Airbnb Posts a Record Fourth Quarter and Says Hosts Earned $34 Billion in 2021 (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 15 February 2022, Airbnb reported what it called its strongest fourth quarter ever: revenue of $1.5 billion for the last three months of 2021 and net income of $55 million. In the same shareholder letter, the company said its hosts earned a record $34 billion in 2021 and that it ended the year with 6 million active listings.

The letter, furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission with a Form 8-K dated that day, carried a forecast that mattered to anyone setting a nightly price. Airbnb expected its average daily rate in 2022 to stay above 2019 but to come in below 2021.

What Airbnb reported

The quarter beat 2019 on money and trailed it slightly on volume.

Revenue was $1.5 billion, 38% higher than the fourth quarter of 2019 and nearly 80% above the fourth quarter of 2020.
Net income was $55 million, against a net loss of $3.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Gross booking value was $11.3 billion, 32% above the fourth quarter of 2019.
Nights and Experiences Booked were 73.4 million, up 59% from a year earlier and 3% below the fourth quarter of 2019.
Adjusted EBITDA was $333 million. The Adjusted EBITDA margin was 22% for the quarter and 27% for the full year.

The full year was still a loss. Airbnb had revenue of $6.0 billion in 2021 and a net loss of $352 million. In 2019 it had revenue of $4.8 billion and a net loss of $674 million.

Wall Street had expected less. The Associated Press reported that analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $1.46 billion and earnings of 4 cents per share, against the 8 cents Airbnb earned. The AP said Airbnb's stock ended regular trading on 15 February at $180.07, up 6%, and added almost 4% in after-hours trading.

The host numbers

For hosts, the headline was the payout figure. Airbnb said hosts earned a record $34 billion in 2021. On the earnings call the same day, chief executive Brian Chesky said hosts had earned over $150 billion since the company started, that nearly 90% of them were individuals, and that 33% of hosts in the fourth quarter had been guests first.

The price of a night did much of the work. The average daily rate was $154 in the fourth quarter, up 20% from a year earlier and 36% from the same period in 2019. It had been $149 in the third quarter. Airbnb said the increase came almost equally from two things: a shift in the mix of bookings toward North America, entire homes and non-urban destinations, and price appreciation.

Supply followed demand. Airbnb said its total active listings had grown quarter over quarter since the first quarter of 2021. In non-urban destinations in North America, active listings were up 20% year over year.

Demand was strongest outside cities. Non-urban gross nights booked were up nearly 45% compared with the fourth quarter of 2019, while nights booked at urban destinations had nearly recovered to the 2019 level. Nights and Experiences Booked in North America were 20% above the same quarter of 2019.

How long guests stayed

Stays of 28 days or more accounted for 22% of gross nights booked in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 16% in the fourth quarter of 2019. Stays of at least seven nights made up 47% of gross nights booked.

More than 90% of active listings accepted stays of 28 nights or longer at the end of the quarter, the letter said. Chief financial officer Dave Stephenson told analysts that long-term stays carried a moderately lower take rate for Airbnb, and that their daily rates ran lower because hosts often offer a discount.

What Airbnb expected for 2022

The company said Omicron had affected bookings and cancellations less than the Delta variant had in the summer of 2021. At the end of January 2022, its nights booked for the summer travel season were running over 25% ahead of the same point in 2019. Global cancellation rates in the fourth quarter were still higher than in 2019, though below 2020.

Airbnb forecast first-quarter 2022 revenue of between $1.41 billion and $1.48 billion and said it expected its first positive first-quarter Adjusted EBITDA. The AP put the FactSet analyst forecast for the quarter at $1.23 billion. Reuters, citing Refinitiv IBES, put the estimate at $1.24 billion. The company expected first-quarter Nights and Experiences Booked to significantly exceed the first quarter of 2019 and to be its strongest quarter on record.

