Airbnb will start displaying the total price of stays, including cleaning and service fees, by default on May 12, 2025.

This change is in response to a new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rule requiring businesses to clearly present total pricing in all advertisements.

The rule applies to Airbnb users in the US and over 200 markets.

In 2023, Airbnb introduced an optional toggle for total pricing, leading nearly 300,000 hosts to reduce or eliminate cleaning fees.

Similar pricing measures were also implemented in Europe, Australia, Canada, and South Korea to comply with local regulations.

The FTC finalized the rule in December 2024 as part of its effort to eliminate “junk fees” in industries like lodging and event ticketing.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Transparency regulations reveal a global regulatory cascade effect

Airbnb’s price display changes reflect a pattern where consumer protection regulations often begin in Europe before spreading to the US.

The company had already implemented total price display in parts of Europe, Australia, Canada, and Korea as early as 2019 following local regulations, years before the US FTC rule 1.

This follows a regulatory pattern seen across digital markets, where European consumer protection standards often precede similar US regulations by several years.

The delayed implementation in the US highlights how different regulatory environments create uneven consumer experiences across global platforms, with some markets experiencing greater price transparency years before others.

This geographic disparity in consumer protection is increasingly challenging for global tech platforms that must adapt their products to meet different regulatory requirements across hundreds of markets.

2️⃣ Pricing transparency drives significant market behavior changes

When Airbnb introduced optional total price display in 2023, it triggered substantial changes in host behavior without regulatory requirements.

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