Trust & Safety
Your safety is our priority
On any given night, 2 million people stay in homes on Airbnb in 100,000 cities all over the world. There are more than 6 million listings in 191 countries to choose from —that’s more than the top five hotel chains combined.
What makes all of that possible? Trust.
Safety by design
Airbnb is designed with safety—both online and off—in mind
Risk scoring
Every Airbnb reservation is scored for risk before it’s confirmed. We use predictive analytics and machine learning to instantly evaluate hundreds of signals that help us flag and investigate suspicious activity before it happens.
Watchlist & background checks
While no screening system is perfect, we run hosts and guests against global regulatory, terrorist, and sanctions watchlists. For hosts and guests in the United States, we also conduct background checks.
Preparedness
We run safety workshops with hosts and leading local experts and encourage hosts to provide guests with important local information. We also give any host who wants one a free smoke and carbon monoxide detector for their home.
Secure payments
Our secure platform ensures your money gets to the host—that’s why we ask you to always pay through Airbnb and never wire money or pay someone directly.
Account protection
We take a number of measures to safeguard your Airbnb account, like requiring multi-factor authentication when a login is attempted from a new phone or computer and sending you account alerts when changes are made.
Scam prevention
Always pay and communicate directly through the Airbnb website or app. As long as you stay on Airbnb throughout the entire process—from communication, to booking, to payment—you’re protected by our multi-layer defence strategy.
Know what to expect
We make it simple for you to get to know more about any home, experience, guest, or host before booking
Profiles
Everyone on Airbnb has a profile to help other guests or hosts get to know each other. To book or host, you’ll be asked to provide Airbnb with your full name, date of birth, phone number, payment information, and email address.
Secure messaging
Our secure messaging tool lets you get to know a host or guest and ask questions about a listing or experience ahead of time. After the reservation is booked, you can use it to easily message back-and-forth to coordinate things like check-in and directions.
Reviews
If you’re curious about what others thought of a potential guest, host, home, or experience, all you have to do is look at their reviews. Guests and hosts can only review each other after a reservation, so you know the feedback you’re seeing is based on actual experiences.
Profiles
Everyone on Airbnb has a profile to help other guests or hosts get to know each other. To book or host, you’ll be asked to provide Airbnb with your full name, date of birth, phone number, payment information, and email address.
Secure messaging
Our secure messaging tool lets you get to know a host or guest and ask questions about a listing or experience ahead of time. After the reservation is booked, you can use it to easily message back-and-forth to coordinate things like check-in and directions.
Reviews
If you’re curious about what others thought of a potential guest, host, home, or experience, all you have to do is look at their reviews. Guests and hosts can only review each other after a reservation, so you know the feedback you’re seeing is based on actual experiences.
We’re here if you need us
Our global team is standing by 24/7 in 11 different languages to help make things right with rebooking assistance, refunds, reimbursements, our $1 million US dollar Host Guarantee, and insurance programs for both homes and experiences.
Just reach out if there’s anything you need.
