Why book direct
£2 billion a year leaves our local communities.
That’s our estimate of what UK hotels, B&Bs and holiday lets pay overseas booking platforms in commission every year – money that could be paying local staff, local suppliers and local taxes. Here’s where it goes, and how we worked it out.
The three numbers
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£1.1bn
earned by Booking.com in 2024 from UK accommodation – by its own accounts
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£885m
of that leaves the UK. Only about £215m is spent back here
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£2bn
a year, estimated, paid by UK hotels, B&Bs and holiday lets to overseas booking platforms
From Booking.com Limited’s 2024 accounts at Companies House, and Mooch estimates.
Booking.com’s own figures
Booking.com’s UK company is paid “an amount equal to 2% of the revenue earned by Booking.com B.V. in the Territory” – Booking.com B.V. being its company in Amsterdam. Its accounts give that 2% each year, so the rest is simple arithmetic.
| Year | The 2% paid to the UK company | So Booking.com earned about |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | £22,035,441 | £1.10 billion |
| 2023 | £20,974,218 | £1.05 billion |
This is Booking.com’s commission on stays at UK accommodation (“net stay commission”). It’s a minimum: it leaves out flights, car hire, advertising and the discounts hotels fund themselves, and it covers Booking.com only – not Expedia, Airbnb or the others.
What comes back – and what doesn’t
Booking.com does spend some money in the UK, on its office and staff here. Its accounts show how much.
| Earned from UK accommodation, 2024 | £1.1bn |
| Paid back to its UK company for UK costs | £215m |
| Leaves the UK | £885m |
If the booking platform were British, all of it would stay here – the profit, the tax and the jobs.
And the tax?
In 2024, Booking.com’s UK company owed about £100,000 in current UK corporation tax. Its profit on UK bookings is taxed in the Netherlands, where much of it qualifies for a 9% rate instead of 25.8%.
If that profit were taxed in the UK at 25%, we estimate it would bring in £70–90 million a year – from Booking.com alone.
The real cost to a hotel
The headline commission is only the start. Hotel owners recognise the rest from their own statements.
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Commission
Typically 15–20% of every booking, charged to the hotel.
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Paid visibility
Programmes such as Preferred Partner and Visibility Booster raise the commission further in return for a better place in the results.
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Discounts the hotel funds
Member and mobile discounts come out of the hotel’s takings, on top of the commission.
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Lost guests
Guests who book through a middleman are the booking site’s customers, not yours – harder to welcome back.
Europe has acted. The UK hasn’t – yet.
- In 2024 the EU named Booking.com a “gatekeeper” and banned the price-parity clauses that stop hotels offering better rates elsewhere.
- More than 10,000 European hotels – UK hotels among those eligible – have joined a damages claim against Booking.com.
- In the UK, no booking site has yet been brought under the new digital competition rules.
Direct bookings come first
Book direct and you’re the hotel’s own guest, not a booking site’s – and hotels look after their own guests first.
- First pick of rooms, and the best chance of an upgrade.
- Requests go straight to the people looking after you – the quiet room, the early check-in, the dog bed.
- Something changes? Talk to the hotel, not a call centre.
Book direct. Keep it local.
Mooch is UK-based. We send you straight to the hotel to book, and hotels pay us one flat yearly fee – never commission. So more of your money stays with the people who welcome you, and what they pay us stays in the UK too.
How we worked it out
- £1.1bn: the 2% fee in Booking.com Limited’s accounts for 2024 (£22,035,441), divided by 2%. Companies House
- £885m: £1.1bn less the company’s total UK turnover of £215.3m, which covers its UK costs. Companies House
- £2bn: our estimate – Booking.com’s £1.1bn, plus Expedia and other booking sites in line with their European market shares, plus Airbnb. We’ve rounded down. HOTREC 2026
- Tax: about £100,000 of current corporation tax in the 2024 accounts; the 9% Dutch rate from Booking Holdings’ annual report; £70–90m from Booking Holdings’ 2025 profit margins and the UK’s 25% rate. Annual report · 2025 results · UK tax rates
- About a third of UK hotel bookings go through booking sites. Phocuswright
- Europe: Booking.com named a gatekeeper; hotels’ damages claim. Slaughter and May · Hotel-Online
Figures checked in October 2026. Where a figure is our estimate, we say so.
