Airbnb rule change frees guests from chores involving 'significant effort'

SAN FRANCISCO — Airbnb has revised its rules to reduce the tasks a host can expect a guest to perform at the end of their stay — and washing dishes has been wiped from the to-do list.

Airbnb, which connects travelers with more than 5 million hosts globally, has advised hosts to choose from seven standard house rules that will be displayed prominently on the listing page.

Hosts can set ground rules for maximum occupancy, quiet hours, and pets, as well as specify key return procedures and whether guests may hold events or host commercial photo shoots.

The policy update, applicable to all reservations booked on or after Nov. 20, is designed to streamline the Airbnb experience after a slew of customer complaints about unclear house rules and laborious demands by property hosts.

"House rules help guests understand what hosts expect, but we've heard from our community that they can be confusing, onerous and hard to manage," an Airbnb spokesperson told CNN Thursday.

"So we've redesigned them to make them easier to discover and clearer to set, alongside a new policy that keeps requests reasonable, with no surprises," they added.

Hosts remain free to detail more specific requests alongside the formulaic rules they've selected from Airbnb's standard list, but those requests must be considered reasonable.

Chores requiring "significant effort or time" that would typically be completed by a cleaner are off limits as guest requests, including stripping beds and taking out the trash.

While hosts are no longer at liberty to instruct guests to wash and put dishes away, they may request that used dishes are placed in the sink upon their departure.

Host-imposed fines are also prohibited, and guests are expected to work with hosts to reach a solution if a deeper issue, such as property damage, occurs.

Transparency appears to be key under the new policy, as hosts must be upfront about their house rules at the time of booking and cannot add caveats later.

Nor can hosts ask guests to enter a contract separate from the one they signed via Airbnb when they made their booking, except in limited circumstances.

"Personally, I think it's fantastic," Minnesota mom Ellen, known online as Tall Mom Running, said in a video on social media.

She said that during a previous Airbnb stay, she was sent a list of things to do the day before leaving the property and threatened with a fine if they were not completed.

"It was an hour worth of work," she laughed, adding: "An hour of cleaning? No, thank you, I don't want to be doing that on vacation."

But not everyone is as thrilled about the policy amendment.

"It's not a matter of duty, it's about good manners," Rossana Imbrogno, whose property in Rome has been adorned with the title of "guest favorite" on the site, said in a comment on social media.

"I clean and strip the bed and trash the litter even if I stay in a hotel," the "superhost" added.

Related topics