What Management Said
Read the full Q4 2025 transcript ↗Revenue grew 12% year-over-year to $2.8 billion, exceeding the high end of our guidance. In a marketplace, reaccelerating growth isn't as simple as stepping on the gas pedal. Airbnb grew incredibly quickly in the years leading up to our IPO, faster than we ever imagined. That cycle: focus, shift, learn, scale, is what compounded our initial growth.
Now, these are just a few of the hundreds of improvements the team shipped, driving hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in 2025 alone. So what I want to do is highlight four areas where the Y innovation model is driving growth. Now, we believe that pricing initiatives will drive as much revenue this year as Hawaii and will remain a strong tailwind for years to come. Most of our supply growth is organic, with hosts coming directly to us.
We've removed over 500,000 low-quality listings, while Guest Favorites, the very best listings on Airbnb, grew 30% in 2025 compared to 2024. You know, Airbnb operates in nearly every country in the world, but roughly 70% of our revenue comes from just five countries. So you can see why we're so excited about the year ahead, and our guidance reflects that. We expect revenue growth to accelerate to at least low double digits in 2026.
What went well
- Revenue grew 12% year-over-year to $2.8 billion, exceeding the high end of guidance.
- Gross booking value grew 16% year-over-year to $20.4 billion, the highest growth quarter in more than two years.
- Nights and seats booked grew 10% year-over-year, an acceleration from Q3 with strength across all regions.
- Adjusted EBITDA was $786 million, a 28% margin, also exceeding guidance; full-year 2025 free cash flow reached $4.6 billion at a 38% margin.
- Reserve Now, Pay Later, cancellation-policy updates, and the simplified fee structure together added roughly 200 bps to nights growth and ~300 bps to GBV growth in Q4.
- Quality initiatives progressed: over 500,000 low-quality listings removed, Guest Favorites grew 30% and made up nearly half of all Q4 bookings; Brazil moved from a top-ten to a top-five market.
What went wrong
- Net income was only $341 million, hurt by roughly $90 million of one-time non-income tax.
- North America grew just mid-single digits, the weakest of all regions in Q4.
- Asia Pacific nights growth moderated to mid-teens, a slowdown from recent quarters.
- Reserve Now, Pay Later raised the aggregate cancellation rate by about 1 percentage point (roughly 16% to 17%).
- The quarter faced a tough comp given a particularly strong Q4 2024.
Guidance Changes
| Metric | Period | Current guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | Q1 2026 | $2.59B-$2.63B, up 14%-16% YoY (incl. ~3pt FX tailwind) |
| Gross booking value | Q1 2026 | Low-teens YoY growth, driven by high-single-digit nights/fees and moderate ADR increase |
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | Q1 2026 | Approximately flat year-over-year |
| Revenue growth | Full year 2026 | Accelerate to at least low double digits, with ambition to grow faster |
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | Full year 2026 | Stable year-over-year |
| Effective tax rate | 2026 | Mid to high teens due to One Big Beautiful Bill Act foreign-earnings treatment |
Performance Breakdown
| Metric | YoY | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | +12% to $2.8B | Impact of product updates; exceeded high end of guidance. |
| Gross booking value | +16% to $20.4B | Strong growth in both bookings and price. |
| Nights and seats booked | +10% | Acceleration from Q3 with strength across all regions. |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $786M, 28% margin | Revenue outperformance; exceeded guidance. |
| Net income | $341M | Negatively impacted by ~$90M one-time non-income tax. |
| Free cash flow | $529M in Q4; $4.6B FY at 38% margin | Continued strong cash generation. |
| Latin America nights | High teens | Strongest regional growth; Brazil a top-five market and #2 source of first-time bookers. |
| North America nights | Mid-single digits | Product changes and slightly stronger macro lifted it from low-single digits earlier in 2025. |
Earnings Call Themes & Trends
| Topic | Previous mention | Current period | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI customer support | — | Custom AI agent resolves ~30% of English-based North America tickets; goal to expand to more languages, more ticket types, and voice. | — |
| Hotels strategy | Hotels seen as filling network gaps when homes are booked or at high occupancy | Expansive strategy focused on boutique and independent hotels; a huge TAM that strengthens the home business. | — |
| Fee structure | Dual fee (3% host fee plus variable guest fee) | Migrating to a single service fee; API hosts migrated in October, now piloting individual hosts. | — |
| Product release cadence | Held features for biannual (every six-month) release moments | Ship continuously as features are ready; May release becomes a marketing showcase. | — |
| Reserve Now, Pay Later | — | Launched in U.S. summer 2025, drove Q4 acceleration and mix shift to larger homes; expanding globally and to cross-border U.S. stays. | — |
| Loyalty program | — | In testing; aiming for a unique benefits-based program rather than an out-of-the-box points scheme. | — |
Q&A Summary
Bernstein: Why couldn't AI platforms build their own short-term rental platform, and is there risk of sharing economics with them?
