Your Airbnb Neighbor Is Paying for Things You Benefit From — And the Hotel Industry Doesn't Want You to Know That
This post is a follow-up and expansion of an earlier one on the same topic. Read the original post here for additional background on what STR hosts in Greensboro are up against and what our elected officials have been doing with our tax dollars.
There is a conversation happening in city halls across the country about short-term rentals, and most of it is missing the point entirely. Neighbors are frustrated. Lawmakers are scrambling. And a very well-funded industry has been quietly paying to make sure the conversation goes exactly the way it wants it to. Let's talk about what is actually going on, what the real numbers are, and who is writing the checks.
What a Greensboro STR Host Actually Pays, and Who Pays What
There are two separate categories of money that leave a short-term rental booking before a host ever sees a dollar. The first is taxes. The second is the platform fee. They work very differently, and conflating them is one of the most common sources of confusion in this conversation.
The occupancy and sales taxes on an Airbnb booking are technically added to the guest's bill on top of the nightly rate. In Greensboro, here is the exact combined rate on every booking:
| Tax | Rate | Who Collects It |
|---|---|---|
| NC State Sales Tax | 4.75% | Airbnb, remits to NCDOR |
| Guilford County Local Sales Tax | 2.25% | Airbnb, remits to county |
| Greensboro City Room Occupancy Tax | 6% | Airbnb, remits to city |
| Guilford County Room Occupancy Tax | 3% | Airbnb, remits to county |
| Total on every booking | 16% |
Technically the guest pays that 16%. But here is the practical reality: hosts set rates in a competitive market where guests compare total prices before booking. A guest looking at a $135 per night listing in Greensboro is actually paying $156.60 per night once the taxes are added. If the host raises the listed rate to absorb that gap, the listing becomes less competitive. The 16% is structurally baked into what hosts can charge, which means it functions as a real cost of doing business whether the legal obligation sits with the guest or not. None of that money reaches the host. Airbnb collects it automatically and sends it directly to the city and county before the transaction is even complete.
That 16% is not a range. It is the exact combined rate on every short-term rental booking in Greensboro right now. Charlotte, which has the highest occupancy tax cap in North Carolina, comes in at 15%. Raleigh is at 13.5%. Greensboro STR guests pay a higher combined tax rate than guests in either of those cities.
The Platform Fee: This One Comes From the Host
On top of taxes, Airbnb deducts its platform fee from the host's payout directly. As of late 2025, Airbnb moved all hosts to a single host-only fee of 15.5% of the full booking subtotal, which includes the cleaning fee and any pet fees. This is not taken from the guest. It is taken from the host's payout before the host receives it. Here is what that looks like on a real booking for one of our Greensboro homes:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| 3 nights at $135/night | $405.00 |
| Cleaning fee | $155.00 |
| Booking subtotal | $560.00 |
| 16% taxes added to guest's bill (on nightly rate) | $64.80 |
| Total the guest pays | $624.80 |
| Airbnb 15.5% host fee deducted from host payout | -$86.80 |
| Host receives | $473.20 |
The guest paid $624.80. The government received $64.80. Airbnb received $86.80. The host received $473.20, which is 75.7 cents of every dollar the guest actually spent, before mortgage, two insurance policies, utilities, maintenance, property taxes, and income taxes. The idea that short-term rental hosts are collecting easy money is not supported by the math.
How Airbnb Compares to VRBO and Booking.com
Airbnb's 15.5% platform fee is not standard across booking sites, and the difference matters considerably for hosts.
| Platform | Host Fee | Guest Fee | Applied To |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airbnb | 15.5% | None (new model) | Full subtotal including cleaning and pet fees |
| VRBO | ~8% total (5% commission + 3% processing) | Varies | Rental subtotal and mandatory fees |
| Booking.com | 15% to 25% (avg. ~15%) + 1.1-3.1% processing | None | Booking subtotal |
Airbnb's 15.5% is nearly double VRBO's host cost. And because Airbnb applies its fee to the cleaning fee and pet fees as well as the nightly rate, the actual dollar impact is significantly higher than the percentage suggests on its own. VRBO's lower fee looks attractive on paper, but the support system behind it is a different story. When something goes wrong with a booking on VRBO, getting a real resolution from a real person is an ordeal that makes Airbnb's already-frustrating support look functional by comparison. Airbnb has outsourced its customer support to the Philippines, following the same profit-before-people playbook that has degraded service quality across most large American-based platforms. It is a legitimate frustration. And yet Airbnb remains by far the dominant platform for STR advertising. The reach, the guest trust, and the booking volume that Airbnb generates have no real equivalent at this point.
