Know Your Customer (KYC) is a regulatory requirement to help protect our community from fraud, and to help prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. Companies that are licensed to process payments, like Airbnb’s payment subsidiaries, must have KYC processes to comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws and regulations—in other words, we’re required to know who’s accessing each Airbnb account and who’s getting paid.
We may use account information you provided when you signed up for Airbnb—or that you’ve previously provided—for KYC, payout, and tax purposes. You’ll have the opportunity to confirm and update these details before you submit them.
KYC requires that all hosts provide the following information to Airbnb. If you’re setting up a listing, we’ll ask for it as part of that process. If you’re a co-host, we’ll reach out to you through the site or app as well as email and give you a link to complete this step.
If you answer yes to hosting as a business, we’ll ask you to provide additional business information. If, at any point, you need more time to gather your business information, you can select Exit and we’ll save your progress so you can come back and finish later.
Here are more details about what we’ll collect:
Your registered address is the official address used when you registered the business with your state or government and where your company receives official documents and legal notices. This may not be the physical location where the business operates day-to-day. If you have a different office address, or second address where you get your mail, check the box next to I have another address for my business and fill in the address details. If you have more than one additional address, just fill in the details for the second address that you most commonly use.
This is the number that was assigned to your business when you registered with your local or national government. This could be a company number, charity number, or tax number. The name of the business number varies depending on where your business is registered.
For hosts in the United States, being a registered business means that you have an Employer Identification Number (EIN) issued by the IRS, and, most likely, a state-issued registration number as well.
All businesses must provide their legal, registered business name. Be sure to write it exactly how it shows on your official business documents, for example including "Inc." if you’re incorporated. If your company goes by a different name—sometimes called a DBA or trade / trading name—include that as your Trade or Trading name. This is the name customers use to identify the company—it may just be a short form of your legal name without a business suffix (like Inc., LLC, LTD, or PLLC) at the end.
A business type is the legal structure of a business, such as a corporation or partnership. This information is found on your official registration document.
For US hosts, unless your business is traded on a public stock exchange—meaning that shares of your company are available for anyone to buy and sell on the stock market—it’s a private business.
For most businesses, a beneficial owner is anyone who directly or indirectly owns or controls 25% or more of a business. For business hosts in the EEA, you should also include anyone who has significant control of the business (such as voting rights).
You can add up to 4 beneficial owners.
If your business is owned by another business, then we’ll need the details about the owners of that business. If your corporate structure is complex, you may need to go up several layers to identify the person(s) who own 25% or more of your business.
You’ll need to provide each owner’s full legal name, date of birth, and primary residence address. If you’re a business host in the EEA, you’ll also need to provide their place of birth and citizenship(s).
This is an individual with significant responsibility for managing or influencing the business. Examples include an executive officer (CEO or CFO), senior manager, director, or anyone who regularly performs similar functions.
In a trust, a decision maker or executive could be the person who established the trust, or someone who manages the trust—also commonly called the trustee. For charities, a decision maker or executive could be a trustee or appointed officer.
There may be more than one person who could qualify as a decision maker or executive. You’ll need to provide their full legal name, date of birth, and primary residence address. If you’re a business host in the EEA, you’ll also need to provide their place of birth and citizenship(s).
Once you submit your business details, we’ll save it to your account. If you need to review or update any of the information, go to your account and click or tap Business details.
If we need to verify your business, we’ll use the details you provide and check them against public business records to make sure the information we have is accurate and up-to-date. In some cases, we may reach out to ask you for additional information—like a business registration document or for more information about the beneficial owners.
For business hosts in the EU, business verification is required before you can publish your listing. Be sure to respond to any requests for additional information quickly, as we may hold payouts until the verification process is complete. Learn more about business verification for EU hosts.
During the verification process, which can take up to 3 days, you won’t be able to edit the information on your business account.
Once the information is verified, you won’t be able to edit the business type, number, or registration date. This is because changes to this information means that it’s a new business. You’re always free to start a new Airbnb account for this business, but we can’t transfer ownership between accounts.
To help prevent fraud and comply with financial regulations, we periodically verify account information for all our hosts. We’ll notify you when it’s time for this review. At this time, we’ll provide you with a summary of your account information and ask you to confirm the details, or update them if anything has changed. We’ll then use this information to verify your account. Verified details are required to keep getting paid.
Along with providing KYC information, in order to get paid you’ll also need to make sure you have a payout method set up and that you’ve provided tax information.
Once you add these details, you’ve finished setting up your account. You can manage or review this information in your account under Payments and payouts and Taxes.
Your information is handled according to our Privacy Policy.
We may share your individual or business information with authorized third-party service providers—for example, to help verify your information.