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Supporting responsible hosting in Maui

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Airbnb and Maui County announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will enable the County to better enforce its short-term rules. The agreement is part of Airbnb’s ongoing commitment to be a good partner to the communities Hosts and guests call home and is similar to agreements signed with Kauai and Honolulu last year. 

“Vacation rentals have been an integral part of Maui’s local economy for decades, and we appreciate the County’s efforts to preserve this important source of income for local residents. The agreement will promote compliance and is part of our ongoing commitment to partner with communities to promote the return of responsible and sustainable travel,” said Matt Middlebrook, Airbnb’s Regional Policy Lead.

Under the agreement, Airbnb will create two new fields that allow hosts to enter their County-issued Tax Map Key (TMK) number and State-issued Transient Accommodations Tax License (TAT) number on their listing. Hosts listing a bed and breakfast (B&B), short-term rental home or other transient vacation rental on Airbnb will be required to provide their TMK and TAT numbers in order to continue hosting on the platform.

Every month Airbnb will share a report with the County that includes the URL for each listing and the corresponding host-provided TMK number for each property listed on its platform. The County will use this monthly report to verify the TMK numbers. Hosts that fail to provide a TMK or input an invalid TMK will be removed from the platform and only allowed to relist once they provide the information.

As communities around the world rebuild from the economic fallout and lost tourism from the COVID-19 pandemic, Airbnb is committed to promoting responsible, safe travel to boost recovery and provide a source of needed income for everyday people and support economic activity across cities. 

According to a recent survey of our global Host community, because of the pandemic, one third of Homes Hosts personally suffered a pay cut or lost work hours in 2020, or lived with someone who did; 14 percent of them or someone in their household lost their job or got laid off.  In addition, a recent study by Oxford Economics found that across 30 destinations studied, Airbnb guest spending in 2019 supported more than 300,000 jobs, including tens of thousands of jobs in industries like restaurants and retail that have been hit hard by the pandemic.

As cities, states and countries plan for the months and years ahead, Airbnb can be an important part of their revitalization – both in lifting up local Hosts as well as entire local economies – and we stand ready to work with Maui County and others to make that a reality.

A copy of Maui County’s press release announcing this agreement is available on their website here.

About Airbnb

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two Hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 4 million Hosts who have welcomed more than 1 billion guest arrivals across over 220 countries and regions. Travel on Airbnb keeps more of the financial benefits of tourism with the people and places that make it happen. Airbnb has generated billions of dollars in earnings for Hosts, most of whom are individuals listing the homes in which they live. Among Hosts who report their gender, more than half are women, and one in five employed Hosts are either teachers or healthcare workers. Travel on Airbnb also has generated more than $4 billion in tax revenue around the world. Airbnb has helped advance more than 1,000 regulatory frameworks for short-term rentals, including in 80% of our top 200 geographies. In late 2020, to support our continued expansion and diversification, we launched the City Portal to provide governments with a one-stop shop that supports data sharing and compliance with local registration rules. We continue to invest in innovations and tools to support our ongoing work with governments around the world to advance travel that best serves communities.

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