On price, the guidance pointed down from the 2021 level. Airbnb expected its first-quarter average daily rate to be up approximately 4% from the first quarter of 2021, and its 2022 rate to stay above 2019 but below 2021, as bookings shifted back toward cities and lower-priced regions. Stephenson was direct about it on the call: “But we would anticipate some moderation of ADRs through the back half of the year. We just don't know exactly how much.”

The letter added a caution of its own. It said continued uncertainty over Covid still made it hard to forecast several quarters ahead.

One of its three priorities for 2022 and beyond was to Unlock the next generation of Hosts. With 4 million hosts, the company said, it had only begun to grow its host community. Its Ask a Superhost program brought in more than twice as many new active hosts in the fourth quarter as in the third.

The fee question

One exchange on the call went to the cost of hosting. An analyst from Barclays asked whether Airbnb could raise its service fee at some point. Chesky said the company had the opportunity to increase its take rate on both the guest side and the host side, and he set a condition: “if we're going to increase fees, that's going to be because we're offering services that our guests or hosts want to pay for.”

He named Alibaba, Amazon, Etsy and Shopify as companies that had shown how large the opportunity in services could be. “It's just not the most perishable opportunity right now, so we're focused on market share,” he said. Stephenson told analysts that Airbnb's take rate, as a percentage of gross booking value, was remaining fairly stable.

The Gazette Verdict, looking back

This letter was a record for Airbnb and a warning for hosts, and the warning sat in the same pages as the record. Hosts earned $34 billion in 2021, and the average daily rate reached $154 in the fourth quarter, up 20% in a year. But Airbnb said about half of that rise came from where and what guests booked, and it told investors that 2022 rates would come in below 2021. Listings had grown each quarter since early 2021, and by 20% in a year in non-urban North America, and the company wanted a next generation of hosts on top of its 4 million. Airbnb gained either way: its revenue rose with booking value, and its chief executive said the host-side take rate could rise later. A host should have taken Airbnb at its word and planned the year on more competing listings and a nightly rate below 2021.

The other side

The same letter supports the opposite reading. Demand was running hard: Airbnb had over 25% more summer nights on the books than at the same point in 2019 and expected its strongest quarter of bookings on record. Rates were still forecast to rise about 4% in the first quarter and to stay above 2019 for the year. New listings appeared where demand grew fastest, nearly 90% of hosts were individuals, and the take rate was holding steady while the company said higher fees were not its focus. On that view, a host who cut prices on the strength of one cautious sentence was discounting into what Airbnb expected to be its strongest quarter of bookings on record.

What it meant for hosts

The practical reading in February 2022 came down to four things.

Pricing. Airbnb's own guidance was a daily rate above 2019 and below 2021, with moderation expected in the second half of the year. A host building a 2022 budget on 2021 rates was budgeting above what the platform expected across its listings.
Competition. Listings in non-urban North America were up 20% in a year, in the kind of market where demand had grown most. A host there had more neighbors in the search results than twelve months before.
Long stays. With over 90% of active listings already accepting stays of 28 nights or longer, a monthly option had become standard. Stays of that length were 22% of nights booked, and hosts often gave a discount to win them.
Fees and cover. Airbnb's take rate was stable and its chief executive said higher fees were not the priority, but he also said on the record that the host-side rate could rise with new paid services. AirCover, introduced in November 2021 with $1 million in liability insurance and $1 million in damage protection, was free for every host.

Sources

Airbnb, Inc. (SEC filing), Shareholder Letter Q4 2021 (Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K) (15 February 2022).
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Airbnb, Inc. Form 8-K, Date of Report February 15, 2022 (15 February 2022).
Airbnb Newsroom, Airbnb fourth quarter and full-year 2021 financial results (15 February 2022).
Associated Press (via KSAT), Airbnb posts $55 million 4Q profit, revenue above 2019 (15 February 2022).
Reuters (Wayback Machine capture), Airbnb sees strong first-quarter revenue on travel demand, longer stays (15 February 2022).
The Motley Fool, Airbnb, Inc. (ABNB) Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript (16 February 2022).

Airbnb Posts a Record Fourth Quarter and Says Hosts Earned $34 Billion in 2021