The Superhost criteria, in plain words
Airbnb lists the rules on its help page about how to become a Superhost (opens in new tab). The current rules say you must be the listing owner, have an account in good standing, and meet four targets. Here they are, with a simple meaning for each.
| Target | What Airbnb asks | What it means for you |
|---|
| Stays | At least 10 reservations, or 3 reservations that add up to at least 100 nights | You need enough real guests for the numbers to mean something |
| Response rate | Reply to 90% of new messages within 24 hours | Almost every new question needs an answer within one day |
| Cancellations | A host cancellation rate under 1% | You should almost never cancel a confirmed guest |
| Rating | An overall rating of 4.8 or higher | Most guests must give you five stars |
A few words need explaining.
- Response rate is the share of new messages and booking requests you answer within 24 hours. Airbnb says declining a booking request does not hurt your Superhost status. Leaving it unanswered can hurt your response rate.
- Cancellation rate is the share of confirmed bookings that you, the host, cancel. Airbnb makes exceptions for big events outside your control, like a natural disaster.
- Overall rating is the average star score from your guests. A review counts once both you and the guest have reviewed, or once the 14-day review window ends.
Airbnb can change these rules. Always check the help page before you plan around them.
When Airbnb checks, and how long it takes
You do not apply for the badge. Airbnb checks every host four times a year. Each check starts on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October, and runs for 7 days. During each check, Airbnb looks at your last 12 months on all your listings.
If you meet every target on that date, you become a Superhost automatically. Airbnb says the badge can take up to a week to show on your listing.
This timing matters. Say you reach 10 stays in early November. You will not get the badge right away. You wait for the next check on 1 January. In the same way, if you lose it, you get your next chance in three months, not next week.
A simple way to think about it: every quarter is an exam, and the last 12 months are the material.
Which criteria owners miss most
From the four targets, the stay count usually takes care of itself once a listing is busy. The other three are where owners of villas, guesthouses and small hotels tend to slip.
Slow replies at the wrong time
Many owners answer guests from their own phone. That works until they travel, sleep, or get busy with a full house. A message that arrives at 23:00 and gets a reply at 01:00 the next night has missed the 24-hour window.
Small fixes help a lot:
- Turn on Airbnb app notifications on two phones, not one.
- Agree who answers at night and on weekends.
- Keep three or four saved replies for common questions, like airport transfer, check-in time and parking.
Worked example (made up). A villa in Seminyak gets 40 new messages and booking requests over 12 months. The owner answers 36 of them within 24 hours. That is 36 ÷ 40 = 90%, right on the line. One more late reply, say during a family trip, makes it 35 ÷ 40 = 87.5%, and the villa misses the target at the next check.
Holidays are the danger zone. In Bali, Nyepi is a good example. On that day the island goes quiet, and many owners switch off too. But guests planning a trip still send questions. A short reply like "Thank you, I will send full details tomorrow morning" counts as a reply and keeps your rate safe. Then send the full answer when you are back.
The same goes for booking requests. If you cannot accept a request, decline it politely within 24 hours. Leaving it to expire is worse than saying no.
A rating that slips by a few points
A 4.8 average leaves very little room. A few four-star reviews in a row can pull you under. Most low scores come from small, fixable things: a slow check-in, a dirty fan, weak Wi-Fi, or a surprise fee.
Read each review that is not five stars, and ask one question: "What would have made this a five?" Then fix that one thing.
Cancellations you did not plan
This is the one that surprises owners most. Most hosts never want to cancel. But if you sell the same villa on Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda and your own website, two guests can book the same night. Then you must cancel one of them. That is called a double booking, and it is the most common reason careful hosts end up cancelling.
How a double booking turns into a host cancellation
Airbnb's Host Cancellation Policy (opens in new tab) names double-booking a listing as one example where the host is responsible for the cancellation. That is true even if the guest is the one who clicks "cancel". The policy also lists fees and says hosts who cancel without a valid reason may lose Superhost status.
Here is how it usually happens. A made-up example:
- A guest books your villa on Booking.com for 12 to 15 March at 10:02.
- Your Airbnb calendar still shows those dates as open, because nobody blocked them yet.
- At 10:20, an Airbnb guest books the same dates.
- You now have two guests for one villa, and one must be cancelled.
The 1% limit is very strict for a small property. If you host 60 Airbnb stays in a year, even one cancellation puts you over 1%. So for a small villa, one double booking can be enough to miss the next check.
The cause is almost always the same: the calendars on different websites are not talking to each other fast enough. Some owners update each extranet by hand. An extranet is the back office each booking website gives you. Updating them by hand works on quiet days, but not when two bookings land close together.
Our guide to stopping double bookings (opens in new tab) explains the main causes in detail. If you only list on Airbnb and Booking.com, this guide to Airbnb and Booking.com calendar sync (opens in new tab) shows the risks of slow sync.
If a double booking already happened, do not panic. Our step-by-step guide on what to do when a guest is double booked (opens in new tab) helps you handle the guest kindly and fast.
