Airbnb, the vacation rental platform, has come to terms with Italy’s tax authorities, paying €576 million in rental income taxes it should have collected from landlords between 2017 and 2021.
The case had been pending for years, but was sharply nudged toward a settlement when Italy’s financial police last month seized €779 million from Airbnb. The settlement covers the five-year period ending in 2021. The company statement said that “we are continuing our constructive engagement with the Italian authorities for 2022 and 2023.”
The cost of the settlement will be on Airbnb itself; the company statement on behalf of its European operation, headquartered in Ireland, says that “Airbnb Ireland has finalized a settlement (which) covers host withholdings during the 2017 to 2021 period, for an aggregate payment of 576 million euros ($621 million). We are not seeking to recover any of this sum from our hosts.”
