Airbnb hosts will no longer be allowed to require guests to strip beds, wash and put away dishes, start a load of laundry or take rubbish off the property before checking out. The new house rules policy applies worldwide, including in South Africa, to reservations booked on or after 20 November 2026.

Airbnb says the change follows years of complaints from guests who paid a cleaning fee and were still handed a list of chores. "Guests shouldn't be asked to avoid using a listed amenity like air conditioning, but you can ask them to turn it off when they leave," Airbnb tells hosts.

There’s no record of any complaints about this ever originating in SA, and we suspect it’s because South Africans handle Airbnb very differently than some in other countries do. But we didn’t know for sure, so we wanted to find out…

Guests are not off the hook entirely. Hosts can still ask them to put dirty dishes in the sink, gather used towels, separate rubbish and recycling into indoor bins, lock up and return keys, and leave the place in reasonable condition. What changes is that anything needing significant time or effort, or that a cleaner would normally do, can no longer be required.

Airbnb says cleaning fees are meant to cover standard cleaning between stays, including laundry and vacuuming. All rules must now be shown on the listing before someone books, and hosts can no longer add new rules afterwards through messages or signs in the property. Airbnb is also standardising seven core house rules, covering pets, smoking, quiet hours, events, commercial photography, maximum guests and locking up.

Hosts cannot impose their own fines or charge guests for skipping a checkout task. And hosts who keep breaking the rules can get warnings, a notice on their listing or lower visibility in search. Some requests that matter locally are still allowed. Limits on shower time during a drought, for example, remain a reasonable request.

The backlash has come mostly from Australian, British and American hosts, some of whom have launched petitions and talked about blocking bookings on 20 November. Several say they will raise their cleaning fees to cover the extra work.

Time Out South Africa framed it as good news for guests heading into the festive season and less good news for hosts. ABC News reported the petitions and planned blackout among Australian hosts. Yahoo Travel quoted consumer advocate Michelle Couch-Friedman, who said the rules would force hosts to use cleaning fees for what they were meant for, paying a professional to clean. 2oceansvibe noted that the restrictions are qualified rather than an absolute ban on every request.

There is no public record of South African guests complaining about checkout chores the way travellers have in Australia, the US and UK, and there is a likely reason. Many local hosts already rely on cleaners and domestic workers between stays, so long chore lists were less common here.

Airbnb itself partnered with South African cleaning startups SweepSouth and PropaClean in 2020 to train domestic workers to its standards.

For many South African hosts, then, the practical change is small. The two parts that matter most are elsewhere. First, every rule must be visible before booking, which protects guests from surprises. Second, hosts lose the ability to charge fines, so any extra cleaning cost will show up in the cleaning fee instead, where guests can see it and compare.

For local competitors, it is a useful moment. LekkeSlaap, now under new owners, sets its own rules for hosts, and clear, simple house rules are something any platform can compete on. As Airbnb's AI search shows, it is pushing hard to feel more like a hotel, and cleaning up after guests is part of that.

You might also like our piece on New York's click-to-cancel rule, SA tourist arrivals, and FindHomes rental data.

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