Chesky: Most of Airbnb is not the app-payments (>$100B), customer service, insurance, 200M verified IDs, unique inventory. AI models are not proprietary, so specialization wins; chatbots act as top-of-funnel like Google and their traffic converts at a higher rate.
Jefferies: What drove the Asia Pacific slowdown, and are services/experiences acquiring convertible new customers?
Mertz: APAC is broadly stable with high penetration in Australia but nascent elsewhere-Japan and India (50% growth) are leaning-in markets. About 50% of experience bookings are unattached to a home, a new guest segment Airbnb can convert to home bookings later.
Deutsche Bank: How are Reserve Now, Pay Later cancellations pacing, and how does AI search relate to sponsored ads?
Mertz: Cancellation curves track tested expectations, aggregate rate up ~1 point (16% to 17%), with longer lead times. Chesky: AI search is the priority-live to a small % of traffic and being tested-with sponsored listings coming only after AI search is nailed.
Morgan Stanley: What AI improvements are you most focused on, and what is the gross-margin impact of AI investment?
Chesky: AI won't show in the P&L since Airbnb builds no models and has no huge CapEx. Wins would be voice + multilingual customer service (beyond today's ~30% of NA tickets), engineer productivity (80%+ using AI tools), and AI-native search.
JPMorgan: What drives the 2026 revenue acceleration, and any top-line benefit from AI?
Mertz: Momentum from Q4 launches carries into 2026, plus supply and expansion-market investment; major events are additive but small. Nothing from AI search is baked into the outlook.
UBS: What halo did the Paris Olympics create, and where are the ~$800M of incremental spend going?
Chesky: Events are the best supply-acquisition channel-40,000 Paris hosts kept hosting-and the World Cup across three countries will be massive. Mertz: Incremental spend goes to sales/marketing (go-to-market and supply acquisition) and product development.
Bank of America: Are repeat rates and customer-service scores improving, and what is the U.S. room-night outlook?
Chesky: Guest Favorites are ~half of bookings, lifting satisfaction and repeat use; NPS is the strongest since the pandemic. Mertz: North America went from low-single digits early in 2025 to accelerating in Q3 and Q4, with strong momentum into 2026.
Evercore: When will hotels move the needle, and what drives Q1 take-rate dynamics?
Mertz: Hotels are a single-digit percent of nights but growing nearly twice the platform rate and will exit 2026 meaningfully larger. Q1 take rate rises on ~3-point FX, earlier booking lead times, and Easter timing (~50 bps into Q1).
TD Cowen: What benefits came from the single-fee structure and could all hosts move over?
Mertz: The old dual fee made pricing hard and sometimes made Airbnb more expensive than other channels. After migrating API hosts in October, effective ADR came down modestly, aiding affordability and growth; individual hosts are now being piloted.
More on Airbnb, Inc.
Reported 2026-02-12 · figures from the Airbnb, Inc. Q4 2025 earnings call.
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