Airbnb Cracking Down on 4th of July Rentals

Planning to host your annual Fourth of July barbecue at a lakeside Airbnb upstate, or even at one with just a moderately bigger backyard? Well, you might have to rethink things.

That’s because, per a new report from the platform, Airbnb is laying down the law this year by implementing certain controls that will make it impossible for some to book short stays over both Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends this summer, in an effort to thwart “unauthorized” and “disruptive” parties.

It was announced on May 4 that:

All guests without an established track record (i.e., a history of positive reviews) will be prohibited from making one-night reservations in entire home listings.
More stringent restrictions will be deployed surrounding two-night reservations as the Fourth of July gets closer.

Further, the company is introducing “anti-party attestations” to guests attempting to make local reservations, in which they must affirmatively attest that they understand that Airbnb bans parties…and that if they break the rule, they may be subject to legal action.

“We will leverage and amplify our technology that restricts certain local and last-minute bookings by guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb,” the company said.

It’s a system of defenses that Airbnb first piloted ahead of Halloween in 2020 in the U.S. and Canada. Similar policies were later enacted for other holidays as well (New Year’s Eve chief among them) and in several more countries, including France, Britain, Mexico, Australia and Spain.

Since then, the platform has expanded the strategy to include rentals in Puerto Rico, Brazil and New Zealand, too. It’s all a part of the platform’s plan to expand on their already “robust party prevention” initiative (which, if you didn’t realize was a thing, you do now). More than 126,000 guests without histories of positive reviews ultimately were impacted by said initiative over the Fourth of July weekend in 2021.

The good news is that guests who do have a history of positive reviews need not worry, as the newly instated parameters won’t affect their ability to book. So the moral of the story here? Don’t be an Airbnb asshole and jeopardize your good standing with the hosts. If you do, you might wind up banned along with the other bad review-soliciting guests come Fourth of July 2023.