What changed in this filing

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Item 1. Business

2025-02-13 compared with 2024-02-16 · 56 added, 83 removed, 76 unchanged (65% of the section changed)

We operate a global marketplace, where hosts offer guests stays and experiences on our platform.

We are a community based on connection and belonging—a community that was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in almost every country and region across the globe.

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We intend to make long-term decisions considering all of our stakeholders because their collective success is key for our business to thrive.

A Resilient Model

We believe we are well positioned for the road ahead due to our adaptability and relentless innovation.

Our business model is adaptable.

We have nearly every type of space in nearly every location, so however travel changes, we are able to adapt.

Regardless of the economic environment, our guests come to Airbnb because they can find great value, and our Hosts can earn income.

We’ve relentlessly innovated while also staying focused and disciplined.

Our Long-Term Growth Strategy

Our strategy is to continue to invest in our key strengths:

• Make hosting mainstream.

We’re focused on making hosting just as popular as traveling on Airbnb.

We will continue to invest in growing the size and quality of our Host community.

We plan to attract more Hosts globally by expanding use cases and supporting all different types of Hosts, including those who host occasionally.

We will also continue to increase the support that we provide to our Hosts to deliver high-quality stays and experiences for guests.

We’ll continue to raise awareness around hosting, make it easier to get started, and improve the overall experience for Hosts.

• Grow and engage our guest community.

We intend to continue to attract new guests to Airbnb and will continue to focus on engaging our existing guests to return to book and to use Airbnb with more frequency.

With new behaviors developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe the ways that people approach work, living, and travel have fundamentally changed.

We believe there will be further opportunities to enhance our offerings based on these new behaviors and attract more guests to our platform.

• Perfect the core service.

Our innovations are focused on improving our Host and guest experiences, making Airbnb more accessible and appealing for new Hosts and guests and driving increased engagement and loyalty with our existing community.

Two years ago, we started doing twice-a-year product releases to address feedback from our existing community.

Since then, we’ve launched more than 430 new features and upgrades to our core service.

In the past year alone, this included improved customer service, total price display, and new tools to help Hosts set more competitive prices.

We intend to continue to invest in our brand to educate new Hosts and guests on the benefits of Airbnb and the uniqueness of our offerings.

We will continue to leverage our brand through a cohesive and integrated marketing strategy through our two annual product launches.

• Expand our global network.

We’ve made significant progress over the past three years to build a strong and profitable business.

In addition to laying the foundation for differentiated offerings for our Hosts and guests, we’ve been focused on international expansion.

We are investing in under-penetrated international markets and have seen strong results.

We plan to continue to expand our global network and partner with communities to update laws and regulations for short-term rentals to allow more Hosts to join our platform.

Our key strategic priorities include perfecting our core business, accelerating growth in global markets, and launching and scaling new offerings.

Over the past several years, we have introduced hundreds of new features and upgrades to our platform spanning nearly every part of our service from pricing to quality to customer support.

Additionally, we are leveraging our global markets strategy, which includes a more localized approach to product updates and marketing investments to raise awareness and consideration in less mature markets.

Lastly, we are planning to expand our business beyond travel accommodations using our multi-year product roadmap to help drive long-term growth across new businesses.

Our Platform for Hosts

We built our platform to seamlessly onboard new hosts, especially those who previously had not considered hosting.

We partner with Hosts throughout the process of setting up their listing and provide them with a robust suite of tools to successfully manage their listings, including scheduling, merchandising, integrated payments, community support, Host protections, pricing guidance, and feedback from reviews.

During 2023, we launched new pricing tools to help Hosts set competitive prices, easily add weekly and monthly discounts, and compare their listing to similar ones in their area.

We count the number of Hosts on our platform based on the number of users with available listings, defined as accommodations and experiences that are viewable on our platform (excluding HotelTonight), as of a certain date.

We consider a listing of a home or an experience to be an "active listing" if it is viewable on Airbnb and has been previously booked at least once on Airbnb (excluding HotelTonight).

We partner with hosts throughout the process of setting up their listing and provide them with a robust suite of tools to successfully manage their listings, including scheduling, merchandising, integrated payments, community support, host protections, pricing tools, and feedback from reviews.

During 2024, we introduced Co-Host Network, which enables our hosts to find co-hosts who can help manage their listing.