We tried syndicating our listings across multiple platforms. We used Hostaway as a channel manager to connect Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com simultaneously. That experience did not go as promised. Read our full review of Hostaway and why we ended up back on Airbnb exclusively before you commit to any channel management software or multi-platform syndication strategy.
Everything Else the Host Pays
After the platform fee comes out of the payout, the host covers every operating cost from what remains: the mortgage on the property, a standard homeowner's insurance policy, a separate short-term rental insurance policy (required because standard homeowner's coverage does not apply to STR activity, running $1,500 to $3,000 per year per property), all utilities year-round including electricity, water, gas, and high-speed internet paid whether the property is booked or empty, ongoing maintenance and repairs, dynamic pricing software such as PriceLabs at approximately $19.99 per month per property, Greensboro's one-time non-refundable $200 STR zoning permit fee, and full residential property taxes with no commercial rate, no incentive deal, and no portfolio depreciation structure available to corporate hotel chains.
And that financial accounting does not capture the hours. The morning spent digging up roots and laying stepping stones so guests have a safe, clear path to the front door. The afternoon waiting on a replacement washer and dryer for the defective unit installed the week before. The deep cleaning behind the stove and refrigerator that the turnover crew cannot reach between bookings. The time spent recording and uploading short walkthrough videos so guests have no confusion about how to lock and unlock the doors. This is physical, unglamorous, ongoing work. The income that comes from it is earned, and every person dismissing STR hosts as people collecting passive income has never actually done the job.
What Hotels Pay, and Why They Are Losing on Value
Hotels in Greensboro pay the same 16% combined occupancy and sales tax on their rooms. On that point the playing field is level. But corporate hotel chains structure ownership through LLCs, REITs, and holding companies designed to minimize taxable income. They receive commercial property tax rates, negotiate economic development abatements with local governments, and depreciate entire property portfolios at scales that an individual homeowner host simply cannot access. A Greensboro STR host pays the same headline tax rate as a hotel chain with none of the tax-management tools the chain has built into its corporate structure.
But here is the reason the hotel industry is in genuine panic: they cannot compete on value, and they know it. A hotel room in Greensboro runs $150 to $300 per night for 100 to 300 square feet with no kitchen, no yard, no laundry, and no living room. A short-term rental runs $100 to $150 per night for an entire house: full kitchen, living room, backyard, multiple bedrooms, and a washer and dryer, for a family who would otherwise need two or three hotel rooms to have equivalent space. The hotel industry cannot build smaller rooms to close that gap. They cannot cut rates enough to compete without gutting their margins. They cannot give a family of five a full kitchen and a backyard for $125 a night. So instead of innovating, they paid people to write the laws.
The Proof: Hotels Are Paying to Eliminate Their Competition
This is documented and publicly verifiable. The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) spent $2,407,000 on federal lobbying in 2024 alone, plus an additional $1,692,528 in campaign contributions during the 2024 election cycle. That is more than $4 million in a single year directed at influencing the people who write the laws that govern your home. Their cumulative federal lobbying total tracked by OpenSecrets exceeds $43.5 million since 2003. You can verify every dollar yourself at opensecrets.org.
Documents obtained by journalists at Reason Magazine revealed that AHLA created and funded astroturf organizations designed to look like independent community groups. AirbnbWATCH was one of them, an AHLA-funded front group presenting itself as citizen advocacy. Neighbors for Overnight Oversight was another, exposed by the Center for Public Integrity as AHLA-funded despite its grassroots framing. The Hotel and Gaming Trades Council paid $75,000 to a housing advocacy nonprofit for what was described as "civic engagement and community organizing," which meant organizing neighborhood opposition to short-term rentals with hotel industry money kept off the materials.
In New York City, the hotel lobby pushed Local Law 18, which effectively banned Airbnb in 2023. The American Enterprise Institute documented exactly how hotel interests used the regulatory process to eliminate a competitor they could not beat in the open market. The result: the ban failed to lower rents or increase housing availability as promised, but it removed thousands of affordable options for travelers and drove them into hotel rooms at two to three times the price. When your city council member introduces STR restrictions, check OpenSecrets and your state's campaign finance database. Ask on the record whether they have taken contributions from hotel industry PACs. In many cities the answer is yes, and that answer should inform every conversation about whose interests those regulations actually protect.
What Is Happening in Greensboro: The Wendover Rezoning
The city of Greensboro advised us to rezone our short-term rental properties on Wendover so that we could continue operating under the new regulations that were being developed. We did exactly what the city recommended. We went through the full rezoning process. We mailed letters to every property owner within 750 feet of each of our STR properties. The response was not what the hotel lobby's talking points would predict. Not a single neighbor contacted us with a complaint or an objection. Every person who reached out was grateful that blighted homes had been removed from the neighborhood and supportive of what we had done with the properties.
