--- title: "How to ask for a review on Airbnb (UK hosts)" url: https://reviewnudge.app/guides/how-to-ask-for-a-review-on-airbnb/ published: 2026-10-01 updated: 2026-10-01 author: "Jack Stovell" author_profile: https://i.hilyt.it/jack publisher: "Adapt Progress Evolve Limited" summary: "Message every guest through Airbnb around checkout, inside the 14-day review window, and ask for an honest review. Never offer anything or pressure them for 5 stars." language: en-GB --- # How to ask for a review on Airbnb (UK hosts) > Message every guest through Airbnb around checkout, inside the 14-day review window, and ask for an honest review. Never offer anything or pressure them for 5 stars. Yes, you can ask for a review, and you should. Ask every guest, in the same friendly way, through Airbnb Messages, around checkout day while the 14-day window is still open. Can you ask for 5 stars? Not directly. Ask for an honest review, invite them to tell you privately if anything fell short, and leave it there. That's the whole thing, and the rest of this is the detail. ## How Airbnb reviews work for hosts The basics first, because they shape everything else. After checkout, both you and your guest get prompted to leave a review. Both of you have 14 days from the day of checkout. No extensions. Reviews go live once both sides have submitted, or when the 14 days run out, whichever comes first. Anyone can read public reviews and the overall star rating, but the subcategory ratings and any private note to the host are only seen by you and Airbnb. A listing's rating shows next to the title in search, and on the listing itself, once it has at least three reviews. Three. If you're sitting on one or two, it's closer than it looks. One more thing worth knowing: Airbnb doesn't moderate reviews before they're published. What a guest writes is what goes up. And if a reservation is cancelled before the day of check-in, neither side can review it at all. ## When to ask, and where Ask inside Airbnb Messages, in the same thread as the booking. It keeps everything in one place, which matters if anything ever gets questioned. As for timing, around checkout day is the sweet spot. The 14-day clock starts on the day of checkout, and that same day the guest should get an email from Airbnb prompting them to leave a review. So your message lands alongside Airbnb's, rather than out of nowhere a fortnight later. Leave it too long and you'll hit the wall. Airbnb makes no exceptions for reviews more than 14 days after a stay; a guest can send you a message instead, but that's not a review. Don't leave it to day thirteen. And ask everyone. Every single guest, same wording, same approach. Picking and choosing who gets asked means guessing who was happy, which is a bad guess to rely on and a worse habit to get into. Just ask everybody. ## What to say Keep it short. Thank them, say you'd value an honest review, mention that it helps future guests, and add that if anything wasn't right you'd like to hear it directly so you can sort it. That last bit is the important bit. *Fictional example.* > Hi Priya, thanks so much for staying with us, it was lovely having you. If you've got a few minutes, we'd really value an honest review of your stay; it helps other guests know what to expect. And if anything wasn't quite right, please message us directly, we'd genuinely like to put it right for next time. Safe travels! Tom *Fictional example.* > Hello Marcus, thanks for being our guest! Checkout's all sorted on our side. Airbnb should have sent you a prompt to leave a review, and we'd appreciate your honest thoughts whenever suits you. If there was anything that didn't work for you, do tell us here in the messages and we'll look into it. Hope the rest of your trip goes well. Sarah Notice what's missing. No mention of stars, no hint about what rating would be nice. Nothing that sounds like a deal. If you want a quick draft to tweak, the [review request builder](/tools/review-request-generator/) can help, and there's more on the wording in our guide to [asking for an honest review](/guides/ask-for-an-honest-review/). ## Can you ask for a 5 star review? Short answer: don't. Longer answer: it's risky, and it doesn't help. Airbnb's Reviews Policy says hosts and guests may not coordinate with, manipulate, extort, incentivise or pressure another person to influence a review. Asking for "5 stars" specifically gets close to that line, because it steers the rating rather than inviting an opinion. Even a friendly version can read as pressure to the person on the receiving end. So the safest route is the one in the example messages. Ask for honest feedback, then invite them to tell you privately about anything that fell short, so you can fix it. That offer is never made in exchange for a better review. It's just you being open to hearing a problem. We go through the thinking in more depth in [can you ask for a 5 star review](/guides/can-you-ask-for-a-5-star-review/). Here's the other half. Guests rate their overall experience plus six categories (check-in, cleanliness, accuracy, communication, location