Airbnb Host Listing Suspension or Paused | Why & What to Do

As an Airbnb host, it is never an ideal situation for your Airbnb listing to be suspended or worse permanently banned. And if you do ever get a message stating “Airbnb Listing Suspended”, our natural instinct is to panic especially when it happens unknowingly and often without warning.

Obviously, in such situations, stories have circled about Airbnb failing to respond to urgent queries and the reasons behind the Airbnb listing suspension may be difficult to understand. Nevertheless, it is important to take a step back and think logically. Let’s face it, the reason behind this, in most cases, is we merely fail to read the fine print in Airbnb’s terms and conditions that result in Airbnb rules being broken.

Nonetheless, to avoid such a situation taking place it is important to be aware of the possibilities and reasons of a suspension occurring at any time especially, when seeing the dreaded notification.

Let’s take a deep dive on the article as it will guide you through:

• Reasons why Airbnb Host Listing gets suspended or paused
• Concerns when your Airbnb gets suspended or paused
• Can the decision be appealed and what is the process?
• What are the steps to take if your Airbnb Host Listing gets permanently banned?

Reasons Why Airbnb Host Listing Gets Suspended or Paused

Airbnb ideally has a system in place where host accounts are randomly reviewed. Under this review, if a listing fails to meet the basic requirements or in other words, is not up to the Airbnb standards, the host listing will automatically be temporarily suspended resulting in hosts not being able to receive any new bookings. Take note, grounds for suspension includes:

• Maintaining low overall ratings
• Slow response time
• A few accepted reservations or too many cancellations

However, if your host listing gets suspended, it will be best not to panic! Keep in mind, right after the suspension, Airbnb will make you aware as to why the suspension has occurred and may be eligible to reactivate the account in order to get new bookings. Hosts can reactivate the account by following the steps provided by Airbnb where the account performance will be subjected to review, which in other words, Airbnb will monitor the account performance to see if it is improving on the bare minimums. But, if your host account continues to not improve at all, Airbnb can suspend the account again or be removed permanently from Airbnb.

What are the Main Reasons for Getting Banned?

To ensure guests received a high standard and quality experiences, Airbnb monitors host accounts which therefore may result in a listing being suspended or banned. With that said, the 3 main reasons include:

• Multiple suspension or escalated issues
• Bottom 1% of Airbnb listing ratings
• Repeatedly broken Airbnb Terms and Conditions

These reasons are pretty upfront and straightforward. However, some bans take hosts by surprise. And if you find yourself on the receiving end of a ban, hosts still can accommodate guests that are set to arrive within two months after receiving the suspension notification. Though, for any guests arriving later than two months, reservations will be canceled and will be given other listing alternatives for those guests.

Keep in mind, there are different types of Airbnb listing suspensions which can range from 5 days to a few weeks to permanent suspension. With the 5-day suspension, Airbnb does not remove any bookings or delete any reservations during this time resulting in only losing 5 days of booking potential. Hosts are given the opportunity to address the said issue and work to remedy it so that they’ll never have to deal with a suspension ever again.

Other Issues that May Trigger Trust and Safety Suspension

As a host, it is important to be aware of the reasons that may trigger Trust and Safety Suspension in order to avoid these circumstances:

• Host address document is incomplete confirmation
• Unable to satisfy email confirmation
• Unable to activate or edit the host listing
• Unable to please phone confirmation
• Unable to activate listings
• Experienced Account Takeover which is incapable to gain access to the account
• The account is taken over by Bad Actor and has added a new listing or a new unknown payout method
• The account is flagged as an account that has been taken over
• The account could be a potential fake listing
• Inappropriate Content
• Taking guests off the platform in order to complete bookings or making payments offsite
• Performing fake reviews or requests for removal of reviews
• Removal of actual listings are due to being marked as test listing
• Report of phished for user data including login credentials and credit card information
• Report of hosts plagiarizing of photos/listing
• Suspected of being connected to an account that has been removed from the platform
• Account or listings show automated snooze actions
• Account or listings that do not comply or complete payment tax information
• Account or listings that has license issues for the properties
• Enforced on when hosts are found to be committing Bait & Switch- an action of advertising a superior listing which is an apparent bargain with the intention of replacing lesser listings upon guests’ arrival
• Enforced on when the host listing contains party or event-friendly language
• Enforced on when they are found to be address dodging to circumvent opting into the Friendly Building Program. Listings are usually at a listing-level only
• Enforced on when the host listing is found to be in a prohibited address or it is a questionable investigation and needs to request documentation to validate the listing address

Concerns When Your Airbnb Gets Suspended or Paused

Existing Reservations

Approaching reservations will not be affected by your listing suspension but if failed to provide high-quality standard guest experiences or the possibility of violating Airbnb Terms of Service, may result in cancellation.

Previous Guest Feedback

If you encounter your listing being suspended, take the time to make some changes to your hospitality and listing based on previous guests’ reviews. More so, get acquainted with the basic hosting requirements and review tips with Airbnb’s hospitality standards.

Can the decision be appealed and what is the process?

Yes! The decision can be appealed however, there is a process where you can first log in to your Airbnb account, and open the Appeals Form however if you are under suspension for less than 30 days, you won’t be able to access this form. If you are proceeding with the appeal, ensure to be ready with the required necessary information like the name of the listing/listings you are appealing for, reservation codes relating to the reviews you are opposing, and which review violations apply and why; as Airbnb will request it when submitting the form.

Keep in mind, Airbnb is not known for flexibility in regards to this issue and ideally, early suspensions are easier to overturn than permanent ones.

Appeal Process

Under limited circumstances, listing suspensions and removal appeals may be granted. Though, justifying situations can be a reason to appeal nonetheless keep in mind that most of the appeals are based on guest review policy violations.

According to Airbnb, circumstances that are not accepted upon appeal include:

• "The guest review was unfair." The appeal process isn’t meant to appeal unfair ratings. Consider updating your listing description and photos to help set guest expectations following the suspension.

• “This was a one-time issue.” Suspensions are typically based on multiple occurrences of a problem or issue. In other words, one guest review alone wouldn’t have resulted in a suspension against the basic requirements.

-* “I fixed the problem.”* Making changes to your listing and hospitality is the best way to improve during and after the suspension. But failing to meet the minimum hosting standards for your previous guests is still grounds for suspension.

Additionally, if it is proven that a poor guest review on a listing violates Airbnb review policies, the review will be overturned. More so, if the removal of any inappropriate reviews leads to a considerably large increase in a listing’s overall rating average, that listing might be reinstated. Violations of the review policy include:

• Violations of our Content Policy
• Irrelevant content per our Review Relevancy Policy
• Biased or fraudulent content (as the result of extortion or competitor reviews) per Airbnb Review Manipulation Policy

What are The Steps to Take if Your Airbnb Host Listing gets Permanently Banned?

Be aware that if your Airbnb has been permanently banned, the first thing to do is not to be stressed out over the outcome. Yes! Airbnb does not easily change the decision made and even if the appeal has been rejected or extended to a period, think of it as an opportunity as there are plenty of home-sharing platforms such as Booking.com, VRBO, Expedia, and HomeAway just waiting for you to upload photos, your nightly rate, and a short description. That way, your property’s income will keep rolling.

With this in mind, unless you think the issue or reason for the suspension or ban is fixable, it might still be worth appealing Airbnb’s decision but never to worry after a final decision has been made as a reversal in Airbnb’s original decision isn’t likely.