A weekly 10-minute Superhost check
You do not need a big system to stay on track. Copy this Superhost tracker into a notebook or a simple sheet. Fill in one row every Monday from your Airbnb performance page.
| Week | Stays (last 12 months) | Host cancellations | Cancellation rate | Response rate | Rating | Safe? |
|---|
| Example: 2 Nov | 60 | 1 | 1 ÷ 60 = 1.7% | 96% | 4.86 | No: over 1% |
| Example: 9 Nov | 60 | 0 | 0 ÷ 60 = 0% | 97% | 4.87 | Yes |
| Your week | | | | | | |
The numbers above are a made-up example, not real data. They show one thing: with 60 stays, a single cancellation (often from a double booking) puts you over the 1% limit. To find your rate, divide host cancellations by stays.
Do this inside Kiyo. Step 3 below is the check that protects your cancellation rate. In Kiyo you do not compare calendars by hand. Every booking from Airbnb and your other channels sits on one booking calendar, so you scan the next 30 days in one view.
Then spend ten minutes on these steps.
- Open your Airbnb performance page. Copy the numbers into your tracker.
- Check unanswered messages. Reply to anything that is waiting, even if it is only "Thanks, we'll confirm by tonight".
- Look at the next 30 days of bookings. Make sure every date booked on another website is also blocked on Airbnb.
- Read new reviews. For any review under five stars, write one line: what went wrong, and what you will change.
- Check the calendar for the next check date. If 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October is close, be extra careful in the weeks before.
A weekly row shows you a trend. If your response rate drops from 98% to 92%, you see it while there is still time to fix it.
For more on getting seen, read why an Airbnb listing gets views but no bookings (opens in new tab).
What happens if you lose the badge
Losing the badge feels bad, but it is not the end. Airbnb says you can earn it again at the next quarterly check if you meet the targets.
Here is what to do:
- Find the reason. Look at which of the four targets you missed. Usually it is just one.
- Fix the cause, not the number. If it was a cancellation from a double booking, fix how your calendars update. If it was slow replies, fix who answers and when.
- Keep hosting well. Every new five-star stay helps your average for the next check.
- Do not ask guests for five stars in return for gifts. Airbnb's reviews rules ban this kind of pressure, and it can put your account at risk.
Also remember the co-host rule. Airbnb says co-hosts are not checked for Superhost status. Only the listing owner can earn the badge for a listing. So if a manager runs your villa as a co-host, the badge is linked to the owner's account, not the manager's.
For the bigger picture on how Airbnb works for hosts this year, read our summary of Airbnb changes in 2026 for hosts (opens in new tab).
Keeping your Airbnb calendar safe with Kiyo
Kiyo is a PMS and channel manager for independent hotels, villas, guesthouses and hostels. A PMS is the system where you keep your bookings, guests and rooms. A channel manager connects that system to booking websites.
- One calendar for every channel. Bookings from Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda and 75+ OTAs land on one booking calendar (opens in new tab), together with direct, phone and walk-in bookings.
- Dates close on other channels by themselves. When a room or villa is booked on one channel, the channel manager (opens in new tab) closes those dates on your other connected channels within milliseconds of the booking. That removes the most common cause of host cancellations.
- One inbox for guest messages. On Pro and Business plans, the guest inbox (opens in new tab) brings Airbnb, Booking.com, WhatsApp and other messages into one place. Two people can share the work, so new messages get answered on time.
- Guest emails on every plan. Booking confirmations and pre-arrival emails go out by themselves, so guests know what to expect before they arrive.
Our team sets up your rooms, rates and channels with you, and checks that your Airbnb listing is mapped to the right room. Mapping means linking each Airbnb listing to the matching room in Kiyo, so a booking lands in the right place.
Your next step: see how your own Airbnb dates would look on one calendar before the next quarterly check.
Plans start from Rp40k per room per month (opens in new tab). Free setup, pay from go-live, 14-day money-back guarantee.
Frequently asked questions
You must own the listing and, over 12 months, have 10 stays (or 3 stays and 100 nights), a 90% response rate within 24 hours, under 1% host cancellations and a 4.8 rating.
Yes. Airbnb's Host Cancellation Policy names double-booking as a case where the host is responsible, so fees may apply and your Superhost status can suffer. Our guide to stopping double bookings (opens in new tab) shows how to prevent it.
You need at least 10 stays, or 3 stays that add up to 100 nights, plus the other targets. Then you wait for the next quarterly check on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October.
Yes, it works the same way. On Airbnb's Indonesian site the badge is called HosTeladan, with the same four targets. Airbnb says these hosts get more visibility and access to rewards. It does not publish exactly how much the badge changes your place in search.
No. Airbnb only checks the listing owner. A co-host can earn the badge only through a listing they own.
Yes. In Kiyo the villa stays one unit with one calendar, and the 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom options are rate plans on that unit. So a booking on either option closes the whole villa for those nights.
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