Co-hosts are experienced hosts who provide personalized support based on the hosts’ needs, from listing setup to managing bookings and communicating with guests.

Our Platform for Guests

Our website and mobile apps provide our guests with an engaging way to explore a wide variety of unique homes and experiences and an easy way to book them.

To better meet the needs of our guests, we have launched a series of new features and upgrades through our biannual product releases to help guests find affordable, high quality and reliable stays across the platform.

Our website and mobile app provide our guests with an engaging way to explore and easily book a wide variety of unique homes and experiences.

Over the last several years, we have launched a significant number of new features and upgrades through our biannual product releases to help guests find affordable, high quality and reliable stays across the platform.

Our System of Trust

The system for trust that we have designed includes the following components:

Host and guest reviews, account protection, risk scoring, secure payments, a nondiscrimination policy, watchlist and background checks in certain jurisdictions, cleanliness, fraud and scam prevention, insurance and similar protections, booking restrictions, an urgent safety line, a 24/7 neighborhood support line, and a guest refund policy.

We offer top-to-bottom protection for our Hosts through AirCover for Hosts.

host and guest reviews, account protection, risk scoring, secure payments, a nondiscrimination policy, watchlist and background checks in certain jurisdictions, cleanliness, fraud and scam prevention, insurance and similar protections, booking restrictions, an urgent safety line, a 24/7 neighborhood support line, anti-party technology, and a guest refund policy.

We offer protection for our hosts through AirCover for Hosts.

AirCover for Hosts includes, among other features, guest property damage protection of up to $3 million per stay, liability coverage to hosts of up to $1 million per occurrence in the event of third-party claims of personal injury or property damage, deep cleaning protection, and pet damage protection.

We also offer AirCover for guests, which provides support for serious issues with a booking or during a stay, including host cancellations, inability to check-in, inaccurate listings, and a 24-hour safety support line.

We have new initiatives under development and will continue to create additional features to strengthen the trust and safety on our platform.

We have new initiatives under development and will continue to create additional safety features to strengthen the trust and safety on our platform.

Our Technology

Our technology platform powers our two-sided marketplace and enables our global network of hosts and guests.

As of December 31, 2023, we had more than 2,000 engineers within our product development organization.

Given the nature of the business, our technology platform has broad and complex requirements:

• Support of global payments .

It supports global payment capabilities and sophisticated anti-fraud and anti-money-laundering measures.

It enables guests and hosts to send and receive money in their preferred currency, supporting approximately 20 local payment methods.

Designed for scalability and reliability, the platform ensures secure transactions through advanced protections against fraud and money laundering.

• Delivery of global community support .

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It delivers deep business intelligence insights to manage our marketplace, including pricing insights and occupancy optimization for our hosts.

• Incorporation of artificial intelligence (“AI”)/machine learning .

It incorporates sophisticated AI to power key areas, from fraud detection, to personalized listing matching and enabling customized and real-time community support.

• Incorporation of artificial intelligence (“AI”) and machine learning .

It incorporates sophisticated AI into key areas, from fraud detection, to personalized listing matching and enabling customized and real-time community support.

• Operation of a microservices architecture .

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As we continue to evolve our foundational technology, we are focused on the following broad capabilities:

• Data management systems that continue to support user privacy, analytics, machine learning/AI, and business insights.

• Data management systems that are designed to support user privacy, analytics, machine learning/AI, and business insights.

• Service reliability leading to best-in-class performance centered on availability, latency, disaster recovery and business continuity, security, testability, observability, operability, and agility.

• Cloud support focusing on robust capabilities for granular attribution and usage patterns to realize efficiency gains.

These continued technological investments aim to ensure we have a robust platform that allows us to more quickly adapt to the needs of our Hosts and guests around the world and increase the productivity of our product development organization.

These continued technological investments aim to create a robust platform that allows us to more quickly adapt to the needs of our hosts and guests around the world and increase the productivity of our product development organization.

Our Marketing

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Brand marketing increases awareness among potential hosts and guests, helping them understand the benefits of hosting and booking stays and experiences, and what makes these stays and experiences distinctly Airbnb.

Our global communications team works across press, policy, and influencers to share timely and important news about Airbnb.

Our global communications team works across press, policy, and online influencers to share timely and important news about Airbnb.

They also oversee the execution of a global consumer, product, corporate, and policy-communications plan that supports our brand strategy and generates considerable press and social media coverage.

