How to Delete Your Airbnb Account, the Easy Way

Wondering how to delete an Airbnb account? I know the feeling. After my last bad experience with the short-term rental service, I decided I’d had enough. Thankfully, deactivating was fairly easy. In this post, I’ll show you the most up-to-date steps to take when you want to log out of the Airbnb app for good.

There are also a few stipulations that I found unclear when I was looking into how to delete my Airbnb profile. For example, what happens to my data?

Well, I’ve gone ahead and done the digging so you don’t have to. Let’s dive in!

How to Temporarily Remove Your Airbnb Account

There are actually two levels of removal when it comes to your Airbnb account.

The first is just a temporary deactivation while the second (which we’ll discuss shortly) is permanent, with no means of recovery.

In this section, we’ll discuss the temporary deactivation of your Airbnb account, which has the following effects for hosts and guests alike:

• All reservations get canceled
• Airbnb retains your account data so it can reinstate your preferences if you reactivate
• Your profile disappears from public view (including any listings if you’re a host)
• Your reviews and some other unspecified information may remain public

Note that you don’t need to deactivate your entire account if you simply want to de-list one of your properties. A lot of people make this mistake and inadvertently lose their profile and ALL their properties along with it. To stop guests from booking a particular property, just visit that property’s listing and visit the ‘Edit’ page. Things are pretty self-explanatory from there.

If you really do need to delete your Airbnb account temporarily, here are the steps.

1. Visit Airbnb’s “Manage Your Data” page, which looks like this.

If you’re looking to delete your account on the phone app, you’re out of luck; Airbnb doesn’t offer this, which is super annoying. You’ll have to actually log into your account on the website and navigate to the page above.

2. Click on the “Request to deactivate your account” link.

From there, you’ll be asked why you’ve chosen to deactivate your account. If you’d rather not give a reason for deactivating, you can just click the “Other” button and leave the text field blank.

3. Click to confirm your account deactivation.

Airbnb will give you an abridged version of what happens when you deactivate.

4. Voila! You’re good to go.

How to Reactivate Your Airbnb Account

As you can see, deactivating your account is pretty easy. Reactivating it is a bit trickier; you’ll need to contact Airbnb directly. Here are the steps for doing that.

1. Visit this page.

Here’s where things get confusing. When I clicked the “Log In” button and attempted to log into my account, Airbnb’s system apparently created an entirely new account for me, complete with fresh information.

At first, I assumed this was because I signed up through Google. However, I tested this out by signing up for a new account the ‘old fashioned’ way and I got the same result.

After some playing around, I figured out what the next step is.

2. Use the contact form presented on the next screen to get in touch with Airbnb directly.

I just ignored the prompts and typed a message to Airbnb’s support staff. Within a few minutes, a staff member got in touch with me and helped me reinstate my account.

How to Delete An Airbnb Account Permanently

Now, when I was looking into how to delete my Airbnb account for real (as opposed to just a test account for the purpose of this article), I was looking to say goodbye forever.

Deleting your account completely has the following effect:

• All of your reservations get canceled immediately
• Your public profile disappears
• Airbnb deletes most of its data about you (not all; read on to learn how you can see what information they retain)
• Your account becomes unrecoverable; you will have to create a new one if you want to use the platform ever again

Because deleting your account permanently cuts you off from other Airbnb members, the company requires you to wait 60 days from your last checkout prior to deleting. By that point, there should be no existing conflicts between you and other users.

This, of course, means that you can’t delete your account in a hurry if you’re trying to avoid the repercussions of a recent booking gone bad.

If you are indeed looking into how to delete your Airbnb profile permanently, here are the steps.

1. Visit the “Manage Your Data” page.

This time, you’ll click the — yup, you guessed it — “Delete your account” button.

2. Once you click that button, take a look at Airbnb’s warning.

It reiterates that the account deletion process is final and mentions a few stipulations, such as the possibility of cancellation fees.

3. On the next screen, confirm that you’re looking to delete your account permanently.

Airbnb gives you the option of temporarily deactivating instead. If you’re ready to take a permanent holiday from the app, hit “Delete account” and you’ll be on your way.

How to See What Information Airbnb Retains After You Delete Your Account

Now that you know how to delete your Airbnb account, it’s worth discussing the information Airbnb retains on you.

If this is important to you, be sure to download your Airbnb ‘personal data’ file before you delete your account. You can do that by visiting the “Manage Your Data” page and selecting the “Request a copy of your personal data” link.

Once you hit that button, Airbnb states that it may take up to a month for you to receive your data.

I’m not sure if that’s the norm but I requested my data several days ago and haven’t received it, so it’s definitely not instantaneous. Whenever you get that file, keep it handy. While you won’t be able to know exactly what data Airbnb retains, having their entire file on you should clear things up.

While Airbnb’s Privacy Policy doesn’t specify exactly what information they keep after you delete your account, they do claim to remove the “attribution” of that information to you. See the relevant section below.

The privacy policy goes on to state that citizens in some jurisdictions (like California) can ask Airbnb to remove their data.

Conclusion

When I was looking into how to delete my Airbnb account, I had lots of questions.

As you saw based on the instructions above, the deactivation and deletion processes themselves aren’t tricky. What can be tricky to navigate is figuring out how Airbnb handles your data after you remove your account.

I hope I’ve done a good job of explaining that as well!