Hosts also lose the ability to require guests to put dishes away or to haul trash off the property or to an offsite dump. Guests are still expected to take reasonable care of the place: put used dishes in the sink, gather used towels and sort recycling into the indoor bins. They must not leave the property needing "excessive or deep cleaning," such as moldy dishes or soiled carpets. Hosts who find a mess can still mention cleanliness in their reviews, but they cannot charge a fee for undone checkout tasks.

The overhaul goes beyond cleaning. Airbnb is creating seven standard categories of house rules, covering matters such as guests, pets and smoking, so that the rules show clearly on a listing before anyone books. Hosts will not be able to add rules after booking through messages or signs at the property. Any extra request must be "reasonable" and shown prominently on the listing page. The company said the aim was to make rules "easier to identify and clearer to define" and to keep stays "reasonable without nasty surprises."

The policy also stops hosts from requiring guests to sign extra contracts or show identification unless there is a legal basis for it. Hosts cannot block access to listed amenities without a reason, and they must clearly disclose paid extras such as breakfast. They can still set reasonable rules on smoking, noise and additional guests. Limits on visitors, however, now have to be phrased as requests rather than strict rules. Guests are still bound by the house rules a host sets.

Guests can report requests that break the policy, and hosts who disagree with how Airbnb enforces it can appeal. Hosts who violate the rules may face sanctions on the platform.

Airbnb said it made the change after users described the old house-rules system as "confusing, onerous and hard to manage." Guests have long complained about paying a cleaning fee and then being asked to clean as well.

Hosts are split. In posts on Reddit, some hosts welcomed the clearer rules, while others worried about cleanliness and pointed to past problems such as "ant infestations caused by unclean guests." One host called the change a "new low," and another wrote, "It's unreasonable to ask guests to wash their dishes? Are you joking??"

Guests were mostly positive. One said "laundry was asking a bit much." Others said the change came "too late" because they had already "moved on back to hotels." One traveler noted that hotels "have never asked me to do dishes/laundry/chores," and another wrote, "Hotels are back, baby."