While performance marketing drives additional traffic from high-intent prospective guests, the strength of the Airbnb brand and our communications strategy allows us to be less reliant on performance marketing.

Human Capital

While performance marketing is one component of our multi-pronged strategy, the strength of the Airbnb brand and our communications strategy allows us to be less reliant on performance marketing.

Our Human Capital

We consider the management of our global talent to be essential to the ongoing success of our business.

As of December 31, 2023, we had 6,907 employees.

As of December 31, 2023, we relied on a global network of approximately 11,000 third-party contingent workers to handle the vast majority of our community support contacts.

As of December 31, 2024, we had approximately 7,300 employees.

As of December 31, 2024, we relied on a global network of approximately 11,000 third-party workers to handle the vast majority of our community support contacts.

Our internal community support employees are comprised of operations teams who handle complex and sensitive issues, and enablement teams who support all community-facing teams, including our partners.

Attracting, recruiting, developing, and retaining diverse talent enables us to provide our Hosts and guests with innovative products and services as well as serve our other stakeholders.

As of December 31, 2023, 49% of our global employees identify in the gender binary as women and 16% of our U.S.-based employees identify as under-represented minorities.

Through our hiring process, we commit to encouraging diversity and eliminating bias, and we publish the changing demographic makeup of our workforce to hold ourselves accountable.

We are also focused on supporting our employees across the employee lifecycle from recruitment to onboarding to ongoing development.

Our Live and Work Anywhere policy allows for the vast majority of our employees to work remotely on a permanent basis.

We believe that expanding our talent pool beyond the commuting radius near our offices will allow us to attract the best and most diverse employees over time.

We aim to create a highly coordinated working culture, and as such, will continue to promote ways to keep employees highly engaged and connected by aligning employees’ work through our roadmap, as well as curating employee collaboration sessions either in the office or at off-site locations.

Attracting, recruiting, developing, and retaining talent from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences enables us to provide our hosts and guests with innovative products and services as well as serve our other stakeholders.

Through our hiring process, we commit to finding the best, most qualified candidates for each role, while encouraging inclusion and eliminating bias.

We are also focused on supporting all of our employees in continuing to grow and develop throughout the employee lifecycle.

Our Live and Work Anywhere policy allows for the vast majority of our employees to work remotely.

We believe that expanding our talent pool beyond the commuting radius near our offices will allow us to attract the best employees over time, as it helps us to have a broader and more diverse range of qualified candidates for any given position.

We aim to create a highly coordinated working culture, and as such, will continue to promote ways to keep employees highly engaged and connected by aligning employees’ work through our product roadmap, as well as curating employee collaboration sessions either in the office or at off-site locations.

Climate Change

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purchased goods and services, capital goods, fuel- and energy-related activities (not included in Scope 1 or Scope 2), waste generated in operations, business travel, employee commuting, and upstream leased assets.

To meet our goals, we are implementing a broad range of initiatives designed to help decarbonize our business and make our corporate operations more sustainable.

To help meet our goals, we are implementing a broad range of initiatives designed to help decarbonize our business and make our corporate operations more sustainable.

We also purchase, and plan to continue purchasing, carbon credits to fully achieve our emissions goals in the long-term.

Our aim is to procure such credits from high integrity projects, with a focus on nature-based solutions where feasible.

We are subject to laws, regulations, and rules that affect the short-term rental and home sharing business at city, state, country, and regional levels.

While a number of cities and countries have implemented legislation to address short-term rentals, there are many others that are not yet explicitly addressing or enforcing short-term rental laws, and could follow suit and enact regulations.

We seek to work with governments to establish clear, fair, and workable home sharing rules to create clarity for our Hosts.

No single city represented more than 2% of our revenue before adjustments for incentives and refunds during the year ended December 31, 2023 or approximately 1% of our active listings as of December 31, 2023.

Incentives include our referral programs and marketing promotions to encourage the use of our platform and attract new Hosts and guests, while our refunds to Hosts and guests are part of our support activities.

We do not believe that the current regulations in our top 10 cities, in the aggregate, have had or are expected to have a material adverse impact on our results of operations and financial condition.

We will continue to collaborate with policymakers to implement sensible legislation around the world.

In addition to laws, regulations, and rules directly applicable to the short-term rental and home sharing business, we are subject to a wide variety of laws, regulations and rules governing our business practices.

