The deposit is gone.
Here is what protects you now.

No. In 2026 hosts cannot set or hold a traditional cash security deposit on Airbnb. It was replaced by AirCover for Hosts, which provides up to $3 million in damage protection per stay.

Airbnb may place an authorization hold on a guest's card for some reservations, but the host never collects it. You do not see it, control it, or claim against it. It is Airbnb's mechanism, not a deposit you run.

For direct and off-platform bookings, real refundable deposits and damage waivers still exist, and you control them. The change trades certain money capped low for uncertain money capped high, which is why documentation now decides whether damage turns into a payout.

Deposit and AirCover rules per Airbnb's Help Center. Confirm current terms on your own account, as details vary by region and reservation.

The shift is easiest to see side by side. Nothing about the risk of guest damage changed; what changed is who holds the money, and what has to be true for you to recover it.

Read across any row and the pattern is the same: the deposit era rewarded setting a number, the AirCover era rewards building a record. The rest of a host's protection strategy follows from that single move.

Hosts sometimes hear that Airbnb "still holds a deposit" and assume the old model survived in disguise. It did not. What can happen on some reservations is an authorization hold: Airbnb temporarily reserves an amount on the guest's payment card, reducing their available credit without actually charging them, and releases it if it is not needed.

The critical difference is control. You never see the hold, never decide its size, and never claim against it. It is a risk tool Airbnb uses for its own protection model, not a fund the host draws on. If a guest damages your place, you still run the standard route: request reimbursement, then escalate to AirCover. The hold does not shortcut that, and counting on it as "your" deposit is a mistake that leaves you unprepared for the actual claim process.

Losing the deposit does not mean losing protection. It means rebuilding it from records instead of a cash hold. Three moves cover most hosts:

• Baseline every stay. A dated check-in record is what a deposit used to be: proof of the starting condition. Without it, AirCover has nothing to compare the damage against.
• Capture damage at checkout, in place. The claim is only as strong as the proof that the guest, not wear and tear, caused it during this stay.
• Use real deposits where you can. On direct bookings, collect a refundable deposit or waiver so the off-platform channel is not your weakest link.

Removing the deposit was not only a protection change; it was a booking-experience change, and it cuts both ways for a host. On the upside, guests no longer see a large hold at checkout, which removes a common reason a booking stalls or a card is declined. Lower friction can mean more completed bookings, especially for higher-value stays where a deposit would have been steep.

The trade is on the back end. With no deposit to quietly withhold, every recovery now runs through a visible Resolution Center request, which a guest can dispute and which can sour an otherwise fine stay. That makes two things matter more than they used to: documenting well enough that a request is clearly justified, and choosing your battles so you are not opening disputes over normal wear and tear. Price and operate on the assumption that recovery depends on your evidence and your judgement, not on a pot of money held in reserve.

The no-deposit rule is Airbnb's, not the industry's. If you list on more than one platform, you are running two different protection models at once, and it is easy to assume Airbnb's rules apply everywhere. They do not.

• Vrbo still lets hosts set a refundable damage deposit, or offer damage protection in its place, so the host-controlled deposit largely survives there. The claim process and evidence expectations are covered in the Vrbo damage claim guide.
• Booking.com lets hosts state a damage-deposit policy, often collected directly from the guest around arrival, which keeps more of the process, and the responsibility, in the host's hands. See the Booking.com host damage guide.
• Direct bookings give you the most control of all, since no platform rules constrain how you collect or hold a deposit.

The practical consequence is that your weakest-documented channel is usually your Airbnb one, because it is the channel where you cannot fall back on a held deposit. A side-by-side of how each platform protects hosts is in damage protection across platforms compared. Platform rules change, so confirm the current deposit policy in each platform's own host terms before you rely on it.