short stays. The right fee is the one that recovers the real cost of a turnover and still sits inside your local market band.
This guide is a five-step method for getting there. It is host education — the figures below are market references, not a quote. When you would rather hand changeovers to a named, vetted cleaner on a fixed monthly programme, see our Airbnb cleaning cost guide and our Airbnb changeover cleaning service. This page pairs with our Article guide on how much to charge for an Airbnb cleaning fee.
The Five Steps
- Cost your actual changeover. Start from what a turnover really costs, not a guess. Take the cleaning time per changeover and multiply by your cleaner's true loaded cost, benchmarking the Contract Cleaning ERO floor of €14.80 per hour for 2026 plus employer PRSI at 11.05%. Then add linen laundering and consumables to reach a real per-turnover cost.
- Add linen and laundry per turnover. Linen is the single biggest hidden cost. Count your par-levels (three sets per bed in rotation) and the actual per-cycle laundry cost, then divide across each changeover. Do not estimate this from memory; a single same-day turnover that runs out of clean linen costs you a cancelled or one-star stay, so price it properly.
- Benchmark against comparable Irish listings. Open five to ten similar listings in your own area and note their cleaning fees. A studio in Dublin city centre and a 4-bed holiday home on the Wild Atlantic Way sit in very different bands. Position your fee inside the local range so guests do not flag your listing as an outlier on price.
- Decide flat fee versus absorbed into the nightly rate. Model both options against your average length of stay. A separate flat cleaning fee hits short one or two-night stays hardest, where it can double the effective nightly price and suppress bookings. For mostly short stays, absorbing some cost into the nightly rate often converts better; for longer stays, a transparent flat fee reads as fair.
- Test and adjust against booking conversion. Treat the fee as a variable, not a fixed decision. After any change, watch your booking rate for two weeks and compare it to the prior period. If bookings drop, the fee is too high for your market; if you are fully booked at a premium, you have room to move. Re-tune each season.
What the Real Numbers Look Like
The honest floor for your fee is the loaded cost of the changeover. The Contract Cleaning Employment Regulation Order sets a labour floor of €14.80 per hour for 2026, published by the Workplace Relations Commission; on top of that sits employer PRSI at 11.05%, holiday and pension on-costs, travel time between units, linen laundering, and consumables. A realistic loaded turnover cost runs from roughly on request for a 1-bed up to about on request for a 4-bed before any margin. Use that as your fee floor, then position within your local band.
A Note on VAT
If you let as a business, VAT matters to how you set and quote the fee. Cleaning services carry VAT at the standard rate of 23%. The VAT registration threshold for a person supplying services in Ireland is €42,500 (the goods threshold is €85,000), per Revenue. Short-term let income itself is treated as Case I trading income or Case IV occasional income by Revenue — not Case V rental income — because your guests are guests, not tenants; see the Revenue guidance on rental income.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I charge for an Airbnb cleaning fee in Ireland?
Optus Glean recommends setting the fee to cover your real changeover cost rather than copying a round number. For a managed turnover, the true cost runs from roughly €45 to €110 by property size, before margin. Cost your own changeover against the €14.80 ERO labour floor, add linen and consumables, then benchmark comparable local listings so your fee sits in-band.
What is the average Airbnb cleaning fee in Ireland?
There is no single national figure, because fees scale with property size and location. A studio or 1-bed in a city sits at the lower end, while a 3 or 4-bed holiday home commands more. The honest benchmark is your own market: check five to ten comparable listings in your area, because a Dublin city fee and a Wild Atlantic Way holiday-home fee are not the same.
Does a high cleaning fee reduce bookings?
It can, especially on short stays. A flat cleaning fee is spread across the whole booking, so on a one or two-night stay it inflates the effective nightly price and suppresses conversion. On longer stays the same fee barely registers. Model both a separate flat fee and an absorbed-into-nightly approach against your average length of stay before deciding.
Should the fee cover linen?
Yes, your fee should recover linen and laundry, because it is the largest variable cost in a changeover. Count your par-levels at three sets per bed in rotation and divide the real per-cycle laundry cost across each turnover. Hosts who leave linen out of the fee quietly erode their margin every single stay without realising it.
Can I pass my cleaner's cost straight through?
You can use your cleaner's per-turnover cost as the floor for the fee, but pass through the true loaded cost, not just an hourly rate. Include employer on-costs, linen, consumables and a margin for management. If you are VAT-registered, note that cleaning services carry 23% VAT and the VAT registration threshold for services is €42,500, which affects how you quote.