Holiday Let Management Fees — What Companies Actually Charge
Last updated: August 2026
Holiday let management fees look like a simple percentage comparison.
They are not, and the reason is that the percentage is applied to different numbers by different companies.
This page is written for two situations: you have a holiday let, holiday home or cottage with an existing agency and you suspect the fee is higher than the headline rate suggested, or you are weighing a long-term tenancy against short-term letting and need to know what actually reaches your account.
The real question behind "what are the fees" is "what do I keep" — so this page answers that one instead, with a worked example, the full cost stack including the charges most comparison pages leave out, and the six questions that expose the difference between a 12% quote and a 12% cost.
Direct answer
10–25% of rental income is the UK range for holiday let management fees, with full-service agencies charging 15–25% plus VAT.
The percentage alone misleads, because whether it applies to gross or net booking value changes the real cost significantly.
Stayful charges 15% + VAT on net booking value, with a £0 setup fee and a £42 per month software fee.
The worked example below shows the exact owner payout.
Conservative net income after the management fee — UK two-bedroom
Conservative estimate, already net of the management fee. Based on enquiry data from 189 comparable properties across England, using the bottom quartile rather than the average. Actual income varies by location, property type and season.
Why two companies quoting 15% can charge you different amounts
How much do holiday letting agents charge?
Holiday letting agents charge 15–25% commission plus VAT per booking, according to sector guidance published by holiday let insurer Schofields. Holiday cottage and holiday home agencies sit at the upper end of that range, listing-only agencies at the lower. Setup fees of £100–£250 and annual listing fees up to £100 are common on top. Stayful charges 15% + VAT with no setup fee.
The management fee percentage is applied either to the gross booking value or to the net booking value, and the gap between those two bases is larger than the gap between most companies' headline rates.
Gross means the fee comes off the full amount the guest paid, before the booking platform takes its cut.
Net means the fee comes off what is left after the platform has taken its cut.
On a £1,000 booking, a company charging 15% on gross takes £150.
Airbnb has already taken roughly £150 from that same £1,000, so total deductions reach £300 and the owner receives £700.
On the same £1,000 booking, Airbnb takes roughly £150 first, leaving £850.
Stayful's 15% applies to that £850, which is £127.50, plus VAT of £25.50, giving a fee of £153 and an owner payout of £697.
The practical consequence is that a company quoting 20% on gross takes £200 from a £1,000 booking, which is £47 more than Stayful's 15% + VAT on net.
A company quoting 12% on gross takes £120, which is £33 less.
Neither number tells you which arrangement pays you more across a year, because the fee is only one of four variables — the others are occupancy, nightly rate, and how many bookings arrive without a platform fee attached at all.
Ask every company you speak to one question before you compare anything else: is your percentage applied to gross or net booking value?
Two different markets charge in two different ways
The phrase "holiday let management fees" covers two business models that price completely differently, and knowing which one you are talking to explains most of the variation in quotes.
Traditional holiday cottage agencies distribute mainly through their own branded websites and charge commission on gross booking value.
Short-let management companies distribute across Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO and their own direct channel, and are more likely to charge on net.
| Holiday cottage agency | Short-let management company | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical commission | 15–25% on gross booking value | 12–20%, sometimes on net |
| Where bookings come from | The agency's own branded website | Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Google and direct |
| Setup fee | £100–£250 is common | £0–£300 |
| Annual listing fee | Up to £100 per year for photo and listing refresh | Rarely charged |
| Cleaning and linen | Usually billed separately, often to the owner | Usually a per-stay guest fee |
| Best suited to | Rural cottages and coastal holiday homes with a strong seasonal peak | Year-round urban and mixed-demand properties |
A holiday home in a rural or coastal location with a sharp summer peak often does well on an agency's curated website, where the audience is already looking for that kind of property.
A property with year-round demand from contractors, hospital staff, relocating professionals and event visitors usually earns more across multi-platform distribution, because the booking sources are more varied than a single cottage-focused website can reach.
