Are Airbnb Cleaning Fees Taxable Income? IRS Rules Explained

Published March 19, 2026  ·  7 min read

Yes — Airbnb cleaning fees are taxable income. When you collect a cleaning fee from a guest, the IRS treats it as rental income, the same as nightly rent. Airbnb includes cleaning fees in your gross earnings reported on Form 1099-K. However, you can offset much or all of this income by deducting your actual cleaning costs. Here is exactly how it works.

Why Cleaning Fees Are Taxable

Under the Internal Revenue Code, gross income includes "all income from whatever source derived" unless specifically excluded (IRC §61). Cleaning fees collected from guests are payments received in the course of your rental activity — they are income, not reimbursements for a separate service you paid out of pocket.

Airbnb confirms this treatment in its tax reporting: your gross amount on Form 1099-K includes the nightly rate, cleaning fees, and any other guest-paid charges. The platform does not separate them out for you; it is one number.

How to Report Cleaning Fees on Your Tax Return

Report your total gross rental income — including cleaning fees — on:

• Schedule E, Line 3 ("Rents received") if your Airbnb is a passive rental activity
• Schedule C, Line 1 ("Gross receipts or sales") if you provide substantial personal services making it a Schedule C activity

Most Airbnb hosts with standard short-term rentals fall on Schedule E. See our complete Schedule E guide for Airbnb hosts for step-by-step instructions.

Deducting Your Cleaning Costs

The IRS allows you to deduct all "ordinary and necessary" expenses related to your rental property. Cleaning and maintenance costs are explicitly listed in IRS Publication 527 as deductible rental expenses. This includes:

Hiring a Professional Cleaner or Cleaning Service

If you pay a cleaning company or an individual cleaner, the full amount is deductible. Keep invoices and payment receipts. Important: if you pay any individual $600 or more in a calendar year for cleaning services, you may be required to issue them a Form 1099-NEC by January 31 of the following year.

Cleaning Supplies

All supplies you purchase for the property — cleaning products, mops, vacuums, linens, paper goods — are deductible. For small consumables used up in a year, deduct in the year purchased. For larger items like a commercial vacuum, you may need to depreciate over multiple years, though most items under $2,500 qualify for immediate expensing under the de minimis safe harbor.

Laundry Costs

Laundry costs for towels, sheets, and other rental linens are deductible — whether you use a laundry service or launder them yourself at a laundromat. If you use your home washer/dryer, you can deduct the proportional cost of utilities used for rental laundry (though this requires reasonable allocation and documentation).

What If You Do Your Own Cleaning?

If you personally handle all the cleaning, you still collect the cleaning fee as income — but you have little or no cleaning expense to offset it. In this case, most of the cleaning fee flows through as taxable income. You can still deduct supplies and equipment you purchase.

Some hosts intentionally set a cleaning fee equal to their actual out-of-pocket costs, making the net taxable impact nearly zero. Others set fees based on market rates regardless of their actual costs and simply accept that the surplus is taxable.

Cleaning Fees and Occupancy / Sales Taxes

At the federal level, cleaning fees are income tax. At the state and local level, many jurisdictions also apply occupancy tax, transient lodging tax, or sales tax to cleaning fees. The rules vary widely:

• Florida: Cleaning fees are subject to sales tax and tourist development tax
• California: Cleaning fees collected by Airbnb are generally subject to transient occupancy tax in cities that have Airbnb agreements
• Texas: State hotel occupancy tax typically applies to cleaning fees

In most major markets, Airbnb collects and remits occupancy taxes on your behalf, including on cleaning fees. However, if you operate outside Airbnb's automatic tax collection areas, you are responsible for these taxes yourself. See our guide to state taxes for Airbnb hosts for details by state.

Tracking Cleaning Income and Expenses: Best Practices

Good recordkeeping is essential. For each cleaning:

1. Record the date and property
2. Note the amount charged to the guest (cleaning fee)
3. Record the amount paid to the cleaner (if applicable)
4. Keep receipts for all cleaning supply purchases
5. If you use a property management spreadsheet, add columns for "Cleaning fee in" and "Cleaning cost out"

This allows you to quickly calculate your net position and support your deductions if the IRS ever asks. For broader guidance on tracking rental income and expenses, see our Airbnb record-keeping guide.

Security Deposits vs. Cleaning Fees

It is worth distinguishing cleaning fees from security deposits. A security deposit that you expect to return to the guest is not income when received. However, if you keep all or part of a security deposit to cover cleaning costs after a guest damages the property, that amount becomes taxable income when you decide to keep it — and you can deduct the actual cleaning or repair costs incurred.

Sources: Internal Revenue Service (IRS) · Internal Revenue Service (IRS) · AICPA (The Tax Adviser). This article is for informational purposes only.