How to start an Airbnb co-hosting business in Europe (2026)

A co-host is someone a listing owner adds to their Airbnb listing to help run it, from pricing and guest messages to the calendar and turnovers. Airbnb allows up to 10 co-hosts per listing, each with an access level the owner chooses.^{1 2} As a business, co-hosting means running other people’s short-stay properties for a share of what they earn. Starting one takes six steps, from checking your market’s rules to signing the first owner.

In this guide

1. What Airbnb co-hosting is
2. What a co-host does, task by task
3. How co-hosting works on Airbnb
4. How co-hosts get paid
5. The European details to check
6. Co-hosting, arbitrage or buying: the short version
7. Is co-hosting a good business? The honest version
8. How to start an Airbnb co-hosting business: the first six steps
9. Questions people ask
10. Sources

What Airbnb co-hosting is

On Airbnb, every home listing belongs to one account: the listing owner. A co-host is a person that owner, or a full-access co-host, invites with a phone number or email address.¹ The owner stays responsible for every co-host on the listing.²

Host, co-host and manager: who is who on a listing

• The host is the listing owner on the platform, often but not always the property owner.
• The co-host is anyone added to the listing with a permission level, from a friend who hands over keys to a company that runs everything.
• The manager is a business role, not an Airbnb one: whoever runs the property for the owner under a management agreement, usually for a management commission.

The co-host feature versus the co-hosting business

The feature is a set of permissions inside Airbnb. The business, short-term rental management, is everything around it: finding owners, pricing, cleaning, keys, damage, reporting and the local rules. Airbnb itself says host and co-host need to be clear about who does what, how much of the reservation income goes to the co-host and how the co-host is reimbursed for expenses.¹⁶

What a co-host does, task by task

A full-service co-host takes on all of these; not every owner wants every row.

Each row has its own guide: pricing, the listing, guest messages, turnovers, damage and insurance and reviews.

How co-hosting works on Airbnb

The co-host tools decide what you can touch on the listing, not what you owe the owner: Airbnb notes that permissions only determine access.²

Inviting a co-host and the three permission levels

When the owner invites you, they pick one of three levels, and can invite you to several listings at once with the same level on each.^{1 2}

A full-service co-host needs full access; the other levels suit a guest-messaging partner or a cleaner. The owner can change permissions at any time without affecting co-host payouts.²

What stays with the listing owner

Whatever the permission level, only the listing owner can set up or edit co-host payouts, and co-hosts cannot see the owner’s payout method or taxpayer information.² The listing stays on the owner’s account, and removing a co-host stops their payouts.³ That is why term, notice and listing ownership belong in writing: what to put in an Airbnb management agreement lists the clauses to discuss with a lawyer.

How co-hosts get paid

There are two routes: Airbnb splits each booking’s payout between owner and co-host, or the owner receives it all and you invoice your fee. Invoicing also covers other platforms and costs you pay for the owner.

Airbnb payout sharing: the four options

Only the listing owner can set up a co-host payout. The four options are the cleaning fee, the cleaning fee plus a percentage of the booking without the cleaning fee, a percentage with the cleaning fee included or excluded, or a fixed amount per booking.³

Percentages are calculated on the host’s potential earnings: price times nights plus charges such as cleaning, minus the host service fee and any applicable taxes and fees.³ The co-host has 14 days to confirm a proposal, and for most stays payouts are sent by the end of the business day after check-in.³ Host damage protection reimbursements and Resolution Center payouts are not shared, and the owner receives a tax document on the full booking amount.³

To try other values, the revenue calculator runs the same commission maths across a year.

Regional limits, and invoicing the owner instead

Hosts and co-hosts outside the US and the EU can share payouts with only one co-host per listing, and some countries add further limits; the page lists no separate limit for the EU.⁴ Check that payout sharing works in your own accounts before you promise it, and invoice the owner if it does not.

What commissions look like in Europe

A commission percentage means little until you know its base: booking value, payout after fees, or what is left after cleaning. Airbnb co-host fees sets out published ranges for Belgium and the Netherlands and what each base leaves for you and the owner.

The European details to check

Five points work differently for a co-host in Europe.

No Co-Host Network in Belgium or the Netherlands

Airbnb’s Co-Host Network lets owners find experienced local co-hosts inside the app. Airbnb lists it in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.¹ Belgium and the Netherlands are not on that list.

Where it exists, joining takes at least 10 stays, or 3 stays totalling 100 nights, in the past 12 months, an average rating of 4.8 or more and a cancellation rate under 3%.⁵ In Belgium and the Netherlands you go to owners yourself. How to find your first Airbnb management client covers where first owners come from.

Co-hosts can’t earn Superhost, so Guest favourite matters more

Airbnb evaluates only listing owners for Superhost, and listings you co-host do not count, even if you are their primary host.⁶ Your visible record is the listing’s own: a Guest favourite badge draws on ratings, reviews and reliability, and needs at least 5 reviews in the past 4 years, with 1 in the past 2 years.⁷ Earning those reviews is covered in how to get 5-star reviews.

Business host details under the Digital Services Act

If you host as a business in the EU, the Digital Services Act requires Airbnb to collect and verify your business name, address, phone number, email address and, where applicable, business registration number.⁸ Listings stay hidden from guests until verification is complete, and the verified details are then shown on the listing.⁸ See business host.

