In the US, we collected and remitted a total of more than $1,5 billion in tourism taxes in 2021, in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico - an 87 percent increase over 2019.

Tourism taxes are key revenue-generating mechanisms for jurisdictions across the country. In recent years, these taxes have become even more important as cities and towns have looked to not only recover from the financial impact of the pandemic, but also embrace the opportunity of a fundamental shift in travel that has brought guests to thousands more communities around the world.

Prior to 2014, jurisdictions did not have an efficient way to receive these funds from travel booked on short-term rental platforms. Airbnb changed that by forming tax collection agreements with San Francisco and Portland, Oregon that year and signaling to the world that the company wanted to collect and remit tourism taxes and work with local governments. 

Today, we have collected billions of dollars across tens of thousands of jurisdictions, streamlining the process for our Host community and making Airbnb, to our knowledge, the largest collector and remitter of such taxes in the world. 

As we approach Tax Day – a month from today – we’re sharing new data on the tourism tax dollars we delivered to communities last year, supporting the provision of countless local services. In the US, we collected and remitted a total of more than $1.5 billion in tourism taxes in 2021, in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico – an 87 percent increase over 2019. In Canada, we collected and remitted approximately $54 million CAD in 2021. 

In addition to tax collection, Airbnb has worked to help cities and towns directly benefit from travel over the last two years in a number of ways, including offering our new tools to work with cities and by sharing our singular knowledge of consumer travel trends. To date, we have secured more than 100 partnerships and collaborations with destination marketing organizations around the world, including nearly 40 in the US and Canada.

In September 2020, we launched the Airbnb City Portal, a collaborative product for use by governments and tourism organizations. This first-of-its-kind solution provides governments and tourism organizations with tools and insights with respect to activity on Airbnb in their community. The City Portal was launched with 18 pilot partners composed of local governments and tourism organizations from around the world. Over the first year, we went on a roadshow to educate and subsequently partner with local governments and tourism organizations and now have more than 160 City Portal partners, with the goal of having 250 by the end of year two.