Looking for advice on accessing VAT invoices

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Good morning, fellow hosts,

We have a property in Portugal and have been hosting on Airbnb for nearly 6 years.

Recently, the Portuguese government made some changes to their laws in which they now want Airbnb hosts to show more transparency of their earnings. In our case, they want us to provide a VAT invoice for each guest showing specifically what Airbnb takes as a commission from us for each guest that we host.

We contacted Airbnb support about this, and in the beginning, everything went well. They told us that to do this, we would need to add our VAT identification number to our listing. We followed their instructions and received notification from them not long afterwards that our VAT number had been successfully verified and added onto our listing.

This is when things started to get weird. When we first contacted them about this, the agent we were dealing with (who was very helpful) assured us that once we had registered our VAT number, we would henceforth see the VAT invoice on the Airbnb platform under our part of the earnings for each guest--exactly like what is showing on the screenshot we have attached below. (The VAT invoice part is highlighted in green.)

However, when the next guest stayed at our property, this VAT invoice was not showing, and so we contacted them again. This time, we got a very unhelpful agent--we would even call her "rude"--who first responded to us and told us that we had been given wrong information from this first agent and that, no, we were not privy to any information about our earnings after all.

We then showed her this screenshot, which is from a host in Portugal ("Fatura com IVA" means "VAT invoice" in English), and we explained that, according to our accountants, other Airbnb hosts that they are doing the books for in Portugal have been able to access these invoices.

After waiting nearly an hour for a response, she finally came back and tried to say that we could not access these invoices without the guests' permission. To that, we responded that her response made no sense, since this has nothing to do with the guests. What we, our accountants and the Portuguese government need is evidence showing the commission that they (Airbnb) take from our earnings--not the commission that they take from the guests' payments. 

This has continued back and forth for the past few days, and with two different support agents. We do not seem to be getting through to them, and so we have run into a roadblock here.

We explained all this to our accountants, and they said the same thing that we said: that Airbnb does provide these invoices to other hosts in Portugal, and that the commission that Airbnb takes from the guests' payments has very little to do with the commission that Airbnb takes from our earnings. However, Airbnb is still not listening, and the agents we have been talking to still do not seem to understand what we need.

So, we were wondering if any other hosts have ever run into this problem, and if so, were you able to resolve it? If you were, we would be really grateful for any advice you could give us on this matter.

Thank you in advance. 

[Joelle43]

Hello @Rich-and-Yan0 

If you want to see the commission that Airbnb charges you as a host to give to your accountant, try this:

In host mode go to:

==>Menu

==>Reservations - You'll be able to pick from Upcoming, Completed, Cancelled etc

==>Click on Completed and you'll see all of your reservations by guest.

==>To the far right of each guest reservation, you'll see three dots that are aligned - click here

==>A pop up screen will show and at the bottom of this you'll see VAT invoice XXX

You will have a full page invoice from Airbnb showing their commission rate.

I hope this is what you're looking for🤞

Let me know either way
Joëlle

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Hi @Joelle43. Thank you so much for the response. Unfortunately, however, when we clicked on the three dots, the VAT invoice does not appear when I click on the three dots. As you can see from the screenshot that we have attached here, it is simply not showing.

Obviously, you can access the VAT invoices. So can some other Airbnb hosts, as we have already stated in our original post. Yet, as you can see, we cannot do so, and Airbnb has not given us any kind of satisfactory explanation as to why that is. The first agent that we spoke with seemed to think that we would be able to do so after we had registered our VAT number on the platform, but the next two that we spoke to did not seem to know anything about it whatsoever.

Anyway, we appreciate the attempt to help. At least now you have made it clear that this is possible. We just don't know what it is not possible for us. 

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Oh, and @Joelle43, here is the screenshot: 

[Joelle43]

@Rich-and-Yan0 Oh that's disappointing to hear😒  Are you operating as a business or as an individual host?  It's true that we have entered our VAT number as we operate as a business so maybe this explains why I see this VAT invoice?? But you have too or am I mistaken?

Yes unfortunately it's not unusual to have different CS reps contradicting one another these days.  Hopefully other hosts will see your post and be able to offer some help.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Joelle43 Thank you so much. I believe that we are registered as an individual, and so it may be related to that.

But yes, we've had an awful go with the Airbnb support people recently. Yesterday, while we had our case open waiting for them to give an update, someone named "Yamil" from their side came on and wrote, "We noticed you have another open case thread with us. To avoid confusion, we'll close this thread and support you on the other."

We did not have another case thread open, Joelle, and so we have no idea what this person was talking about. But then they closed the ongoing case we had and did not respond to us again, and so this morning, we had to start all over again.

As you can imagine, this has been extremely frustrating. We have to press on, however, because our accountant insists that we need these invoices and has shown evidence of other Airbnb hosts getting theirs. If any resolution ever comes of this, I'll let you know.

Thanks again for your advice. 

[Joelle43]

Hello @Rich-and-Yan0 

I searched on Airbnb to find you the link that tells host how to access their VAT invoice and found this:

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/438

However, it is the same procedure that I gave you earlier but it will allow you to send this to the CS rep so that you can prove to them that there is indeed a problem your end as the VAT invoice anywhere, be it under the guest reservation number or via Menu ==>Reservations.

It is my experience that CS reps are not aware of all the Airbnb links and have ended up sending them the links myself to prove my point!  That said, it still doesn't guarantee an outcome but you could ask them to report this issue to the tech department.

Best of luck

Joëlle

[Shelley159]

Hi @Rich-and-Yan0 

I see you and @Joelle43 have tried to access the VAT invoices from the Menu side - have you also tried to go to a booking from the calendar to see if that works?

Even if you don't enter a VAT registration number on Airbnb, each booking should show the VAT invoice as follows:

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Hi @Shelley159. Thank you for the response. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have that option, as the screenshot I have attached here shows. This was done by doing exactly what you advised: going to the calendar and checking the individual listings to see if the VAT invoice would be showing.

This is our issue. Some hosts, like you, are able to access the invoices. We are not able to do so, and we don't why--and Airbnb has been very unhelpful in this matter, as they either don't know how to help us access these invoices or are contradicting each other. 

I will, however, send on your screenshot as further evidence that some hosts can access these invoices. I'm not sure if it will yield any results, but it is good to have it as evidence, if nothing else.

Thanks again for your response and advice. If we ever get any resolution to this matter, we will  let you know as well. 

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Oh, I forgot to attach the screenshot from our end. Here it is: 

[Shelley159]

@Rich-and-Yan0 I see on your profile it shows you're in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong doesn't have VAT? I'm wondering if I  automatically see the VAT invoice (despite not having uploaded a VAT number) because the system sees me as living in a VAT country?

I hope some hosts who live in countries away from their listings can perhaps clarify.