Stayful operates the second model, at 15% + VAT on net booking value, listing across Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Google and its own direct channel.
The full cost stack — including the two charges most fee pages omit
Every fee comparison on the internet argues about the commission percentage.
Almost none of them mention that sector guidance is explicit on this point: agency commission rates do not normally include cleaning and laundry.
That omission matters more than a two-point difference in commission, and the changeover cost is where it shows up.
Is cleaning included in holiday let management fees?
No — cleaning and linen are charged separately by most holiday let agencies and are not covered by the commission percentage. A full changeover including professional linen costs £90–£150 depending on property size. Source basis: Stayful changeover pricing across its managed portfolio, August 2026. Stayful charges this to the guest as a per-stay fee, so it does not come out of the owner payout.
A property taking forty changeovers a year carries £3,600–£6,000 of cleaning and linen cost.
On a £24,000 gross year that is 15–25% of revenue, sitting entirely outside the commission percentage that every comparison table focuses on.
Where the changeover cost lands is therefore a bigger question than whether the commission is 12% or 20%, and it has only two possible answers: the guest pays it as a separate per-stay fee, or it is deducted from the owner's income.
Management fee: 15% + VAT, applied to net booking value after the platform fee.
Software fee: £42 per month + VAT, covering the channel manager, dynamic pricing engine and owner dashboard.
Setup fee: £0, including the first professional photography shoot.
Changeover and linen: £90–£150 per stay, charged to the guest, not deducted from your payout.
Platform fees: paid to Airbnb, Booking.com or VRBO before the Stayful fee is calculated — and not charged at all on the 40% of bookings that come direct.
That is the whole stack, stated so you can compare it against a quote from anyone else rather than having to reconstruct it from a contract.
What each fee model actually pays an owner on a £1,000 booking
The same £1,000 booking produces three different owner payouts depending on the fee model.
The honest readingStayful is not the cheapest of those three models on a single booking, and a listing-only arrangement returns £33 more on this one £1,000 stay.
Why the annual figure invertsStayful properties average 65–70% occupancy against a UK market average of 55%, and 40% of bookings arrive direct without a platform fee attached, which is what closes and then reverses a £33 per-booking gap across a full year.
What would have to go wrongBelow-market performance would require two things to fail at once: the pricing and occupancy work applied to every property, and the direct booking channel that currently accounts for 40% of bookings.
Do holiday let managers charge a fixed fee or a percentage?
Almost all UK holiday letting agents and short-let management companies charge a percentage of booking revenue rather than a fixed monthly fee.
A percentage aligns the company's income with the property's performance, which is why it dominates the market, and it means a quiet month costs the owner proportionally less.
Fixed monthly fees appear in two places: as a software or technology charge alongside the percentage, and in guaranteed rent arrangements where the operator pays the owner a set figure and keeps whatever the property earns above it.
Stayful charges a percentage — 15% + VAT on net booking value — plus a fixed £42 per month + VAT software fee, and that fixed element is the only cost that does not fall in a quiet month.
What is included in the fee, and what gets billed separately
Two companies quoting the same percentage can include entirely different things within it, which is why the comparison below is set out by service rather than by price.
| Feature | Stayful | Typical local agent | National platform model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management fee | 15% + VAT on net booking value | 15–25% on gross | 12–15% on gross |
| Setup fee | £0 | £100–£250 | £0–£300 |
| Platforms listed on | Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Google, Stayful direct | Own website only | One or two platforms |
| Dynamic pricing | Included, updated daily | Rarely — seasonal rate card | Sometimes included |
| 24/7 guest communication | Included | Office hours | Varies |
| Direct booking channel | Yes — 40% of bookings | Own website bookings only | No |
| Owner reporting | Dashboard plus monthly statement | Monthly statement | Dashboard |
| Contract length | 6-month fixed term, no exit fee | 12 months, often with notice period | Varies |
Guest vetting, damage cover and property protection are handled inside the management fee rather than charged as extras.
