The off-platform policy: what hosts can and cannot do about direct bookings

The Airbnb off-platform policy is the set of rules that keeps a booking, its payment and the conversation around it on the platform. A host may not move a guest’s reservation or payment elsewhere, link guests away from the platform, or offer a discount to book another way.

You can still take direct bookings. They have to start on your own channels, with guests the platform did not send you. This guide sets out the line, using Airbnb’s and Vrbo’s own policy pages as read on November 10, 2026.

Where the off-platform policy lives now

Airbnb no longer keeps these rules on one page under one name. They sit in two community policies.

The first is “Pricing and payment transparency”. It covers payments, links, discounts and rebooking. Its core rule is that prices must be fully disclosed before booking and payments must take place on the platform.

The second is “Limiting host-imposed contracts and other requirements”. It applies to reservations booked on or after November 20, 2026, and covers guest contact details, ID, contracts and reviews. The same page says reservations booked before that date fall under the previous Off-Platform Policy, which it reprints at the bottom.

So the name hosts search for, the Airbnb off-platform policy, now points to two documents. The substance is the same: keep the booking where it started.

What hosts cannot do

These are the prohibited actions that touch direct bookings, taken from the two pages.

• Ask a guest to move communication off the platform before booking.
• Put links in a listing or a message that send people off the platform.
• Offer or ask for a discount to book off the platform.
• Rebook a reservation off the platform, including cancelling all or part of it to do so.
• Extend a stay off the platform. Changes to nights or guests go through the reservation tools.
• Ask or encourage anyone to pay outside the platform, for a current, future or repeat booking.
• Ask guests for contact details such as a phone number, home address or email during booking or the stay, for reservations booked from November 20, 2026.
• Ask guests to review the stay or fill in a survey on a separate website, unless the listing is a hotel.

The phrase “current, future or repeat” closes the door many hosts thought was open. A card on the fridge inviting a platform guest to book direct next year is encouraging a repeat booking off the platform.

What hosts can do

The same pages list what is allowed.

Optional fees can be paid offline if the guest agrees. Airbnb gives pool heating as an example. Mandatory fees have to appear in the price shown before booking.

Some software-connected hosts may collect mandatory fees or a security deposit outside the platform, as long as the amounts appear in the right pricing field before booking. Hosts who collect certain taxes themselves must disclose them.

In-person ID checks at check-in are allowed if they are disclosed in the listing. A host may collect personal data where the law, a documented community association rule or an allowed contract requires it, and must say so before booking.

None of these exceptions is a route to a direct booking. They cover how a platform booking is carried out.

Direct bookings and the policy

Hosts search for direct booking Airbnb rules because they want to know one thing: is having my own website a violation? It is not.

The policy governs your conduct on the platform and toward guests who booked there. It says nothing against owning a website, ranking on Google, running ads or emailing people who booked direct with you before.

What it rules out is using the platform as the source. There is no such thing as an approved Airbnb direct booking link. A link in a listing, a URL in a photo caption or a web address in a message are all ways of sending a platform user elsewhere.

Think of it as two separate front doors. Guests who come through the platform’s door stay on the platform for that booking and for any rebooking you prompt. Guests who come through your own door were never the platform’s to begin with.

The gray areas hosts ask about

The policy pages do not list every case. Two come up often.

A guest finds your website on their own

Some guests see a listing, search the property name and book on the host’s site. The policy restricts what a host asks or encourages. It does not describe a penalty for a guest’s own search.

The safe reading is simple. Make sure your site exists and can be found, and do nothing inside the platform to prompt the search. Do not hint at it in your listing or your messages.

A past platform guest contacts you later

A guest who stayed last year may reach out to you directly about coming back. You did not solicit that. Even so, the policy prohibits encouraging repeat bookings outside the platform, so how you respond matters.

I am not your lawyer and this is not legal advice. If a case is unclear, read the two policy pages yourself or ask Airbnb. Where an action is designed to move a platform guest to your site, treat it as covered.

Vrbo’s version

Vrbo calls it off-platform booking. Its help page defines it as a traveler finding or discussing a reservation on Vrbo, then being directed to complete the reservation or payment elsewhere.

Vrbo enforces part of this automatically. It blocks messages that include contact information before booking, offer another way to book such as a personal website, suggest another payment method, or direct travelers to contact the host outside Vrbo. A blocked message is not sent.

The page lists no exceptions. Repeated violations may lead to a suspended listing.

What happens if you break it

Airbnb describes a range of responses: educating the host, issuing warnings, and suspending or removing listings. Repeat offenses can lead to the account being suspended or removed.

Weigh that against the gain. Moving one guest saves the fee on one stay. A removed listing loses every future booking from that platform.

The fee itself is easy to put a number on. The Host Fee Calculator shows what a platform takes from a booking at your rate, which is the most a single violation could ever save you.

Where WentDirect stands

I build direct booking websites, so my position on this should be plain. I never advise moving a platform guest off the platform, and I do not set up anything designed to do it.

That means no discount cards for platform guests, no links in listings and no emails to guest details that came from a platform. It also means I will tell a client no when they ask for one of those.

What I do build is demand that starts with you. That means a site that ranks for searches about your area, ads that reach people looking for a place like yours, and a list of guests who booked direct. The guide on how to get more direct bookings covers each of those.

This is one part of a wider set of changes. The guide to Airbnb rules for hosts covers the rest, including the limits on checkout tasks and rental agreements.

Final Thought

The Airbnb off-platform policy is not a ban on direct bookings. It is a ban on taking them from the platform.

Once you see it that way, the path is clear: keep platform guests on the platform, and build a second source of guests that the policy does not touch. That source needs a home. See how I approach vacation rental website design if you want one built properly, with your listings left exactly as they are.