Last Updated on June 16, 2023 by Rental Recon
As Airbnb hosts, we all dread tax season. Airbnb does its best to make sure doing our taxes are pain-free by providing us with a Transaction History and an annual Earnings Summary. However, for these reports to be useful, we need to know how to access them and what to do if any issues arise.
What is My Airbnb Transaction History?
Your Airbnb Transaction History provides you with important tax information. It allows you to review the status of your payouts per listing or altogether. All payout information can be retrieved including your Completed Payouts, Upcoming Payouts, and your Gross Earnings.
What are Payouts?
When you host a guest, Airbnb holds the money from each reservation until the guest checks out. A payout typically takes about 24 hours to receive; payout times may vary per listing.
Within your transaction history, you will find the status of your payouts, along with detailed information explaining them. Let’s discuss the different types of payouts.
Completed Payouts are payouts that have been processed by Airbnb and have since been released. Once a payout is released, the arrival time will depend on your chosen payout method. The estimated arrival time will appear in the Payout section.
Upcoming Payouts means that the payouts are still pending. These payouts will have future release dates. These dates are an expected time frame of when Airbnb will process them. When payouts are still pending, payout methods can be updated as needed.
The Gross Earnings amount is the total price of the payout before Airbnb service fees are removed, along with any potential taxes that may be collected on your behalf. It’s important to note that these taxes are not inclusive of those that you must report to the IRS annually. This tab will appear blank until the payout for that reservation has been released.
You’ll notice within your transaction history you can export your data to a CSV file. The CSV file is especially helpful as it will provide you with additional information that is not shown throughout the transaction history on the Airbnb website. The CSV file will have additional columns for Host Service Fees Paid and any potential Cleaning Fees charged. This information is important. It may affect your gross revenue.
Now that we have an overall understanding of what our transaction history is and its purpose. Let’s find out how to access it. There are two ways to go about it. I walk you through both ways below!
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How to See Your Transaction History on Airbnb (via Computer):
Route One:
- Go to www.airbnb.com and log in to your Airbnb account.
2. Once logged into your profile, click Switch to Hosting in the upper right-hand corner and select the Performance tab.
3. On the left side of the screen, under the Performance header, click on Earnings.
4. Once on this page, scroll down and choose the View transaction history link.
Route Two:
- Go to www.airbnb.com and log in to your Airbnb account.
- Once logged into your profile, click Switch to Hosting in the upper right-hand corner and select your photo to access your Account Settings.
- Upon clicking your photo, a drop-down will appear. Click on Transaction history.
Both routes will lead you to the Transaction History page. Once here, to view the different types of payouts, you can select each tab. The tabs are self-explanatory:
Completed Payouts are under the Completed Payouts tab, Upcoming Payouts fall under the Upcoming Payouts tab, and Gross Earnings can be found under the Gross Earnings tab.
Take note, this page will default to the Completed Payouts tab, with the All Payout Methods and All Listings filters set. It will also default to January of the current year to the month you are currently in.
Filters are available on every tab, and can easily be changed to match your needs. You can filter by payout method, listing, and date.
Additionally, you’ll see that each payout has a down-arrow near it. If you click on the arrows, each payout section will expand, showing the Payout details. Here additional information on each payout status, along with any adjustments that may have been made, will be provided.
A lot of hosts review their transaction history often. It helps them compare different listings and see how they are doing quarterly, or even monthly. That’s the great thing about the transaction history, it is always available to you, and it’s a great resource to have at hand! Another neat resource, especially for tax purposes, is the Earnings Summary. Keep reading to find out more!
What is my Earnings Summary?
Within your transaction history, you will also find your Earnings Summary. This includes all transactions paid out within a calendar year. Your net earnings and gross earnings will appear within this report.
The gross earnings include anything withheld. It will also include any adjustments that may have reduced payouts throughout the year. These amounts are not only helpful but are also needed for tax reporting purposes. Please note, Airbnb uploads this report at the end of January annually.
Be sure to remember that this summary is currently only displayed in USD (United States dollar). If payouts were received in other currencies, they will only be shown at the exchanged rate.
We know how helpful the transaction history and earnings summary can be. They hold important information to help maintain our Airbnb listings, and also make our lives easier during tax season.
Earlier I mentioned that comparing the transaction history and the earnings summary allows you to confirm that all of your numbers match. But what if you can’t gain access to your earnings summary? No stress, keep reading to find out more!
