How to protect your Airbnb account while you are alive
There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on an Airbnb account. While the account holder is alive, Airbnb allows authorized users.
Airbnb decides requests about an Airbnb account after a death case by case, so nothing in its terms promises a survivor anything; what the account holder sets up in advance is what holds. There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on an Airbnb account. While the account holder is alive, Airbnb allows authorized users.
How to protect your Airbnb accounts
Naming who acts after a death
- Designation
Airbnb offers no way to name a successor to the account. Co-hosting is the one continuity mechanism for hosts: a full-access co-host operates the listing from their own account and can designate themselves the listing's primary host.1
What Airbnb, Inc.'s terms say about sharing and transfers4
- Pooling with family
Airbnb has no family-sharing or account-pooling feature.2
- Transferring the account or registration
The account is non-transferable, and there is no way to transfer ownership of an Airbnb account to another host.2
- Authorized users and delegates
A host can add up to 10 co-hosts per listing, each with one of three permission levels.3
No co-host, at any level, can view or change the listing owner's payout method or taxpayer information; only the listing owner can set up or edit payouts.1
Co-hosts work through their own Airbnb accounts, so a full-access co-host keeps operational control of the listing when the primary host is unavailable.1
Use of co-host tools is governed by the Co-Host Additional Terms of Service.4
- Workspace roles and admin access
Full-access co-hosts can message guests, update the calendar, manage the listing and its pricing, manage reservations and cancellations, handle damage and Resolution Center requests, view payouts, manage other co-hosts' permissions, and set the listing's primary host.1
Co-hosts with calendar and messaging access can message guests and view but not edit the calendar; co-hosts with calendar access can view the calendar only. Co-hosts added before May 3, 2023 have full access by default.1
Sources4
- 1.What co-hosts can do
- 2.Merging accounts or transferring ownership
- 3.Add co-hosts to your home listing
- 4.Co-Host Additional Terms of Service, Last Updated March 12, 2024
Should you save your passwords for your family?
Some people store account passwords so a family member can sign in later. The practice has three practical limits:
- Two-factor authentication often blocks it. Most accounts require a second factor — a code sent to a phone, an authenticator app, a passkey, or a physical key. A saved password alone frequently does not grant access, and the recovery codes that would are easy to lose or let go stale.
- It usually conflicts with the platform's terms. Most operators prohibit account sharing and signing in as another person, including after a death. Stored credentials are not the operator's recognized access path, and using them can violate the terms of service.
- Operators provide other paths. Where an operator offers a designation tool — Apple's Legacy Contact, Google's Inactive Account Manager, a beneficiary designation — that mechanism grants access the operator recognizes. A password manager's own emergency-access or legacy feature passes credentials through a controlled process. Digital assets named in a will or trust give a fiduciary authority under each state's Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA).
Sources
Data sourced from Airbnb, Inc. primary sources (12 pages reviewed). How we research.
Airbnb customer support
Airbnb Support
Phone
Website
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