Updated August 2026. Verified against each platform's current terms — but fees move, so treat every figure here as indicative and confirm before you list.
Most "top vacation rental sites" lists are recycled from a decade ago, which is a problem, because the industry has consolidated hard. Three names that appear on almost every such list no longer take bookings at all. Before deciding where to advertise a holiday home, it is worth knowing what actually still exists.
What closed, and what it means for your listings
Tripadvisor stopped taking vacation rental bookings. In September 2024 Tripadvisor discontinued its direct rental booking model and cancelled reservations with check-in dates from 1 November 2024 onward, refunding guests. FlipKey and Niumba were shut outright — flipkey.com now serves a single line, "Flipkey has closed down, please visit Tripadvisor to plan your next trip". Holiday Lettings, which carried the UK and European audience, lost its direct booking function in the same move. Tripadvisor did not leave the category entirely: it now takes rental inventory from a third party, and as of 2026 that means listing on Vrbo is how a property appears on Tripadvisor at all.
HomeAway no longer exists as a brand. Expedia Group folded the HomeAway brands into Vrbo and retired the US brand; homeaway.com redirects to vrbo.com. If an article still recommends listing on HomeAway and Vrbo as two separate channels, it predates 2020.
The practical consequence is that the global market has narrowed to three booking platforms of real scale — Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com — plus Google, which behaves differently, and whatever regional site matters where your property is.
The fee change landing this autumn
If you let through Airbnb, this is the thing to know in 2026. Airbnb is retiring the old split-fee structure, where the host paid around 3% and the guest was charged roughly 14–16% at checkout, and moving everyone to a single host-only service fee of about 15.5%, deducted from the payout.
The migration has run in waves. Software-connected hosts — anyone using a channel manager or PMS — moved in April 2026. The remaining independent hosts migrate by 15 September 2026 outside the European Economic Area and 13 October 2026 inside it. The fee applies to the nightly rate plus cleaning, pet and extra-guest charges, but not to taxes.
This is not simply a fee increase — the guest no longer pays a separate service fee, so the headline price a guest sees falls while your payout is cut. Owners who have not adjusted nightly rates to absorb the difference will see revenue drop without any change in occupancy. If you have not modelled this yet, do it before your deadline.
What each channel costs
Indicative 2026 figures. Payment processing is charged on top where noted, and promoted-placement programmes cost more again.
| Platform | What it costs the owner | Strongest for |
|---|---|---|
| Airbnb | ~15.5% host-only fee on the booking subtotal (see the migration dates above) | The widest global reach; city apartments, distinctive properties, independent travellers |
| Vrbo | 5% commission + 3% payment processing, so roughly 8%. The old $499–$699 annual subscription is legacy and closed to new hosts | Whole-home and family travel, especially North America. Also the route onto Tripadvisor |
| Booking.com | Commission typically 10–25%, averaging around 15%, plus roughly 1–3% if you use its payment processing. Preferred Partner adds about 3% more | Europe and Asia, cross-sell from hotel searchers, destinations with heavy international demand |
| Google Vacation Rentals | Free — no commission on referrals or bookings | Sending traffic to your own site, where the booking carries no platform fee |
| Your own site | Build and payment-processing costs only | Repeat guests and margin. Slow to build, but the only channel nobody can reprice |
On a property grossing £30,000 a year, the spread between Vrbo's ~8% and Booking.com's ~15% plus processing is roughly £2,500 — which is the honest reason to care about the mix rather than listing everywhere and hoping.
Google is the one most owners miss
Google Vacation Rentals is free for hosts and guests, and its booking links send the traveller to your own site rather than to a marketplace. There is no commission on what it refers.
The catch is that you cannot submit a listing yourself — there is no form. Google takes inventory from connectivity partners, property management systems and connected direct-booking sites, so you get on it by feeding it through one of those. That makes a direct-booking site worth more than its own bookings: it is also the qualification for a free Google channel.
Choosing between them
Match the platform to the guest, not the brochure. Reach is regional in practice. Vrbo's audience is heavily North American; Booking.com is strongest across Europe and much of Asia; Airbnb is the most evenly distributed. A property whose realistic guests are domestic will often do better on a regional site with a small audience that actually converts than on a global one where it sits on page nine.
Commission is not the whole cost. A 15% channel that fills sixty nights beats an 8% channel that fills twenty. Judge on net revenue per available night, not on the headline rate.
List on more than one, but not on everything. Two or three channels plus your own site is the shape that works. Beyond that the admin overhead and double-booking risk grow faster than the incremental bookings.
Synchronise calendars from day one. Once you are on a second platform you need a channel manager to keep availability in step. A double booking costs you a cancellation penalty and the ranking damage that follows it, which is far more expensive than the software.
Reviews and response time outrank almost everything else. Both are ranking factors on every major platform, and both are within your control from the first booking.
Before you list: check you are allowed to
Short-let regulation has tightened faster than platform economics. Registration schemes, night caps and outright bans now apply in many of the markets that look most attractive, and platforms are increasingly obliged to pass owner data to regulators. Confirm the position where your property is before you advertise it — see our coverage of the EU short-term rental data law and Barcelona's 2028 ban on tourist apartments for how far this has gone.
If you are looking to book rather than to list
The same consolidation applies from the traveller's side: Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com hold most of the inventory between them, and Tripadvisor now shows Vrbo's. Comparing two of the three is usually enough, since the same property is frequently listed on several at different prices. Booking directly with the owner, where they have their own site, is often cheaper than any of them, because the platform fee is not in the price.
Where to go next
Choosing channels is one part of running a property well. If you are weighing whether to manage it yourself at all, our framework for evaluating and switching property managers covers the alternative. For getting more from the channels you already use, see peak-season pricing and how presentation drives bookings. The wider Own & Operate section collects the rest.