October 29, 2026

Dear Airbnb Leadership,

On behalf of the Vermont Short-Term Rental Alliance (VTSTRA), I am writing to express our members’ concerns about Airbnb’s changes to house rules, rental agreements, and guest information requirements. These changes could undermine hosts’ ability to protect their properties and neighborhoods, meet insurance obligations, and maintain the trust essential to industry advocacy.

Our members support guest privacy, clear expectations, and straightforward bookings. They also carry the consequences when something goes wrong. Airbnb’s policies must respect both realities.

Hosts need authority to protect their properties and neighborhoods.

Hosts are responsible for preventing disturbances, unauthorized events, occupancy violations, property damage, and illegal activity. They need practical tools to identify occupants, communicate expectations, and address violations.

Restricting those tools does not reduce hosts’ accountability. When a party disrupts a neighborhood, the homeowner gets the call, the rental community suffers reputational damage, and associations like VTSTRA face demands for tighter regulation. Airbnb should strengthen hosts’ ability to prevent these problems.

Vacation homes require meaningful guest responsibility.

Many vacation rentals operate without a front desk, on-site maintenance, or security staff. Safe operation depends on guests following property-specific requirements.

In Vermont, these may involve septic systems, woodstoves, wildlife, winter conditions, and rural infrastructure. Ignoring them can cause injuries, environmental damage, costly repairs, and neighborhood disturbances.

The expectations go both ways: hosts must provide safe, accurately represented accommodations and responsive service. Guests must respect the home and its operating requirements. Airbnb’s distinction between mandatory rules and optional requests creates uncertainty about enforcing essential protections. Safety cannot depend on optional cooperation.

Insurance requirements and rental agreements need explicit protection.

Rental agreements establish expectations for occupancy, permitted use, safety, liability, and guest responsibilities. Some insurance carriers also require agreements, verification, or specific operating procedures.

Airbnb must accommodate these obligations, including those not required by law or an HOA. VTSTRA promotes appropriate insurance and responsible risk management. Hosts should never have to choose between Airbnb compliance and maintaining their coverage.

AirCover does not resolve that conflict. Assistance after an incident cannot replace prevention.

Guest verification and communication are essential to host confidence.

Hosts need reasonable control over their property policies, secure guest verification, and reliable communication with the occupants–not just the booking agent. 

We support protections against discrimination, misuse of personal information, and undisclosed requirements. Those protections must coexist with practical property management:

• In-person ID checks offer limited value to remote hosts using self-check-in.

• Hosts need reliable ways to reach occupants during emergencies and address unauthorized use.

• Policies must accommodate independently operated homes and the safeguards needed to manage them responsibly.

Airbnb should enable hosts to accurately reflect how their home is and isn’t ought to be treated, used, or operated. Hosts are accountable when something goes wrong and will not compromise on “bad-guest” prevention.

Excluding policy and advocacy teams undermines the partnership Airbnb asks hosts to support.

We were surprised and disappointed to learn that Airbnb’s public policy and advocacy teams were not included in the decision-making process for these changes. Those teams work directly with hosts and associations navigating the political consequences of short-term rental activity. Their perspective should be part of decisions affecting property protection, neighborhood relations, and host trust.

Airbnb regularly asks hosts to contact lawmakers, attend hearings, share personal stories, and defend the ability to offer short-term rentals. Our members invest their time and credibility in that work because their homes, livelihoods, and communities are at stake.

It becomes much harder to mobilize those same people when they feel blindsided and undermined by the company asking for their support. Hosts cannot be treated as essential partners when Airbnb needs their voices and excluded when Airbnb makes decisions affecting their businesses.

This creates a direct problem for advocacy. When hosts lose confidence in Airbnb, associations must spend time addressing that frustration instead of organizing around shared policy priorities. Airbnb’s internal decisions can weaken the very relationships its advocacy teams depend on.

We value our relationships with Airbnb’s policy and advocacy staff. Our concern is that those teams appear to have been left out of decisions with consequences they will now be expected to manage.

We ask Airbnb to take the following steps:

1. Pause implementation of the contested restrictions while consulting with host associations, operators, insurance professionals, and Airbnb’s public policy and advocacy teams.

2. Revise the rental agreement restrictions to accommodate reasonable, clearly disclosed agreements addressing property protection, occupancy, safety, liability, and insurance requirements.

3. Explicitly accommodate insurance obligations so hosts can maintain appropriate coverage and comply with carrier requirements without risking platform penalties.

4. Allow for secure guest verification and communication options that support remote operations, emergency contact, and guest accountability while protecting personal information.

5. Make essential property and neighborhood protections enforceable, with clear procedures for responding to disturbances, unauthorized events, occupancy violations, unsafe conduct, and suspected illegal activity.

6. Include policy and advocacy teams and host representatives in future decisions that materially affect hosting operations and community relations.

VTSTRA wants a productive relationship with Airbnb. That requires meaningful consultation and policies that support responsible hosting. Hosts are expected to take responsibility for what happens at their properties. They need the authority and tools to fulfill that responsibility.

Sincerely,

Julie Marks
Founder & Executive Director
Vermont Short-Term Rental Alliance