Airbnb Earnings Summary Not Working
If you’re having issues accessing your end-of-year report, we have a few options. First, let’s keep in mind that the earnings summary for the previous year isn’t posted until the end of January. This being said, the links provided by Airbnb tend to be more effective because the routing is more direct.
If you are unable to access your summary report try clicking here: https://www.airbnb.com/users/earnings_report. As long as you are logged into your account, this link should pull up your earnings summary for the previous year.
What if that link doesn’t work? If you are experiencing the same issue with the link above as you are with your earnings summary, we do have an alternative option. The earnings summary consists of your gross and net earnings.
I keep mentioning the benefits of having your earnings summary and transaction history available to compare and contrast your numbers. However, if the earnings summary is not available to you, the gross earnings found in your transaction history will suffice.
In the steps above, I walked you through how to access your payouts. Within the tabs mentioned there was the Gross Earnings tab. If you navigate to this tab and enter the appropriate time frame needed for All Listings, this report will provide you with similar information found in the earnings summary report.
The only difference between these two reports is that they have different column labels and one provides your net income, while the other doesn’t.
How to Access Your Airbnb Gross Earnings (via Computer):
- Follow the steps previously mentioned above to access your Transaction History or click this link: https://www.airbnb.com/users/transaction_history.
- Once there and logged in, select the Gross Earnings tab.
- Fill in all the necessary information to retrieve the report, and export it to a CSV file by clicking the Download CSV button.
- Important: On the CSV file, the Paid Out column will be equal to the Total Paid column on the earnings summary, while the Host Fee column will match the Airbnb Service Fees column.
It will be helpful to know that adding the paid out and host fee columns together will result in the total gross revenue that is reported by the earnings summary.
Now that we’ve discussed how to access your transaction history in-depth, let’s briefly touch on, transactions themselves. As an Airbnb host, it’s important to understand how transactions work and why a transaction may not be going through.
If you have a guest who is trying to book with you that keeps experiencing transaction issues, it’s in your best interest to be able to help them. This way, you’ll secure the reservation and provide great customer service. Plus, you’ll also have a happy guest, who will most likely leave a great review!
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Airbnb Stuck on Processing Transaction
If a guest is stuck on the Processing Transaction screen, this means that their payment isn’t going through. The cause of this can be a few different things.
Oftentimes, this may be caused by an expired credit card being used, or no funds being available at the time of purchase. Other issues can consist of daily limits being met on the card, or the billing address entered, not matching the billing address on the card in use. However, there are times when the cause of these issues may run a bit deeper.
Sometimes this issue can be caused by Airbnb’s payment processing partners. When these issues appear, the third party may be experiencing downtime to work on their site. It is also possible that their site is experiencing technical issues in general. This may result in unsuccessful payments at that time. Thankfully, downtime typically doesn’t last long, and if the payment is processed a few hours later, it usually is successful.
That being said, using another payment method may solve the problem more quickly. Guests should try using another card or their Paypal account. Paypal is the recommended payment method when these issues occur. It seems to be the most effective way to process payments the bulk of the time.
Note, if a guest wants to use a different payment method, it is in their best interest to add it to their account first. This way, when checking out, it auto-populates as a payment option.
If a guest informs you that they are experiencing this issue, as the host, you have the option to send them a Special Offer/Pre-Approval. This will reserve their selected dates for up to 24 hours. Within 24 hours of being sent the pre-approval, they will need to complete the booking to keep their reservation.
If all of the steps above have been done and the guest is still unable to process their transaction, their card has likely been flagged for fraudulent behavior. When a card is flagged it is done by the credit card company or bank. Often, Airbnb’s third-party payment processors may process through states or potentially countries that are atypical for your card to have activity in. If this has occurred, unfortunately, the issue is no longer in our hands.
To Our Guests:
If you are planning a trip, it is best to call your credit card company (or bank) ahead of time to inform them. This minor step may help you avoid getting your card flagged for fraudulent behavior.
Final Thoughts
In this article, we discussed everything you need to know about your Transaction History and what to do if you are unable to access your Earnings Summary. We discussed in-depth what the earnings summary is and what may cause any potential issues with transaction processing. The information provided will help us all become better hosts for our guests and better hosts for ourselves. Happy hosting!
