Platform commissions and direct bookings: what actually stays with you
Updated 14.09.2026
On Airbnb there is now a single service fee, and you pay it: 15.5% of what you take. The guest pays exactly the price you set, and what reaches you is that price minus the fee. Then there is VAT on the commission, and then there is the Italian tax system, which taxes you on money you never saw. This page works all three parts through to the end.
The 15.5% and what it is charged on
Airbnb groups its service costs into a single commission of 15.5%, and that commission falls entirely on the host. The percentage is based on the global average of Airbnb service costs. Whoever books sees the final price: no service fee added at the moment of payment.
The deduction does not apply only to the nightly rate. It is calculated on the booking subtotal, so it also covers the extras you have set in your listing. The cleaning fee is the most common case. If you keep a modest nightly rate and a high cleaning charge, you pay the commission on that too.
A quick sum. Rate at €100: Airbnb keeps €15.50 and €84.50 reaches you. On the house at €480 a night the deduction is €74.40 and €405.60 remains. Seven nights come to €520.80 in commission.
VAT on the commission: 15.5 becomes 18.91
VAT applies to the service costs in most cases. For a host without a VAT number that tax cannot be recovered: it is simply a cost. At the Italian rate of 22%, 15.5% becomes 18.91% of the subtotal.
If you are VAT-registered the position is different: the platform issues an invoice and you handle the tax in your own accounts. It is a difference worth checking with your accountant, because it moves the sum by several points.
The flat tax is charged on the gross amount
Here comes the part almost nobody adds up, and it weighs the most. A host who has opted for the Italian cedolare secca pays the substitute tax on the gross consideration: the taxable base is, as a rule, the entire rent or consideration, without the flat 5% reduction the ordinary regime allows.
Gross means the price the guest pays, not the amount that lands in your account. The platform commission is already inside that figure, and under the cedolare secca nothing is deductible — not the commission, not the VAT on it, not cleaning, not electricity, not water. So you are taxed on the part that went to the platform as well.
The full sum on €480 a night, cedolare secca at 21%: €74.40 commission, plus €16.37 VAT which brings the real cost to €90.77, plus €100.80 of tax calculated on the whole €480. You are left with €288.43. On the same amount booked directly there is no commission and the tax is unchanged: you are left with €379.20.
Since 2026 the flat tax covers two apartments
If you have more than one house there is a second thing to know, and it is recent. From the 2026 tax year the cedolare secca on short lets applies only if you devote no more than two apartments to it in the year: previously it was four. Above that threshold the activity is deemed to be carried on in business form, by whoever carries it on.
And even below the threshold there is not a single rate: 21% applies to one property only, chosen by you in your tax return; 26% applies to the second.
So: with three houses the cedolare secca no longer concerns you and the question moves to the business regime, with everything that entails. With two houses, the second is already taxed at 26%. The sum in the previous section has to be redone with your own rate — the mechanism does not change, the number does. Where exactly you stand is for your accountant to say, not a web page.
What stays, channel by channel
One night at €480, host without a VAT number, cedolare secca at 21%:
| Item | Airbnb | Direct |
|---|---|---|
| List price | 480.00 | 480.00 |
| Commission 15.5% | −74.40 | 0 |
| VAT 22% on the commission | −16.37 | 0 |
| Tax 21% on the gross | −100.80 | −100.80 |
| You keep | 288.43 | 379.20 |
The difference is €90.77 a night. Over twenty nights that is €1,815, and it is not money lost to a worse house or one guest fewer: you paid it to be found.
The platforms are not the enemy
A platform does something real for you: it brings people who would never have found you, from countries where you would not know where to advertise. The problem is not that it exists. The problem starts when it is the only way your house can be booked, because then every single night of the year runs through that percentage.
The way out is not to leave the platforms. It is to make sure that someone who has already seen you there can also book directly — and that it is worth their while. The shop window stays a shop window; the margin goes back to being yours.
How Chilloso solves it
Your house gets a site of its own, with its own domain, in nine languages, included in the price. Whoever searches for you on Google after seeing you on the platform finds you, and books with you.
And prices do not have to be the same everywhere: one rate plan for Booking, one for Airbnb, one of your own for direct, each with its percentage offset, house by house. You raise the base price once and they all follow. Set the rate plans that way and whoever books with you pays less than they would on the platform, and the difference stays with you instead of going into commission.
Why a different price on your own site is legitimate, and what Italian law says about it, is set out in full on the page about double bookings, stay rules and rate plans.
Do you need more information?