Soon You Won’t Have to Do Dishes at an Airbnb (Unless You Really Want To)

You’re checking out in an hour, and there’s a pile of dishes. If it’s an Airbnb, don’t worry about it. The lodging platform recently updated its policy about what hosts can ask guests to do, and some cleaning chores are now off the list.

In the Reasonable House Rules and requests page on its website, Airbnb says hosts cannot “ask guests to complete tasks that require significant effort or time, or would typically be performed by a cleaner, including stripping the bed, taking trash offsite, or washing and putting away dishes.”

Airbnb said there could be exceptions — “We understand every home is unique” — such as asking guests to limit water use if there are local restrictions due to drought, or to put trash in a bear-proof container at a woodsy lodging.

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The app said the new regulations will apply to reservations booked on or after Nov. 20.

When laying out house rules and guest requests, many hosts require or ask guests to either clean dishes or put them in the dishwasher and run it. They may also ask guests to bag garbage and recyclables, place them in containers outside, and remove sheets and pillowcases from beds and towels from bathrooms, then pile them up for the cleaners.

Some hosts clapped back at the updated policy on the app’s community forum page. René, a host in Berlin, posted, “Seven days of dirty dishes covered in leftover food. Sugar ants and other pests have moved in. The guests check out. But will the pests check out too?” San Francisco host Adam said he would have to raise his cleaning fee by 30 to 50%, and Michelle in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, commented that “the burden of cost has been switched to the hosts.”

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The updated policy is the latest evolution in what has been one of the main complaints about Airbnb — cleaning fees and requirements. In November 2022, Airbnb changed its app and website so that guests could see cleaning and service fees when searching listings. There was a “Display total price” toggle near the top of a search results page that let you see prices that included all fees (but not taxes).

It was a response to years of complaints that listings did not include those fees upfront, in effect masking the true cost of a rental. For example, you go for a lodging at $100 per night, but in the final stages of making your payment, find out it’s actually $200 per night with all the fees included.

Then, in April 2025, Airbnb mandated that all listings worldwide must have the total price upfront, including all fees but not taxes, saying, “We know that clear, upfront pricing improves the Airbnb experience for both guests and hosts.”

Airbnb, which launched in 2008, says it has 5.5 million hosts globally who have served 2.5 billion guest arrivals in nearly every country for all types of lodgings — mansions, cottages, cabins, RVs, teepees, whatever. The platform’s competitors include Vrbo, Booking.com, Expedia and HomeToGo.

Host sees ‘both sides’ of it

Sam Eitzen, CEO and co-founder of experiential marketing platform Snapbar, operates a guest house in Washington listed on Airbnb where I stayed recently (yes, I did the dishes). He said he understands both sides of the issue — as a host and as a guest himself.

“I have been at Airbnbs that make the checkout instructions almost scary, and you worry about getting things wrong,” Eitzen told me. “We’ve never wanted to create that experience and treat the list of ‘chores’ as optional and helpful, but aim to never make guests feel worried about the process or make it sound like we’d come after them or charge them if they don’t.”

Eitzen said Airbnb is “walking a tightrope” in trying to please both hosts and guests. He said the new policy could create confusion, however.

“People will still post rules, lists and manuals in their Airbnbs, and those will most likely conflict with the app, and I think that runs the risk of confusing guests,” he said.