Here's why US$ 10 is deducted from Airbnb payouts

[Sharmini5]

I joined the Airbnb Hosting community in June 2021. I have received approx. 14 payouts from Airbnb via Western Union so far and with each payout I have found USD 10 deducted from the final payout.

The Western Union customer receipt does not reflect this deduction except that the final payout is minus USD 10. Airbnb doesn't mention this in their payout notices either, which they should in order to make all transactions clear and above board.

Western Union confirms that they do not charge the receiver a fee and that all fees are paid by the sender – in this case, Airbnb.

Western Union further states that “receiving money is free of charge unless the receiver chooses to receive the money in a different currency or to a device or an account which was not part of the send transaction.”

https://www.westernunion.com/content/wucom/Countries/en_RU/frequently-asked-questions/faq-receive-mo...

Airbnb states here, https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/195/how-do-i-use-western-union-to-receive-payouts, under Fees and Conditions, “Western Union processing fee: A $10 USD fee is deducted from each Western Union transaction to cover processing costs".

This means the unmentioned USD 10 deduction from each payout is the processing fee which the sender - Airbnb - must pay.

[Sarah977]

@Sharmini5  Yep, Airbnb is charging the host the sender's fee. I'm not at all surprised. 

Is there any other payout option available to you in Sri Lanka?

[Sharmini5]

Sarah, with any payout fee there's always a sender's fee involved. 

[Sarah977]

@Sharmini5  No, there isn't. My payouts go directly to my bank account. I don't have anything deducted from my payouts.

[Sharmini5]

I didn't know that Airbnb had that option.

[Sharmini5]

Thank you for the tip, Sarah.

[Mike-And-Jane0 · Accepted solution]

@Sharmini5 Payment routes may vary by country. The other thing you can do, if you can't get paid direct, is to set an amount that needs to be exceeded before you are paid. Whilst this will slow down your payments the $10 will be a lesser percentage of your income.

[Sharmini5]

Dear Mike and Jane,

Thanks to  Sarah's comment above, I contacted my bank today. They confirmed that it's possible for me to receive the payments directly to my bank account via an international wire transfer almost immediately. The transfer fee is almost next to nothing. Western Union takes at least 24 hours and I'm charged $ 10 for it too.

[Sarah977]

@Sharmini5  It's not just whether your bank will receive wire transfers- as Mike and Jane said, bank transfer has to be an option that Airbnb offers as one of the choices of payout methods in your country. For instance, back when I started hosting in 2016,  I recall that the payout options that popped up were bank transfer and paypal. 

Hope it's possible for you to get a no or low fee option.

[Sharmini5]

@Sarah977, I checked on the available Airbnb payout options and I found it was possible to add my bank account as the preferred payout method. 

If not for you, I wouldn't have known this. Thank you very much, Sarah.