Then the city passed new STR regulations that made the entire rezoning process meaningless. The time we spent, the fees we paid, the letters mailed to hundreds of neighbors: all of it wasted. Here is the part that should matter to every Greensboro property owner: the city knew these regulations were being developed while they were advising us to go through the rezoning process. They let us spend the time and money anyway.
And then there is the question of who is voting on these regulations. Some of Greensboro's own city council members own rental properties held inside LLCs with registered agents, which means the public cannot easily connect the property to the official's name. North Carolina's State Government Ethics Act, Chapter 138A, requires public officials to disclose and recuse themselves from votes where they have a direct financial interest. Whether that standard is actually being applied to rental income held inside LLCs is a question Greensboro residents should be putting to their council members on the record. Voting on regulations that govern your own industry while your financial stake in that industry is structurally hidden from public view is not a conflict of interest technicality. It is a transparency failure that voters have both the right and the responsibility to address.
Where All of This Tax Money Goes
Short-term rentals have generated a completely new stream of tax revenue for local governments over the last decade, money that did not exist before platforms like Airbnb mainstreamed home sharing around 2010 to 2015. And it arrives with zero opportunity for the host to hide it, defer it, or avoid it. Airbnb collects every dollar automatically and sends it directly to the government before the host sees anything. There are no loopholes. A long-term residential landlord collects rent, pays income tax on it when they file, and has significant latitude to manage their tax exposure through depreciation and expense deductions. The STR host has none of that. They are the most automatically compliant housing provider in the market, and they are being treated as the problem.
In Greensboro and Guilford County, occupancy tax revenue is directed in part to the Greensboro Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, which markets the city to visitors, event planners, and conference organizers. Every short-term rental booking funds those efforts, which in turn fill hotels, restaurants, and event venues across the city. STR hosts are funding the very tourism infrastructure that hotels also benefit from. Nationally, cities have put STR tax windfalls toward affordable housing: Steamboat Springs, Colorado created a dedicated STR Tax Fund for affordable housing and infrastructure. Summit County, Colorado funds affordable housing and childcare. Portland, Oregon directs STR fees to homelessness initiatives. The neighbor who is frustrated about the Airbnb next door may well be benefiting from the tax revenue it generates, with zero ability on the host's part to avoid paying it.
One Standard for All Rentals, No Exceptions
The rules should be exactly the same for every rental property, regardless of how long the stay is. A house rented for three nights must meet the same basic housing codes as a house rented for three years. An Airbnb host is responsible for educating their guests about house rules, noise ordinances, and neighbor expectations, and for enforcing those rules. A long-term landlord is equally responsible for making sure their tenants know what is expected and are not turning the property into a neighborhood problem. That responsibility does not disappear because someone signed a 12-month lease instead of a 3-night booking. If you own it, you are responsible for what happens in it. Period.
The problem is not short-term rentals. The problem is absentee owners who are not accountable for what happens at their properties: landlords who have never lived near their rentals, have no relationship with neighboring families, and have no system for responding when something goes wrong. They rent to whoever will pay. They allow overcrowding. They let trash accumulate and loud disturbances run unchecked. When neighbors call, nobody picks up. And the problem festers for years, sometimes decades, with no mechanism to force any correction.
The STR market already has a built-in public accountability system that long-term rentals completely lack. Every guest leaves a review. Every review is public. A host who allows their property to become a neighborhood nuisance will see that reflected immediately in their ratings, and bad ratings mean no bookings, which means no income. The financial incentive for a responsible STR host to maintain their property and manage their guests is direct, immediate, and more powerful than any city ordinance. Long-term landlords have no equivalent. No public rating. No star score that costs them business. Just neighbors dealing with the problem for years with no platform to surface it.
City regulations that target STRs while ignoring long-term landlord negligence are not protecting neighborhoods. They are protecting an industry that cannot compete on value. Focusing all of the city's regulatory energy on short-term rentals while long-term problem properties continue operating unaddressed is precisely what the hotel lobby's $4 million in 2024 spending was designed to produce.
A Note From a Greensboro STR Host Who Lives Here
I live in the same neighborhood as my short-term rentals. My neighbors are not strangers. I chose to buy distressed and blighted properties on my street, homes that were dragging down surrounding property values and that nobody was maintaining, and I invested significantly in restoring each one to the same standard as the home I live in. Taking on that debt required a financially viable way to service it, and operating the properties as short-term rentals was the only path that made that possible while keeping the homes in excellent condition. Every one of my listings states clearly that I live in this neighborhood, that I love my neighbors, and that guests are expected to be respectful of the people and the community around them.
