Airbnb.org Offers Free Housing for Up to 100,000 Refugees Fleeing Ukraine (February 2022)

From the record. This is a look back at February 2022. The desk wrote it on 11 October 2026 from sources published at the time; Stay Gazette opened in July 2026 and did not report this as it happened.

On 28 February 2022, Airbnb and its nonprofit arm, Airbnb.org, said Airbnb.org would offer free, short-term housing to up to 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine. The stays were to be paid for by Airbnb, Inc., by donors to the Airbnb.org Refugee Fund, and by hosts giving stays through Airbnb.org.

The offer came with a request to hosts. “We need help to meet this goal,” chief executive Brian Chesky wrote on Twitter that day, in a post quoted by CNBC. “The greatest need we have is for more people who can offer their homes in nearby countries, including Poland, Germany, Hungary and Romania.”

What Airbnb.org offered

The announcement set a ceiling, a price for the guest and a funding plan. The ceiling was up to 100,000 people. The price to a refugee was nothing. The money was to come from three places: the company, the fund's donors and hosts.

Airbnb described Airbnb.org as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit that arranges temporary stays for people caught in a crisis. The nonprofit paid nothing to use Airbnb's technology, services and other resources, and Airbnb, Inc. did not charge service fees on stays that Airbnb.org supported.

Refugees were not expected to book for themselves. Airbnb.org said nonprofit groups on the ground would book and coordinate the stays, whatever a guest's nationality, race or ethnicity. That network was not finished on the day of the announcement. Airbnb said Airbnb.org was still lining up partners in each country, and it pointed refugees who needed help at once to the UN Refugee Agency.

The stays were described as short-term. Airbnb.org said it would work with each government on what that country needed, and that this could include longer-term stays. Airbnb also said it was working to support hosts and guests in Ukraine.

The letters to European leaders

The same day, Airbnb's three co-founders wrote to leaders across Europe, starting with the leaders of Poland, Germany, Hungary and Romania, and offered to help those countries take in refugees. The letters came from Chesky, from Joe Gebbia, who was also chairman of Airbnb.org, and from Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb's chief strategy officer.

The need was already larger than the offer. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, reported on 28 February that more than 500,000 people had crossed out of Ukraine to escape the fighting, and its spokesperson told UN News that this had happened in the space of five days. CNN Business, also on 28 February, and CNBC, citing the Associated Press, carried the same figure. CNN reported that the European Union wanted its member nations to give every arriving Ukrainian temporary asylum for up to three years, citing Ylva Johansson, the EU commissioner for home affairs.

What Airbnb.org had done before

The pledge followed a smaller one that had just been met. On 22 February 2022, six days before the Ukraine announcement, Airbnb.org said it had reached the goal it set six months earlier of free, temporary housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees. It had worked with the US government and all nine US resettlement agencies, and with partners in Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

That effort showed how the model split the cost. The 20,000 stays were fully funded, with contributions to Airbnb.org from Airbnb, from Chesky and from Gebbia, and from donors to the Refugee Fund. On top of that, more than 7,100 hosts offered free and discounted stays, which let Airbnb.org house nearly 1,300 more people. By 28 February the company put the Afghan total at 21,300.

“Due to the generosity of our Hosts and donors to Airbnb.org, and the dedication of our nonprofit partners helping to drive this important work, we've been able to surpass our original goal,” Chesky said in the 22 February statement.

Airbnb.org had also just set a new goal: housing for another 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan, Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America and other regions. Airbnb said the Ukraine offer was in addition to that.

The longer record gave a sense of scale. In the five years to February 2022, Airbnb said, it and Airbnb.org had found temporary housing for more than 54,000 refugees and asylees through Airbnb.org's partners. The Refugee Fund, created in 2021, had more than 4,000 donors. The program behind Airbnb.org began in 2012, when a single host opened her home to people affected by Hurricane Sandy, and Airbnb said hosts had since helped house 100,000 people in times of need. The Ukraine ceiling, up to 100,000, matched that whole total.

What was not settled on 28 February

Several things a host or a government would want to know were missing on the first day.

The budget. CNBC reported that Airbnb had not specified how much it planned to spend on the commitment.
The length of stay. CNBC reported that Airbnb had not said how long refugees would be housed.
The partners. Airbnb.org was still establishing the nonprofits that would make the bookings in each country.
The instructions for hosts. Airbnb said details would follow in the coming days on how hosts and the wider community could take part, including through free or discounted stays.

CNN Business raised a practical problem as well: people who had fled might lack the devices or the internet access that a booking on the platform normally takes. Airbnb's answer was the nonprofit partners, who would book on a refugee's behalf.

The Gazette Verdict, looking back

The pledge was a sound use of a booking platform, and it was a promise that hosts were being asked to help keep. Airbnb named three payers, and hosts were one of them. The Afghan effort that had just met its goal showed the split: 20,000 stays fully funded by the company, two of its founders and donors, and nearly 1,300 more from the more than 7,100 hosts who cut or dropped their price. Ukraine was set at up to 100,000, five times the Afghan goal of 20,000, with no budget and no length of stay made public. Airbnb gave money it did not quantify, waived its service fees and lent its technology at no charge. Refugees paid nothing. Hosts in nearby countries were asked for nights. A host who wanted to help was right to go through Airbnb.org, decide what discount they could carry, and let a nonprofit make the booking.

The other side

A pledge with no budget, no stated length of stay and no partners yet in place was an announcement before it was a plan. More than 500,000 people had left Ukraine in five days, so a ceiling of 100,000 covered a fifth of them at most. The people it was meant for could not always get online to book, and the nonprofits meant to do it for them were still being signed up. The European Union was asking its members to grant temporary asylum for up to three years, a job for governments and not for short-term rentals. On that view, Airbnb collected the credit on day one while the nights still had to come from hosts.

What it meant for hosts

On the last day of February 2022 a host could not yet do much more than raise a hand. Airbnb pointed anyone who wanted to open a home to Airbnb.org for how to take part, and said the details for hosts would follow in the coming days.

What was known pointed to how it would work.

Where. The homes Airbnb asked for first were in countries near Ukraine, with Poland, Germany, Hungary and Romania named.
Price. A host could expect to be asked for free or discounted stays. Airbnb did not charge its service fees on stays supported by Airbnb.org.
Bookings. Stays would be booked and coordinated by nonprofit partners, not by the refugees, and those partners were still being set up.
Length. The stays were short-term, with no number of nights given, and governments might ask for longer ones.
Money. Hosts were not the only source. Airbnb, Inc. and donors to the Refugee Fund were named as funders alongside them.

For a host with a listing inside Ukraine, the announcement carried one sentence: Airbnb said it was committed to keeping hosts and guests there safe and was working to support its community in the country. It gave no detail that day.

Sources

Airbnb Newsroom (Wayback Machine capture of 28 February 2022), Support for refugees fleeing Ukraine (28 February 2022).
CNBC, Airbnb to offer free housing to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees (28 February 2022).
CNN Business, Airbnb offering free temporary housing for up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees (28 February 2022).
UN News, More than half a million have fled Ukraine, UN refugee agency reports (28 February 2022).
Airbnb Newsroom, 20,000 Afghan newcomers housed (22 February 2022).

Airbnb.org Offers Free Housing for Up to 100,000 Refugees Fleeing Ukraine