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Airbnb

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The profile

Its hosts were the self-employed population PPP and EIDL were stretched to cover, and Airbnb lobbied to get them in. Its first pandemic act was to refund guests over its hosts' own cancellation policies; it then promised hosts $250 million and recorded $205.1 million of payments under the policy. Airbnb itself took no PPP loan. It borrowed $2 billion privately, at up to 15.1 percent.

  • Type: Short-term lodging and experiences marketplace. Public company, NASDAQ: ABNB (IPO December 10, 2020).
  • Legal entity: Airbnb, Inc. (Delaware C-corp, headquartered in San Francisco).
  • Founded: 2008, San Francisco, by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk.
  • CEO: Brian Chesky (co-founder), throughout the pandemic and today.

In the archive

Before the pandemic (2008–early 2020)

Airbnb entered 2020 as a pre-IPO global marketplace for short-term stays and Experiences, with revenue almost entirely dependent on travel. Its "small businesses" were its hosts: individuals renting rooms and homes, many of them sole proprietors of the kind the CARES Act made eligible for PPP and EIDL. When travel collapsed, the pressure landed first on those hosts and on the cancellation terms in their listings.

During the pandemic (March 2020 – 2022)

Refunds first, hosts second

Airbnb's founders put its pandemic refunds at "more than $1 billion." The rule behind them was the Extenuating Circumstances policy, applied to COVID-19 on March 14, 2020: bookings made on or before that date could be canceled "with no charge or penalty," overriding hosts' own cancellation policies. By March 30 the window ran to check-ins on May 31. The prospectus names who paid: "A large number of guest cancellations under the policy caused lost earnings for our hosts."

Chesky's March 30 letter told hosts: "I'm sorry that we communicated this decision to guests without consulting you—like partners should." It promised "We will pay $250 million to hosts," at 25% of what each would have received under their own cancellation policy. The prospectus calls it a commitment of "up to $250 million," accounted for as a reduction to revenue. For 2020 Airbnb recorded $205.1 million of payments under the policy, "primarily for hosts." That is $44.9 million below the headline.

The Superhost Relief Fund opened at $10 million: $1 million from employees, $9 million from the three founders. Grants ran from $1,000 to $5,000, did not need to be repaid, and went to Superhosts renting out their own homes and to long-tenured Experience hosts. By June 18 the fund totaled $17 million, including $7 million from investors, and had paid $16.8 million to more than 8,700 hosts, 67 percent of them outside the United States. In the prospectus, the founders' money appears as capital contributions to the company: $10.1 million from Chesky and $4.5 million from Joe Gebbia, to support "charitable commitments and initiatives," including the Superhost fund.

Airbnb also rolled out an Enhanced Cleaning protocol, launched June 18, 2020 as "Airbnb Enhanced Clean"; Airbnb's newsroom had announced it on April 27 with former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. It was voluntary throughout: hosts opted in for a listing badge, with a 24-hour pre-entry wait under the protocol and a separate 72-hour booking buffer for hosts who did not adopt it ("Introducing Airbnb Enhanced Clean," June 18, 2020).

On March 26, 2020, Airbnb launched Frontline Stays, an evolution of its 2012 Open Homes program, with a stated goal of housing 100,000 healthcare workers, relief workers, and first responders worldwide. Stays were free or subsidized: Airbnb waived its own fees, and hosts opted in to offer homes free or discounted (Frontline Stays housing announcement, March 26, 2020). The program later folded into the nonprofit Airbnb.org.

Public money: hosts yes, Airbnb no

On March 17, 2020 Airbnb asked Washington to "Ensure hosts qualify for expanded US Small Business Administration economic injury disaster loans." Ten days later, after over 100,000 host emails to Congress, it wrote: "Thanks in part to these advocacy efforts, Congress passed legislation that includes eligibility for Airbnb hosts." SBA's PPP loan data contain no loan to Airbnb, Inc. Seventy-seven loans went to borrowers with "Airbnb" in their names, for $796,167 in all; the largest was $29,166.

On May 6, 2020 Airbnb joined Etsy, Eventbrite, Thumbtack and Upwork in a letter to congressional leaders asking for a "CARES Act 2.0." It asked Congress to set aside PPP money for loans of $100,000 or less and to let lenders accept "net or gross earnings and revenue statements issued by organizations like ours" as proof of income. It also asked Congress to relax the rule that 75 percent of a forgiven loan go to payroll (joint CARES 2.0 letter, May 6, 2020).