Registration numbers: who registers, who displays

Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 applies from 20 May 2026.¹¹ Where a host declares that a registration procedure applies, Article 7 requires the platform to make sure the host has provided the registration number before the listing can be offered, and that the host displays it clearly in the listing.¹¹ Check the number before you take over a listing. EU short-term rental regulation explains the regulation.

The single 15.5% host-only fee

Airbnb is combining its host and guest service fees into a single 15.5% fee paid by the host.⁹ Hosts who live in the European Economic Area or Switzerland have until 13 October 2026 to adjust their prices; if they do not, their payout per night drops.⁹ Use the host-only fee, plus VAT on the fee, in your commission maths; the detail is in Airbnb vs Booking.com for hosts.

Co-hosting, arbitrage or buying: the short version

The three models differ in whose property it is and who carries the fixed costs.

Rental arbitrage puts the rent risk on you. In the Netherlands, the Civil Code says a tenant of a home is not entitled to let someone else use all or part of it; a tenant who lives in a self-contained home may let part of it.¹⁵ Co-hosting vs rental arbitrage vs buying compares the three in depth.

Is co-hosting a good business? The honest version

It can be, if you know where it is hard.

• The first owner is the hard part. Operations can be learned; an owner trusting someone with no track record is harder, and in Belgium and the Netherlands no Airbnb network sends owners to you.¹
• Your income is a share of someone else’s revenue. A quiet month for the owner is a quiet month for you, and if the host’s potential earnings do not cover all co-host payouts, a co-host can receive less.³
• The owner can leave. Removing a co-host stops their payouts, so a notice period only protects you if it is in a signed agreement.³
• Setting up costs money before the first commission. Registering with the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Enterprises costs €111.50 at early 2026 prices when it is not free.¹² A Dutch bv needs a notary, which KVK puts at €500 to €1,000.¹³
• The rules can close a market. Where a registration procedure applies, the regulation requires Member States to let the competent authorities order platforms to remove listings with no registration number or an invalid one.¹¹
• In Belgium, the profession question is open. The BIV describes taking over the management of property from private owners as the work of the protected profession of vastgoedmakelaar-rentmeester.¹⁴ Whether that covers short-term rental management is not settled in the sources we checked, so ask a Belgian lawyer.

How to start an Airbnb co-hosting business: the first six steps

1. Understand the model. Know what you do and how you get paid, and compare the alternatives in co-hosting vs rental arbitrage vs buying.
2. Pick a market and check its rules. Read the registration, night cap and tax rules for your city in Airbnb rules in Belgium and the Netherlands.
3. Set up the business and insurance. Register a legal form and check what your insurance and the owner’s cover for short stays: guest damage and insurance.
4. Build a projection. Estimate what a property can earn, with a low and a high case, so an owner can check your numbers: how to estimate what a property will earn.
5. Find the first owner. Start with your own network and owners whose listing you can visibly improve: how to find your first Airbnb management client.
6. Sign an agreement. Put services, commission and its base, costs, notice and listing ownership in writing, and have a lawyer check it: what to put in an Airbnb management agreement.

Setting up the business in Belgium or the Netherlands

In Belgium, an accredited business counter registers you with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises and gives you an enterprise number, which you need to activate a VAT number if you are subject to VAT.¹² In the Netherlands, many starters choose between an eenmanszaak, where you are personally liable for business debts, and a bv, where usually only the company is.¹³

Later, scaling a short-term rental management business picks up from there.

Questions people ask

Sources

All sources checked 15 September 2026.

1. Airbnb Help Centre, “Add co-hosts to your home listing”, Up to 10 co-hosts per listing; Co-Host Network countries
2. Airbnb Help Centre, “What co-hosts can do”, Permission levels and what only listing owners can do
3. Airbnb Help Centre, “How co-host payouts work”
4. Airbnb Help Centre, “Regional limitations for co-host payouts”
5. Airbnb Help Centre, “Requirements to join and stay on the Co-Host Network”
6. Airbnb Help Centre, “What's required to be a Superhost”
7. Airbnb Help Centre, “Guest favorites and highlights”
8. Airbnb Help Centre, “Verifying and displaying business information as an EU host”
9. Airbnb Resource Center, “Simplifying Airbnb service fees”, Published 29 July 2026
10. Airbnb Help Centre, “Airbnb service fees”
11. EUR-Lex, “Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 on data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services”, Articles 6(11) and 7(1)(b); application date in Article 19
12. FPS Economy (Belgium), “Steps to take at the business counter”
13. KVK, “Eenmanszaak of bv: zo kies je je rechtsvorm”, Updated 25 April 2025, in Dutch
14. BIV, “Over de vastgoedmakelaar”, Professional Institute of Real Estate Agents, in Dutch
15. Huurregels.nl, “Art. 7:244 BW (Geheel of gedeeltelijk in gebruik geven)”, Dutch Civil Code text, in Dutch
16. Airbnb Help Centre, “Co-hosts: an introduction”

We check every figure against the sources above. Spotted something out of date? Email info@hostproacademy.com with the guide title.