Airbnb Security Camera Rules:
What You Can and Cannot Use.

On 30 April 2024, Airbnb prohibited all indoor security cameras in every listing worldwide. Before that, indoor cameras were allowed in common areas if disclosed. That exception is gone. There is now no interior space where a camera is permitted, no matter how it is labelled or whether it is recording.

The ban is deliberately broad. It covers nanny cams, decoy cameras, cameras built into other devices, and cameras that are switched off. If it is a camera and it is indoors, it violates the policy. The reasoning is privacy: Airbnb decided that the presence of any indoor camera undermines guest trust, and enforcement does not weigh host intent.

This is the single most important rule for hosts to internalise, because the penalty is severe and the discovery risk is high. A guest who finds an indoor camera can document it in seconds and report it, and listings that violate the policy are removed.

Disclosure is not a courtesy, it is a condition of the policy. Any permitted monitoring device, outdoor camera, doorbell, or noise monitor, must be listed in the description before a guest books, not mentioned in the house manual after arrival. A guest who learns about a device on check-in can argue they were not informed, and the timing works against the host.

The practical standard is simple: if a reasonable guest would want to know a device exists before paying, disclose it. List the device type, roughly where it is, and what it does. Vague phrasing like exterior monitoring is weaker than naming the doorbell camera at the front entrance and the noise monitor in the living area.

Get this right and the device protects you. Get it wrong and the same device becomes the basis for a privacy complaint that outweighs whatever it was meant to record.

Many hosts treated indoor cameras as damage insurance. In reality they rarely served that purpose. Footage almost never captures the exact moment an item is damaged, the angle misses most of the property, and presenting video of a guest invites a privacy dispute that can eclipse the original claim.

What actually decides a damage claim is not motion footage of the stay. It is a clear before-and-after of the specific item: the condition when the guest arrived, and the condition when they left, both tied to a verifiable time and place. A camera does not produce that. A structured inspection does.

So the indoor ban removed a tool that was weak for damage recovery to begin with. The hosts who were relying on cameras for protection were already exposed. The ban simply made it visible.

The protection that survives the camera ban is documentation, not surveillance. A timestamped, GPS-verified inspection at check-in establishes the property was undamaged when the guest arrived. A matching check-out inspection shows the change. Together they prove what happened during the stay without recording the guest at all.

This is also a stronger position legally and reputationally. There is no privacy complaint to answer, no footage to defend, and no policy line to worry about crossing. The record speaks to property condition, which is exactly what a damage claim turns on.

For the full method, see the property inspection guide and the evidence guide. To put a number on what your current setup is exposed to, run the risk calculator.