The CARES Act reached Airbnb's own books through taxes. A $100.0 million loss-carryback benefit accrued in the first half of 2020 was reversed in the third quarter, after Airbnb approved a plan to move its intellectual property to the United States. The annual report for 2020 then recorded a $95.6 million benefit from carrying back the year's net operating loss under the CARES Act's five-year carryback. That carryback was the main reason for Airbnb's $97.2 million income-tax benefit for 2020.

Private money at 15.1%

Airbnb "raised $2 billion in debt" in April 2020. Its announcement described the Silver Lake and Sixth Street money as "a combination of debt and equity securities." The filings show a $1.0 billion second-lien loan at LIBOR plus 10%, an effective 15.1%, and warrants on 7,934,794 shares at $28.355 issued to Silver Lake and Sixth Street entities. The first-lien loan carried an effective 9.5%. The warrants were valued at $116.6 million when issued and $985.2 million at the end of 2020, after the IPO priced at $68.00. In March 2021 Airbnb repaid $1,995.0 million and booked a $377.2 million loss on extinguishment, including $212.9 million of early-redemption premiums.

Half the revenue, and the executives' pay

On May 5, 2020 Chesky forecast 2020 revenue at "less than half" of 2019's. It came in at $3.38 billion, down 30%. The same memo paused Airbnb's Transportation and Airbnb Studios efforts and scaled back Hotels and Lux.

The founders took no salary, and other named executives took 50% cuts, from April 1 to September 30, 2020. Chesky's 2020 compensation table shows $55,000 in salary and $119,880,000 in stock awards; in November the board set his salary at $1 and granted him 12 million RSUs. Airbnb said he intended to donate the net proceeds of that package to charitable causes.

Layoffs

In the same May 5 memo Chesky said "nearly 1,900" of Airbnb's 7,500 employees, about 25%, would leave; the prospectus says "approximately 1,800," particularly in marketing, design and customer service. Restructuring cost $151.4 million in 2020. How Airbnb handled layoffs →

Relief narrows

In January 2022 Airbnb offered guests whose trips were stopped by government mandates, such as border closures or extended quarantines, a coupon for 50 percent of any unrefunded amount, funded "with $20 million initially."

On the February 2023 earnings call Chesky said: "I think that we're one of the few tech companies that isn't doing layoffs." At the end of 2022 Airbnb had 6,811 employees, fewer than the 7,500 it had before the cut.

Airbnb listings in a PPP fraud case

Airbnb's platform turns up in the prosecution of Konrad Bicher, who called himself the "Wolf of Airbnb." Prosecutors in Manhattan said he leased apartments, stopped paying rent, relied on pandemic tenant protections to fend off eviction suits, and rented the units on Airbnb and at least one other site for at least $1,170,000. Between April and July 2021 he submitted at least four PPP applications for at least three entities, with falsified tax documents, and obtained over $565,000. He pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and on July 22, 2024 was sentenced to 51 months, forfeiture of $1,740,407.12 and restitution of $2,227,371.58 (DOJ release, July 22, 2024; judgment, No. 1:22-cr-00589). Airbnb was not a party.

After the pandemic (2021–present)

Airbnb went public on December 10, 2020, at $68.00 a share (Form S-1 and Form 424(b)(4)). Airbnb.org continued as the company's nonprofit housing vehicle. In its May 24, 2021 product release the company described "three fundamental shifts in travel," with guests traveling at any time, to more places and for longer, and added Flexible Dates search and a 10-step process for becoming a host.

Revenue fell from $4.81 billion in 2019 to $3.38 billion in 2020, a year in which Airbnb lost $4.58 billion. It rose to $5.99 billion in 2021 and $12.24 billion in 2025. Airbnb returned an operating profit in 2021 ($429 million) and a net profit in 2022 ($1.89 billion). Net income of $4.79 billion in 2023 included an income-tax benefit of $2.69 billion; operating income that year was $1.52 billion. In 2025 operating income was $2.54 billion and net income $2.51 billion. Guests booked 533 million nights and seats in 2025, for a gross booking value of $91.3 billion. At the end of 2025 Airbnb had about 8,200 employees and relied on about 13,000 third-party workers for most community-support contacts (Form 10-K for 2025).

Public company, NASDAQ: ABNB, with Brian Chesky as CEO. SBA's PPP data list no loan to Airbnb, Inc., and no PPP-fraud finding or relief-related enforcement action names the company.

  • Alex Kiles — counsel on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, now Lead Counsel for Policy at Airbnb.
  • Kadeem Cooper — counsel on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis; Senior Counsel for Policy at Airbnb since January 2025.
  • Konrad Bicher case: judgment — a host prosecuted for PPP fraud and lease fraud run through Airbnb listings.
  • Zeus Living — Airbnb invested in its $55 million Series B in December 2019.

Sources

Primary documents in this archive

External references

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