These include those related to the Internet, e-commerce, and electronic devices, and involving taxation, privacy, data privacy, data security, pricing, content, advertising, discrimination, consumer protection, protection of minors, copyrights, distribution, messaging, mobile communications, use of AI and automated decision making, electronic device certification, electronic waste, electronic contracts, communications, Internet access, competition, and unfair commercial practices.

Our aim is to procure such credits from high integrity projects, with a focus on nature-based solutions or projects with other co-benefits where feasible.

We are subject to laws, regulations, and rules that affect the short-term and long-term rental and home sharing business at city, state, country, and regional levels.

While a number of cities, counties, states and countries have implemented legislation to address short-term rentals, there are many others that are not yet explicitly addressing or enforcing short-term rental laws, and could follow suit and enact regulations.

We seek to work with governments to establish clear, fair, and workable home sharing rules to create clarity for our hosts, however certain cities have passed onerous restrictions on short-term rentals.

For example, New York City passed regulations in 2023, which resulted in a de facto ban of short-term rental activities.

Other smaller cities have also passed onerous restrictions on short-term rentals.

We will continue to collaborate with policymakers to implement sensible legislation around the world and/or dispute regulations that unreasonably restrict the right to host.

In addition to laws, regulations, and rules directly applicable to the short-term and long-term rental and home sharing business, we are subject to a wide variety of laws, regulations and rules governing our business practices.

These include those related to the Internet, Internet access, e-commerce, and electronic devices, and those involving taxation, privacy, data privacy, data security, insurance, pricing, content, advertising, discrimination, consumer protection, employment, protection of minors, copyrights, distribution, messaging, mobile communications, use of AI, electronic device certification, electronic waste, electronic contracts, communications, competition, and unfair commercial practices.

We are also subject to laws, regulations, and rules governing the provision of online payment services, the design and operation of our platform, and the operations, characteristics, and quality of our platform and services.

Additionally, we are subject to a variety of taxes and tax collection obligations in the United States (federal, state, and local) and numerous foreign jurisdictions.

Our payments platform is subject to various laws, rules, regulations, policies, legal interpretations, and regulatory guidance, including those governing cross-border and domestic money transmission and funds transfers, stored value and prepaid access, foreign exchange, data privacy, data security, and cybersecurity, banking secrecy, payment services (including payment processing and settlement services), consumer protection, economic and trade sanctions, anti-corruption and anti-bribery, and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing.

Our payments platform is subject to various laws, rules, regulations, policies, legal interpretations, and regulatory guidance, including those governing cross-border and domestic money transmission and funds transfers, stored value and prepaid access, foreign exchange, data privacy, data security, cybersecurity, banking secrecy, payment services (including payment processing and settlement services), consumer protection, economic and trade sanctions, anti-corruption and anti-bribery, and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing.

Our business collects, processes, and uses the personal data of individuals across the globe.

As a result, compliance with laws on data privacy and data security regulating the collection, storage, handling, use, disclosure, transfer, security, and other processing of personal data is core to our strategy and integral to the creation of trust in our platform.

We take a variety of technical and organizational security measures and other procedures and protocols designed to protect data, including data pertaining to Hosts, guests, employees, and others.

As a result, we must comply with certain laws on data privacy and data security regulating the collection, storage, handling, use, disclosure, transfer, security, and other processing of personal data.

We take a variety of technical and organizational security measures and other procedures and protocols designed to protect personal data, including data pertaining to hosts, guests, employees, and others.

Legal requirements relating to the collection, storage, handling, use, disclosure, transfer, security and other processing of personal data continue to evolve, and regulatory scrutiny in this area is increasing around the world.

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Regulators around the world continue to propose more stringent data privacy and data security laws, and these laws are rapidly increasing in number, complexity, enforcement, fines, and penalties.

Data privacy and data security laws and their interpretations continue to develop and may be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Data privacy, data security and AI laws and their interpretations continue to develop and are inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

As we continue to expand the reach of our brand into additional markets, we will be increasingly subject to additional laws, regulations, and rules.

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Seasonal trends in our GBV impact Free Cash Flow for any given quarter.

A significant portion of our costs are relatively fixed across quarters or vary in line with the volume of transactions, and we historically achieve our highest GBV in the first and second quarters of the year with comparatively lower check-ins.

A significant portion of our costs are relatively fixed across quarters or vary inline with booking volume.