The results have not produced a single neighbor complaint about my guests. The neighbors who contacted us during the Wendover rezoning process were not calling to object. They were calling to say thank you, because blighted homes had been replaced with well-maintained properties and property values on the street had improved as a result. If a guest ever created a problem, I would very likely know about it before a neighbor did, because I am present, I am reachable, and the Airbnb review system means that a bad experience for the neighborhood shows up in my ratings immediately and costs me future income. That accountability loop is real in a way that no city regulation has ever managed to replicate for any other category of landlord.
I pay 16 cents in combined taxes on every dollar of nightly rate before I see it. I pay Airbnb 15.5% from my own payout. I carry two insurance policies. I pay all utilities. I pay a mortgage on properties I bought to remove blight from my neighborhood. I pay for pricing software, a permit, and full residential property taxes with no commercial breaks. After all of that, our street is better than it was, our neighbors have told us so directly, and we have had zero complaints about our guests.
The city officials who walked us through a rezoning process they knew was about to be made irrelevant owe an explanation. The elected officials who vote on rental regulations while holding rental property inside LLCs that shield those interests from public view owe transparency to the constituents they represent. And the hotel industry that spent over $4 million in 2024 alone to eliminate residential competition it cannot beat on value was never acting in the interest of this neighborhood or any neighborhood.
If There Is a Problem Property in Greensboro, Here Is Who to Call
Greensboro Code Compliance Department handles any property maintenance violation: overgrown yards, exterior disrepair, structural hazards, junk vehicles, illegal dumping, overcrowding, or unsafe housing conditions. Call 336-373-2489. File a report online at greensboro-nc.gov. The office is at 300 W. Washington St., Third Floor, Melvin Municipal Office Building. After a complaint is filed, an inspector is assigned within 3 to 5 business days. One major violation or more than five minor ones triggers a required hearing within 20 days and a repair order within 30. Owners who do not comply face fines and can be ordered to vacate the property.
STR Permit and Zoning questions go to the City Planning Department at 336-373-2050. Full information is at greensboro-nc.gov's STR page. The one-time non-refundable zoning permit fee is $200.
Greensboro Police Department non-emergency line for immediate noise or disturbance complaints: 336-373-2287. Call this number, not 911, unless there is an immediate safety concern.
Your city council member's office is the right contact for violations not being addressed after repeated complaints. Find your district representative at greensboro-nc.gov/government/city-council.
Greensboro Human Relations and Fair Housing handles landlord violations of tenant rights and substandard housing conditions. Call 336-373-2038 or visit greensboro-nc.gov.
These are taxpayer-funded staff whose job is to respond to exactly these situations, for any property, any rental type, any length of stay. Use them equally and use them loudly.
What This Is Really About
Equal regulation means one standard applied to every rental property in this city. Short stay, long stay, owner-occupied, investor-owned. Every owner and every host is responsible for communicating the rules clearly and enforcing them from day one. If you cannot or will not do that, you should not be in the rental business at any duration.
It means acknowledging that a homeowner who lists their property on Airbnb is paying all of their taxes automatically and upfront, every dollar going to the city and county before they see a dime, with zero loopholes and no ability to game the system. They are not exploiting anything. They are the most compliant, most transparent housing providers in the market, paying a combined tax rate that is higher than Charlotte and higher than Raleigh, with every dollar verified and remitted before they even receive their payout.
It means demanding that your council members publicly disclose what they have received from hotel industry PACs before voting on STR regulations, and what rental income they personally receive from properties held in LLCs before voting on anything that touches the rental market. The standard of transparency they demand from homeowners should apply equally to themselves.
Our city officials need to stop letting hotel industry money shape rental policy and start recognizing what responsible STR hosts actually contribute: visitors who fill local restaurants and businesses, tax revenue that arrives clean and automatic, and in many cases a genuine investment in restoring properties that were liabilities to their neighborhoods before anyone with a commitment to quality bought and fixed them.
Your neighborhood deserves accountability from every owner on every street. Not just the ones who rent by the night.
Joy Watson, Realtor® | Joy Watson Real Estate
Serving Greensboro, NC and the Piedmont Triad | We live here, we walk here, we ebike here.
(928) 699-8883 | joy@joywatsonrealestate.com
joywatsonrealestate.com/blog
License #307423 | Firm License #C37131 | Equal Housing Opportunity
