Booking.com Host Fees

If you have a listing on Vrbo or Airbnb and are looking for alternative sites to reach more travelers and attract more guests, Booking.com is a great place to list your property. Booking.com can offer you a lot of exposure and allows you to diversify your customer base.

But while listing your vacation rental property on Booking.com is free, you’ll need to pay a commission fee for each reservation made through the platform. So how much should you expect to pay? Read on to learn more about Booking.com host fees for property owners.

You may also want to check out our article about the Vrbo fees that every STR host is being charged for using this platform.

What Are Booking.com Host Fees?

Booking.com is a commission-based platform. Property owners and managers who use Booking.com have to pay a certain percentage every time a booking is made and completed through the platform. These Booking.com host fees are rather complicated to understand since they may vary depending on the location, property type, cancellation policy, and more.

When renting out your vacation rental property, creating listings on multiple booking websites effectively increases your occupancy rate and overall revenue.

But every OTA platform charges a fee for their services, so creating your own direct booking website and having more control over your profits also makes sense.

The best thing is that you don’t need any coding skills to do that. You can easily build a fully functional direct booking website using Hospitable’s Direct offering and become more independent of third-party platforms.

How Much Does Booking.com Charge Hosts?

This commission percentage will be different, depending on the part of the world in which your vacation rental property is located. It can also vary, depending on your property type. Booking.com has a commission calculator within the Extranet, which you can use to determine how much you will have to pay.

If you have listed your vacation home on Booking.com but need more information about the platform’s fees, you can check out your Accommodation Agreement. Here, you can find more details about the commission you have to pay.

Keep in mind that Booking.com doesn’t automatically deduct the commission fee at the time of booking. They’ll send you an invoice via email with the commission you have to pay at the beginning of each month. Your monthly commission invoice will be based on the total number of eligible reservations from the previous month.

You can view your complete list of commission invoices and a history of invoices you’ve received from Booking.com on the Extranet. All of them are available in the PDF format. You just need to click on the Finance tab in the Booking.com Extranet and then click on Invoices.

You can also view the commission information for each reservation, like how much commission is due or how much commission has already been paid for any particular invoice, if you select your Reservation statements in the Extranet.

Now that you know the answer to the question, “How much does Booking.com charge hosts?” you might wonder whether it’s worth paying these Booking.com host fees to list your home on this website. The answer is yes because this huge booking platform will help you reach an international audience.

Still, relying on a single OTA platform is never a good idea if you want to grow a successful STR business. That’s why you should list your property on at least all major booking websites, such as Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com to reach more potential guests.

Managing listings on multiple platforms isn’t easy, but you can optimize handling your vacation rental properties using vacation rental software like Hospitable. Our tool can help you manage all your accounts and listings via a channel manager within a single dashboard, automate communication with your guests using a centralized inbox, assign tasks to your team automatically, and more.

How Does Booking.com Determine That Hosts Are Eligible for Commission?

You’ll have to pay the commission when

• Your guest completed their stay at your property—they checked out and paid

• You charge guests for non-refundable bookings, no matter whether they stayed at your property or not

• You charge guests for partially refundable bookings

• You charge guests for cancellations or no-shows

• You charge guests who cancel their reservation after the free cancellation period has ended.

You’ll also have to pay the commission for overbooking because your property was available on Booking.com. Besides, you will need to cover relocation costs for the guest and the price of the new accommodation.

But there are instances when no charges are applied, for example:

• You decide to waive the cancellation fee for a non-refundable booking

• You mark a guest as a no-show and choose to waive the cancellation fee

• You’ve marked a guest’s credit card as invalid because you couldn’t charge the guest.

Bottom Line

Listing your vacation rental property on Booking.com will put you in front of a broad audience, increasing your visibility worldwide and helping you get more bookings. Property owners and managers can create listings for free, but they are expected to pay Booking.com host fees for all reservations once they start receiving bookings.

The amount hosts need to pay will vary, depending on the property type, the country where the rental is located, cancellation policy, and more, but the average commission rate is 15%.