How much to charge for a late checkout? Do this calculation before responding to the guest
This type of message does reach me.
“Hello, our flight leaves late. Can we leave the house tomorrow at 1:00 PM instead of 11:00 AM?”
Two hours.
At first, it doesn’t seem like much.
Until I look at the calendar.
At 4:00 PM, another family arrives.
And preparing the house takes about three hours.
Then I’m not thinking about whether to charge €20, €40, or do them a favor.
I’m thinking something else:
Can I say yes without messing up the next check-in?
And if the answer is yes, then we ask the second question:
How much would it make sense to charge?
We wouldn’t charge a late checkout simply by the hour.
If no one comes in after and it doesn’t incur any cost, it might make sense to offer it even for free.
If you have to move cleaning, hire extra help, or incur any costs, at a minimum it should cover that cost and leave you the margin you want to earn.
And if it jeopardizes the next check-in, we would say no until we find a safe way to recover that time.
The late checkout is not worth what two hours show on the clock. It’s worth what those two hours force you to change.
Let’s go with the case, which is much clearer
The normal checkout is at 11:00 AM.
The next guest checks in at 4:00 PM.
That seems to leave five hours.
But the house needs three hours of cleaning.
And I wouldn’t leave the schedule calculated to the minute.
Because the day you do, a stained sheet, a burnt bulb, traffic, a breakdown, or any other little joy appears.
Let’s leave a 45-minute buffer.
Normal checkout: 11:00 AM
Next check-in: 4:00 PM
Preparation time: 3 hours
Buffer in case something complicates: 45 minutes
So we already have our first answer.
The guest is not really asking me for “two hours.”
They are asking to stay until 1:00 PM when, with this data, my comfortable limit is 12:15 PM.
I’m short 45 minutes.
So we have two options
One: say no.
Two: find those 45 minutes somewhere.
For example, by adding a second person to the cleaning.
Let’s assume that with that extra help, the house can be ready in 2 hours and 15 minutes.
4:00 PM − 2 h 15 min − 45 min = 1:00 PM.
Now yes. With the extra help, we can accept the checkout at 1:00 PM without eating into our buffer.
Perfect.
Now we need to know how much it costs us to do it.
And here comes the money
Let’s imagine the following.
Cleaning reinforcement: €30
Schedule change and travel: €8
Other costs that arise from accepting: €5
Margin we want to earn for offering the service: €15
€30 + €8 + €5 = €43 additional cost.
€43 + €15 margin = €58.
With these assumptions, we wouldn’t offer it for less than €58. As a practical price, we would probably talk about €60.
And here is an important difference.
The €58 is the result of the calculations.
The €60 is a reasonable business decision.
It doesn’t make sense to pretend a precision that doesn’t exist.
And the mortgage? The property tax? The insurance?
For this specific decision, I wouldn’t include them.
The mortgage doesn’t change because the guest leaves at 1:00 PM.
Neither does the property tax.
And neither does the insurance.
Those costs do matter to know if the property is profitable or what your general price should be.
But here we are answering something much smaller:
What expense arises because I say yes to this late checkout?
That’s what we need to know.
Three identical messages. Three different responses
| Situation | What happens | What we would do |
|---|---|---|
| No one comes in after | The cleaning can be done later and no relevant cost arises. | We can give it for free if we want or charge it as a service. The minimum cost can be practically €0. |
| There’s a check-in, but there’s enough time | The guest leaves later but we still have enough cleaning + buffer. | Accept if we are interested. Charging will depend on the actual cost and our commercial policy. |
| We are short 45 minutes | We need reinforcement to recover that time. | We would only accept if the reinforcement works and the price covers cost + margin. |
| We can’t recover the time | The next property might not be ready. | We would say no. |
Airbnb expressly states that a late checkout may incur an additional cost, for example when the host needs to hire additional cleaning staff to prepare the accommodation for the next guests.
It also allows changing the checkout time of a specific reservation when the host can accommodate it, but does not allow selecting a time that overlaps with another reservation.
What we wouldn’t do
We wouldn’t automatically divide the daily rate by 24.
If your house costs €240 a night:
Two additional hours don’t have to cost you €20.
They might cost €0.
They might cost €43.
Or you might not be able to sell them at all.
It depends on what happens in your house during those two hours.
Calculate your case
Gatavia Late Checkout Calculator
Change our numbers for yours.
Important: this calculator obtains an economic minimum based on the data you enter. It does not intend to tell you what the maximum price a guest would be willing to pay.
One important thing about the result
The calculator tells you the economic minimum you have set.
It does not tell you how much the service is “worth” commercially.
If your calculations say you need €35 to make it worthwhile and your guests happily pay €50, there’s no financial reason to limit yourself to €35.
The calculation serves to know the floor.
Not necessarily the ceiling.
What would we respond to the message?
If there’s no other check-in and it hardly generates costs: we can have the detail of giving it for free or charging it as an extra.
If there’s another check-in and there’s still enough time: we can accept.
If we need reinforcement: we first calculate how much it costs and then set a price.
If we can’t guarantee that the next house will be ready, the answer is no. There are reservations that are not worth selling.
What Airbnb says about late checkout
Airbnb currently states that a guest can request a later checkout and that there may be additional charges, for example if the host needs to hire additional cleaning staff to prepare the property for the next guests.
It also allows modifying the checkout time of an individual reservation when it can be accommodated. That new time cannot overlap with another reservation.
Airbnb does not establish a universal rate for a late checkout in that documentation.
And we wouldn’t invent one either.
Quick questions
How much should I charge for two hours of late checkout?
There is no universal figure. First calculate what costs arise from accepting those two hours and if they affect the preparation of the next reservation.
Does it make sense to offer it for free?
Yes. If there’s no other check-in, no relevant costs arise, and you want to use it as guest care, it can make economic sense.
Is it a good idea to charge by the hour?
We wouldn’t use that criterion as a basis. Two hours can have completely different economic consequences depending on the next check-in and the cleaning.
What do I do if it jeopardizes the next check-in?
First, try to recover the time with real resources. If you can’t do it safely, we would reject the request.
Is the minimum calculated by Gatavia the price I should charge?
Not necessarily. It is the minimum derived from your costs and the target margin you have entered. The commercial price may be higher.
How we did the calculations
In this article, there are three distinct things, and we don’t want to mix them.
Verified data: what Airbnb currently says about late checkout requests and modifying the checkout.
Assumptions: the times, the €30 reinforcement, the €8 travel, and the other amounts in the example. They are a simulation to explain the method.
Gatavia calculation: the result obtained by applying the formulas to those assumptions.
The figures in the example are not an average market rate or a universal recommendation.
To decide about your property, use your actual costs.
Sources
Airbnb Help Center: Request a late checkout time .
Airbnb Help Center: Update a guest’s check-in or checkout time .
Gatavia · Question. Data. Calculations. Decide.