Airbnb Review Policy
The Airbnb review policy is the set of rules for how guests and hosts review each other after a stay: both are asked to write a review on checkout day, reviews appear once both sides have submitted or 14 days have passed, and every review must be first-hand and free of pressure, payment or retaliation (Reviews for homes (Airbnb Help Center)) (Authentic and trustworthy reviews (Airbnb Help Center)).
Last updated: November 2026
How the Airbnb review policy works
Who reviews, and when
On the day of checkout, Airbnb prompts both the guest and the host to leave a review, and each side has 14 days after checkout to submit it (Reviews for homes (Airbnb Help Center)). Guests rate the stay, and hosts rate the guest on cleanliness, communication and how well they followed the house rules (Why reviews matter (Airbnb Resource Center, Sep 2025)).
A review stays hidden until the other side has also submitted theirs, or until the 14-day period ends, whichever comes first (Reviews for homes (Airbnb Help Center)).
What the policy allows and forbids
Every review on Airbnb falls under its "Authentic and trustworthy reviews" policy. A review has to describe the reviewer's own, first-hand experience of the reservation, and a review that is not based on a real reservation counts as fake (Authentic and trustworthy reviews (Airbnb Help Center)).
The same rules bind hosts and guests. Neither side may manipulate, extort, pressure or incentivize another person over a review. Nobody may review a listing they are directly affiliated with or competing against, and nobody may write a review to retaliate against someone for enforcing an Airbnb policy. Explicit, discriminatory, harmful and illegal content is banned too (Authentic and trustworthy reviews (Airbnb Help Center)).
When a review breaks the policy, Airbnb may remove it along with its ratings, and depending on the violation it may also restrict, suspend or remove the listing or account behind it (Authentic and trustworthy reviews (Airbnb Help Center)). Asking Airbnb to take a review down is a separate process, covered in our guide on how to remove an Airbnb review.
How the Airbnb star rating is built
Guests rate a stay from 1 to 5 stars in seven categories: overall, cleanliness, accuracy, check-in, communication, location and value (Ratings for homes (Airbnb Help Center)).
The overall rating is a score of its own, given directly by the guest, and is not calculated from the other six. A listing's rating is the average of guests' overall scores alone (Airbnb review policy (Hostfully blog, Jul 2026)). That Airbnb star rating appears in search results and on the listing once three guests have rated it (Why reviews matter (Airbnb Resource Center, Sep 2025)).
Why the Airbnb review policy matters for hotel distribution
Airbnb tells hosts that reviews help guests decide whether a place is right for them, and that better reviews and ratings can lead to more bookings and higher earnings (Why reviews matter (Airbnb Resource Center, Sep 2025)).
Ratings also decide who qualifies for Airbnb's host programs. Superhost status requires an overall rating of 4.8 or higher, assessed every three months over the past 12 months (What's required to be a Superhost (Airbnb Help Center)). Guest Favorites looks for ratings above 4.9 on average plus high marks in all six categories (Why reviews matter (Airbnb Resource Center, Sep 2025)).
Low ratings work in the other direction. Repeated low ratings indicate that a listing or host may not be meeting guest expectations of quality, and Airbnb may message hosts who receive them (Ground rules for home hosts (Airbnb Help Center)). For a hotel or rental operator selling on Airbnb, each review carries weight beyond the stay it describes.
Why fair reviews on both sides matter
A two-sided review system depends on both sides being able to write honestly. Before July 2014, hosts and guests alike worried that an honest review would draw an unfair critical one in return. That month, Airbnb began revealing reviews to hosts and guests at the same time and shortened the review period from 30 days to 14 (Airbnb revamps its review system (The Next Web, Jul 2014)).
A peer-reviewed experiment on Airbnb, published in Marketing Science in 2021, tested hiding the first review. In the old setup, the second reviewer could read it and reciprocate or retaliate. Once first reviews were hidden, that became impossible: more reviews were left, they arrived sooner and they were more likely to be accurate (Reciprocity and Unveiling in Two-Sided Reputation Systems: Evidence from an Experiment on Airbnb (INFORMS via EurekAlert, Nov 2021)).
Ratings on the platform still sit near the top of the scale. In data from 2015, nearly 95% of Airbnb listings scored 4.5 or 5 stars, against a 3.8-star average on TripAdvisor, and the researchers linked the gap to two-sided rating making guests and hosts more charitable to each other (At Airbnb, Where Every Stay Is Above Average (BU Today, 2015)).
With most listings bunched between 4.5 and 5 stars and program thresholds at 4.8 and above, one unfair rating can matter. Rules applied equally to hosts and guests keep those small differences meaningful.
The Airbnb review policy compared with the pre-2014 system
| Before July 2014 | Since July 2014 | |
|---|---|---|
| Review period | 30 days | 14 days after checkout |
| Can the second reviewer read the first review? | Yes, which left room to reciprocate or retaliate | No, reviews stay hidden until both submit or the period ends |
| Effect measured in the Airbnb experiment | Baseline (control group) | More reviews, faster, more likely to be accurate |
Table sources: Airbnb revamps its review system (The Next Web, Jul 2014) Reciprocity and Unveiling in Two-Sided Reputation Systems: Evidence from an Experiment on Airbnb (INFORMS via EurekAlert, Nov 2021) Reviews for homes (Airbnb Help Center)
Frequently asked questions
Can a reviewer change a review after submitting it?
Can a host reply to a guest's review?
Who can see a guest's category ratings and private notes?
Does Airbnb check reviews before they are published?
Can a host offer a discount or refund in exchange for a good review?
Related terms
See all termsWhere Jetstream fits
A fair review starts with a stay that matched what the guest booked: the right room, at the right rate, on the right dates. Jetstream builds an AI channel manager that connects a property's systems to the channels where guests book and keeps rooms, rates and availability accurate on every one of them, managed from one place.