- £100,000 of damage cover on every managed property
- £200 security deposit held against each stay
- ID verification on every booking before check-in details are released
- First professional photography shoot included at no charge
- Maintenance coordination included, with contractor costs passed through at cost
- Monthly payout to your account between the 1st and 5th
- Live in 7–14 days from onboarding call to first listing
How a Stayful arrangement starts — and how long before the fee applies to anything
The fee only applies once bookings exist, and the four steps below take 7–14 days from first contact.
- Request a free income estimate — takes 2 minutes and returns net figures for your postcode
- Onboarding call — we walk through your property, its constraints and your own usage dates
- Photography and listing setup — professionally listed across all platforms within 7–14 days
- First booking — income starts, with your first payout landing between the 1st and 5th of the following month
The six questions that expose the difference between a quote and a cost
This is the question most often answered evasively, and it changes the cost more than any other variable.
If a company charges 20% on gross and the platform takes 15%, the combined deduction is 32% of the booking rather than 20%.
Stayful applies 15% + VAT to the net booking value after the platform fee has been deducted.
A full changeover with professional linen costs £90–£150 depending on property size, which across forty stays a year is £3,600–£6,000.
Some agencies deduct that from the owner's income on every changeover, in addition to the commission percentage.
Stayful charges it to the guest as a separate per-stay fee, so it never touches the owner payout.
The term matters less than what leaving costs, and the two are often conflated in sales conversations.
Some companies operate short terms but charge a fee on projected bookings if you leave, which can be more expensive than a longer term with a clean exit.
Stayful operates a 6-month fixed term with no exit fee, and confirmed bookings in the calendar at the point of exit are honoured.
Sector guidance puts holiday let setup fees at £100–£250, typically covering photography, listing copy and initial pricing setup.
A quote of "no setup fee" is worth testing against photography, key safe installation and listing optimisation charged as separate line items.
Stayful includes the first professional shoot within the arrangement, and the setup fee is £0 with nothing billed separately at onboarding.
Channel managers, dynamic pricing engines and owner dashboards are licensed software, and someone pays for them.
Where a company does not name a software charge, it is either absorbed into a higher commission or the tooling is thinner than the sales conversation implied.
Stayful charges £42 per month + VAT for the channel manager, pricing engine and owner dashboard, stated separately rather than folded into the percentage.
A booking that arrives through a company's own channel carries no platform commission, so the same nightly rate produces a larger net figure.
The larger the direct share, the lower the effective total fee load over time, which is why this question matters more than the headline percentage.
40% of Stayful bookings come direct, and a company that cannot answer this question with a number probably has no meaningful direct channel.
Are holiday let management fees tax deductible?
Are holiday let management fees tax deductible?
Yes — management and letting agency fees are generally an allowable expense against holiday let rental income for UK income tax purposes. This means the effective after-tax cost of a 15% fee is lower than 15% for a higher-rate taxpayer. Since April 2025 furnished holiday let income is treated as standard UK property income rather than under the former FHL regime. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances.
The furnished holiday lettings tax regime was abolished from April 2025, and holiday let income is now reported as ordinary UK property income.
Management fees, cleaning, linen, platform commission and the software charge all remain deductible against that income.
What changed is that mortgage interest relief is now capped at a 20% tax credit, capital allowances are no longer available on new purchases, and Business Asset Disposal Relief no longer applies on sale.
Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances — always confirm with a qualified accountant, and see the HMRC guidance on the abolition of the furnished holiday lettings regime for the underlying rules.
Our guide to allowable expenses for a furnished holiday let sets out which costs can be deducted against holiday let rental income and which cannot.
The questions owners ask before they sign a management agreement
The management fee is a percentage of what the property earns, so in a quiet month you pay proportionally less, and the £42 monthly software fee is the only fixed cost.
Using the bottom quartile of 189 enquiries across England, a comparable two-bedroom property nets £1,813 per month against £1,225 on a long-term tenancy, and that conservative figure is the one to plan around rather than the average.
