Supporting a 21st-Century Tax System
Around the world, the Airbnb community is generating significant economic benefits for local communities and helping to spread the benefits of tourism. Since Airbnb was founded, hosts globally have earned over $100 billion welcoming guests through the platform and last year host income and guest spending in our top 30 markets alone amounted to $117 billion. To date, we have collected and remitted over $2.5 billion in tourism and hotel taxes. Now, we want to continue to work with governments around the world on fair tax rules for everyone.
Strengthening local communities
Since 2015, Airbnb has entered into more than 400 voluntary agreements with governments around the world to streamline and facilitate tax collection for hosts. In the US almost three out of every four reservations are covered by the collection and remittance of tourism or hotel taxes.
Airbnb has also partnered with governments across Europe to collect tourist taxes including Amsterdam, Florence, Lisbon and Milan, among others. In France alone, Airbnb collects tourist taxes in over 28,000 cities and towns and in 2019, Airbnb collected and remitted €58 million in tourist tax for French communities.
Making it easier for hosts to pay tax on the income they earn
Airbnb is working to make it easier for hosts to pay their fair share of tax. Across the world including in Europe, Brazil and Australia, hosts have attended tax workshops with independent tax experts, arranged by Airbnb, to help them better understand their tax obligations.
To further help our hosts and to strengthen local communities, Airbnb supports fair and sensible data-sharing frameworks. Data-sharing frameworks can help ensure local communities share in the benefits of tourism, increase transparency for hosts, and reduce the burden of tax administration for governments. Already, Airbnb has partnered with countries such as Denmark and Estonia on sensible frameworks that help hosts pay tax and ensure compliance.
Airbnb has worked with and continues to support the OECD in their efforts to develop model tax information reporting rules for governments worldwide. We encourage governments around the world to strongly consider adopting the rules and avoid unilateral measures.
Supporting a 21st-century global tax system
We support the OECD’s efforts to reform the global tax system because the almost century-old system we still use today was not designed with today’s increasingly digital economy in mind and it should be improved. We believe that for a global tax system to work effectively and efficiently, it needs to be truly global, consistently applied across borders, and simple to comply with.
Airbnb has worked collaboratively with various stakeholders for a number of years to make a positive contribution to the reform process. We hope countries can continue to work together, find common ground and agree on a sustainable international consensus. We look forward to continuing to work with governments and communities across the globe on sensible rules for a truly global system that works in the 21st century.