and value) from 1 to 5 stars, and Airbnb says the overall score isn't an average of those categories. Airbnb also says accuracy and cleanliness are two of the most common reasons guests give fewer than five stars. Which means the real work happens during the stay: communicate with guests throughout, send a quick message to ask how things are going, and deal with concerns promptly. ## What Airbnb's Reviews Policy bans Worth reading properly, because the lines are clearer than you might think. Reviews can't be given or withheld in exchange for something of value. That covers a discount, a refund, a reciprocal positive review, or a promise not to take negative action against the reviewer. Nobody can threaten a negative review to get unwarranted compensation, a refund or some other incentive, and that applies to guests as much as to hosts. Fake reviews, meaning ones not based on a real reservation, are banned too. So are reviews of listings you're affiliated with or compete with. For the legal side in the UK, there's a separate piece on [fake reviews and UK law](/guides/fake-reviews-uk-law/). If a review breaks the policy, Airbnb may remove it and, depending on the violation, restrict, suspend or remove the listing or account. That's a heavy price for a handful of stars. So, plainly: don't link a review to a deposit, a refund, a discount, a future stay, or your own review of them. Not even as a throwaway line. Keep the two things completely apart. ## Reviewing your guest helps too Here's a gentle one. Airbnb says reviewing your guest is one way to remind them to review you. It suggests showing gratitude (something like "Thanks for being our guest!"), offering details, being respectful, and addressing any sensitive issues in a direct message rather than in public. To do it, go to Messages, select the guest's message thread, choose Get started, then Submit. Guests review you from Trips, or from Profile, Reviews, Reviews by you, Reviews to write. A small point on editing: if you submit first, you can edit your review within the 14 days until the other party submits. Once both are in, or the 14 days end, both publish and that's final. Write it knowing that. And keep it honest. Don't write a glowing review hoping for one back, because that's the reciprocal swap the policy bans. Just say what happened, kindly and accurately. Last bit: read every review you get and respond constructively. Superhosts need an average overall rating of at least 4.8 alongside other criteria, so it all counts. If one lands badly, our guide to [responding to Airbnb reviews](/guides/how-to-respond-to-airbnb-reviews/) is a decent place to start. But the asking? Ask everyone, ask honestly, and leave the stars to them. ## Questions people ask ### How long does an Airbnb guest have to leave a review? 14 days. The clock starts on the day of checkout, and Airbnb says the guest should get an email that day asking for a review. Reviews publish once both host and guest have submitted, or when the 14 days end, whichever comes first. Airbnb doesn't make exceptions for reviews after that, though a guest can still send you a message. ### Can I offer a discount on a future stay for a review? No. Airbnb's Reviews Policy says reviews may not be provided or withheld in exchange for something of value, and it names a discount, a refund and a reciprocal positive review as examples. Hosts also may not incentivise or pressure anyone to influence a review. Breaking the policy can get the review removed and the listing or account restricted, suspended or removed. ### When does my listing's star rating show? Once the listing has at least three reviews, Airbnb shows its rating next to the title in search results and on the listing page. The rating is the average of the overall scores from all its reviews. Guests also rate six categories, but Airbnb says the overall rating a guest gives isn't an average of those categories. ### Can guests see the private notes and category ratings? No. Anyone can read public reviews and overall star ratings once they're published, but subcategory star ratings and notes to the host are only available to the host and Airbnb. That's useful: a guest can tell you about something small privately, and you can fix it before the next booking. ## Sources - [Airbnb Help Centre: Reviews for homes](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/13) - [Airbnb Help Centre: How long you have to write a review](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/995) - [Airbnb Help Centre: Leave a review](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/3531) - [Airbnb Help Centre: Editing a review](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/367) - [Airbnb Help Centre: Authentic and trustworthy reviews (Reviews Policy)](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/2673) - [Airbnb Resource Centre: Why reviews matter](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/resources/hosting-homes/a/41) - [Airbnb Resource Centre: How to handle a bad review](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/resources/hosting-homes/a/376)