Even at the bottom of that range short-term letting remains the stronger financial outcome, and the 40% direct booking share is the mechanism that reduces month-to-month variability.
No, and we would be cautious of any company that does.
What we show you is the realistic range including quieter months, based on comparable properties in your postcode, and that range is drawn from enquiry data rather than best-case projections.
Even in a slower year the net figure typically exceeds what a long-term tenancy would pay on the same property.
No — listing-only platforms and some local agents charge 10–12% on gross bookings.
Whether those options leave an owner with more money depends on what the fee delivers, specifically whether daily dynamic pricing, 24/7 guest management and a direct booking channel are included.
A 12% listing-only arrangement with static pricing and no direct channel typically produces lower annual net income than 15% + VAT with 65–70% occupancy and 40% of bookings direct.
Stayful operates a 6-month fixed term with no exit fee.
The differentiator is the absence of an exit fee rather than the length of the term, because a short term with a penalty on projected bookings can cost more to leave than a fixed term with a clean exit.
Confirmed bookings in your calendar at the point of exit are honoured, and the guest's booking sits with the platform rather than with us.
You block dates you want to use the property in your owner calendar, with no notice required and no approval process.
Unlike a long-term tenancy, no guest has exclusive possession of your property.
Blocking dates reduces the bookable inventory and therefore the income for that period, which is the only trade-off involved.
Every managed property carries £100,000 of damage cover, and a £200 security deposit is held against each stay.
Every booking goes through ID verification before check-in details are released, which is the step that prevents most problems rather than resolving them afterwards.
Damage claims and contractor coordination are handled within the management fee, with contractor costs passed through at cost.
Stayful charges 15% + VAT across every property, with the same structure regardless of property type, location or portfolio size.
Some agencies will negotiate for portfolio landlords or higher-value properties in strong-demand areas.
A company that drops its fee without reducing the service scope is either operating on margins thin enough to create service risk, or was overcharging to begin with.
Then a management fee arrangement is probably not the right fit, because the income varies with occupancy by design.
Owners who need certainty above upside sometimes look at a guaranteed rent arrangement instead, which pays a fixed monthly figure with no management percentage applied.
The trade-off is that a fixed figure is set below what a well-managed property typically earns across a year.
Usually yes on the headline rate — holiday cottage and holiday home agencies typically charge 15–25% on gross booking value against 12–20% for short-let management companies.
The gap narrows once you account for where bookings come from, because an agency's own website reaches a smaller audience than Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO and a direct channel combined.
Annual listing fees of up to £100 and setup fees of £100–£250 are more common on the agency side, and those are the charges most likely to be missing from a headline comparison.
Owner example — two-bedroom apartment, East Midlands
"I spent three months comparing fee percentages without realising I was comparing gross against net."
"Once I understood the actual calculation, the fee was in line with the cheaper options I'd been quoted — and the changeover cost being charged to the guest rather than deducted from my income was worth more than the percentage difference."
Owner, two-bedroom apartment, East Midlands · Previously with a local agent at 22% on gross · 14 months with Stayful
The conservative figure to plan aroundAcross 189 comparable property enquiries in England, the bottom-quartile net figure for a two-bedroom property is £1,813 per month against £1,225 on a long-term tenancy.
For a full breakdown of every cost category rather than the management fee alone, see our guide to the costs of running a holiday let, and for platform commission specifically see what Airbnb management companies charge.
Speak to Stayful
0113 479 0251Stayful manages 70+ short-let and holiday let properties across England, with a 4.8★ Google rating from property owners.
Related guides
Costs of running a holiday let — every cost category Airbnb management fees — platform commission explained Serviced accommodation management fees Holiday let start-up costs Furnished holiday let allowable expenses Income calculator — net figures after the fee Holiday let management across England Guaranteed rent — fixed monthly income optionSee what you would actually keep
Net monthly figures for your postcode, after the 15% + VAT fee and including what a quieter month looks like.