The 15 Worst Cities for High Airbnb Fees

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Searching for the perfect vacation rental for your next trip, you set your budget at $100 a night and spend hours combing through Airbnb to find just the right property. When you go to check out, suddenly that $100 a night turns into nearly $200 per night once cleaning fees, service charges, and taxes are added on. 

This frustration is all too common when it comes to renting a vacation home, and Forbes Advisor just pulled the data to show exactly how bad Airbnb fees have become.

The financial site analyzed booking costs for more than 32,000 listings in 102 Airbnb markets across the United States and found that for summer 2023 Airbnb bookings, consumers will have to pay an average of 36 percent in added fees on top of the nightly rates. 

There are some destinations where the fees are particularly high—set your budget higher than normal if you’re headed to Georgia for your summer trip. Atlanta is the worst destination for Airbnb fees, where total fees and taxes average a whopping 48 percent of the cost of a booking.

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The Cities With the Most Expensive Airbnb Fees

Although destination taxes are an unavoidable part of staying at a hotel or vacation rental, Airbnb’s notoriously high cleaning fees can give travelers pause, especially if the host asks guests to do some cleaning themselves—like taking out the trash, doing laundry, or stripping beds. 

Forbes Advisor found that the average cleaning fee for Airbnb bookings is $32 per day. Watch out for hefty cleaning fees in Phoenix in particular, where the surcharge tends to be the highest—an average of 15 percent of the total cost of the rental.

Want to avoid a cleaning fee and still have daily housekeeping? Search for a hotel on SmarterTravel Hotels. 

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