We historically achieve our highest quarterly GBV in the first and second quarters of the year with comparatively lower check-ins.

As a result, increases in unearned fees typically make our Free Cash Flow and Free Cash Flow as a percentage of revenue the highest in the first two quarters of the year.

We typically see a slight decline in GBV and a peak in check-ins in the third quarter, which results in a decrease in unearned fees, a lower sequential decrease in Free Cash Flow, and a greater decline in GBV in the fourth quarter, where Free Cash Flow is typically lower.

As our business and travel continues to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic, other seasonal trends may develop, or these existing seasonal trends may become more extreme.

See the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Key Business Metrics and Non-GAAP Financial Measures” included in Item 7 of Part II of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for definitions of our key business metrics.

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We compete to attract and retain hosts to and on our platform to list their homes and experiences, as hosts have a range of options for doing so.

We compete for Hosts based on many factors including the volume of bookings generated by guests, ease of use of our platform, the service fees we charge, Host protections, such as those included in AirCover for Hosts, and our brand.

We compete for hosts based on many factors including the volume of bookings generated by guests, ease of use of our platform, the service fees we charge, host protections, such as those included in AirCover for Hosts, our brand, and community support.

Competition for Guests

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Our competitors include:

• Online travel agencies (“OTAs”), such as Booking Holdings (including the brands Booking.com, KAYAK, Priceline.com, and Agoda.com), Expedia Group (including the brands Expedia, Vrbo, HomeAway, Hotels.com, Orbitz, and Travelocity), Trip.com Group (including the brands Ctrip.com, Trip.com, Qunar, Tongcheng-eLong, and SkyScanner), Hopper, Fliggy (a subsidiary of Alibaba), Despegar, MakeMyTrip, and other regional OTAs;

• Internet search engines, such as Google, including its travel search products, Baidu, and other regional search engines;

• Listing and meta search websites, such as TripAdvisor, Trivago, Mafengwo, AllTheRooms.com, Hometogo, Holidu, and Craigslist;

• Hotel chains, such as Marriott, Hilton, Accor, Wyndham, InterContinental, OYO, and Huazhu, as well as boutique hotel chains and independent hotels;

• Property management companies, such as Vacasa, Sonder, Inspirato, Evolve, Awaze, and other regional property management companies;

• Online platforms offering experiences, such as Viator, GetYourGuide, Klook, Traveloka, TUI Musement, and KKDay.

• online travel agencies (“OTAs”), such as Booking Holdings (including the brand Booking.com), Expedia Group (including the brand Expedia), Trip.com Group and other regional OTAs;

• internet search engines, such as Google and those powered by AI, including its travel search products;

• hotel chains, such as Marriott, Hilton, Accor, Wyndham, as well as boutique hotel chains and independent hotels;

• property management companies;

• online platforms offering experiences.

Our Intellectual Property

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The portfolio includes both organically grown and acquired patent assets.

We own a trademark portfolio with protections in 170 countries in which we currently operate for our primary brands — AIRBNB and our Bélo logo.

Additionally, we own trademark protections around the world for other brands or protectable brand elements important to our business, including but

not limited to Rausch, our primary corporate color, localizations, translations, and transliterations of our primary brands, and brands associated with businesses we have acquired.

We own a trademark portfolio with protections around the world for our primary brands — AIRBNB and our Bélo logo, for other brands or protectable brand elements important to our business, including but not limited to Rausch, our primary corporate color, localizations, translations, and transliterations of our primary brands, and brands associated with businesses we have acquired.

We have registered domain names that we use in or relate to our business, such as the airbnb.com domain name and country code top level domain name equivalents.

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Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, (the “Exchange Act”) are also available free of charge on our investor relations website (investors.airbnb.com) as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC.

In addition, we routinely post other information, which could be deemed to be material to investors, on our investor relations website.

Information regarding our corporate responsibility and sustainability initiatives is also available on our website.

Information on our website, including the information published in our sustainability reports, is not incorporated by reference in this Report.

We webcast our quarterly results calls and certain events we participate in or host with members of the investment community on our investor relations website.

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Compared sentence by sentence after normalising whitespace, quotation marks, case and digits, so re-formatting and restated figures do not read as changed language. Wording changes appear as one removal and one addition. The current filing and the prior one are authoritative.

What changed 10-K

Item 1. Business