Country of residency

Ruth175
Level 3
Antarctica

Country of residency

Hello,

 

Any idea how to force Airbnb to change my country of residency and stop illegally charging me VAT on services for hosting and travelling? Option to make such change for end user was completely removed from Airbnb page.

I requested Airbnb to do so numerous times over 6 months, but they ignore this by closing my support requests. Once I got reply from real person and was shocked how this dumbhead identified my country of residency by my phone number, payout currency and my country of citizenship. I have nothing to do with country of my citizenship on a tax matters and I am not from US or Eritrea with citizenship-based taxation systems.


Pathetic customers service or rather just ignorance. Be sure, Superhosts status is a form of bullsh*t for naive idiots!

27 Replies 27

@Emiel

I hope you understand that it is a matter of principle, not money. Indeed VAT on 3% hosting service costs is not much, but do not forget about traveling. So why I am forced to pay VAT if I have no legal obligation to do so? Let me remind you Airbnb claims: "VAT, JCT and GST rates are calculated according to the local rate of the customer's country of residence", but they charge me the rate of my country citizenship and it is illegal. I am EU state citizen, but not EU state resident. Don't you wonder why Airbnb removed possibility for end-user to change "Country of Residence" in account settings?

 

By the way, have you ever came across Airbnb's deceptive practice to force Dynamic Currency Conversion? Both Visa and Mastercard forbid forced DCC, but Airbnb is using it and charge 3% conversion fee just to maximize profit.

 

http://uk.businessinsider.com/airbnb-charges-a-sneaky-3-per-cent-conversion-fee-on-bookings-2017-4

Fred13
Level 10
Placencia, Belize

Ruth - from your opening salvo here, you gave me the impression you are 'suffering the human race' (aka very angry). 

@Claire0 was trying to help, if you didn't notice.

@Fred

It is just your impression. No doubt, it is annoying to get support requests closed without any reply or help. Don't you expect to have decent customer support for a service fee? I am not the first to complain about terrible Airbnb customer service or in my case just lack of it. I do not want to speculate if it is done on purpose or just a bug, but now I get absolutely blank page then I go to "Still need help? Contact us". Very very strange.

 

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Have no doubts, I am aware @Clare was trying to help and I appreciate it. Sorry if my tone looked somehow rude to you or anyone else.

 

Hi Fred, how are you? By the way, and if you indeed care, have you ever tried to deal with AirBnB support?

I have been dealing with them for a month to try to get my site back online.  If a month of that doesnt make you p i s s blood I dont know what would.  Thank you Fred.  If you didnt notice.

Kristina16
Level 2
Heidelberg, Germany

Hey, did you resolve that issue? We have the same problem, the VAT country is wrong and there is no way to change that..

Zhipeng0
Level 1
Boston, MA

totally agree that Airbnb uses those infomration to determine the residency is stupid..

Richard-and-Sarah0
Level 10
Zofingen, Switzerland

I am a British citizen and used my passport to set up my Airbnb profile as prompted by the help screens. I am resident in Switzerland and all my contact details are in Switzerland. However, Airbnb Support tell me I am resident in UK because of my passport. Whenever I try to change my residency they tell me the only way is to delete and recreate my profile, automatically cancelling all my future bookings and losing 5 years of reviews. I am not alone as there are over 5 million British citizens living overseas. And about 40 million foreigners living in the USA. 

Why do Airbnb not create a simple fix by adding Residency and Citizenship as separate fields in the profile? As a result I am paying VAT in a country where I am not eligible to pay it as I do not live or work there. As I have seen in other peoples' posts, Airbnb always close my case immediatley telling me that it is their right to charge VAT based on my profile. 

Please would everyone who has this problem raise an issue with Airbnb Support as it is only by our action that they will accept responsibility for this problem. The solution is simple: add a Residency test in everyone's profile. 

@Richard-and-Sarah0 

Hosts have been raising this issue with Airbnb Support for a very long time now, and as you have experienced, it gets them precisely nowhere. Airbnb will only act on issues that they're forced to act on. 

 

You can, however, register a complaint with the EU Online Dispute Resolution platform. The only way to compel Airbnb to change its more questionable policies and practices, is to report them to the approved bodies that do have the power to demand that they play fair, and comply with existing laws and regulations. The more people that complain, the better the chances the relevant authorities will investiigate and take action. 

 

https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/?event=main.home.howitworks

Thank you Susan but Switzerland isn’t in the EU so I’m unable to use this despite being British. I am going to contact the UK VAT authorities though to see if they will either write me a letter to send to Airbnb or even give me a refund on what has been paid. I shall also try to get it raised in Brian Chesky’s next Q&A as it is a total disgrace that they are ignoring so many hosts and Superhosts. Lastly, I am considering raising a new support case daily to highlight this to the management 

Hi @Richard-and-Sarah0 

I realise that Switzerland is not in the EU, but thought that as a British citizen, contracting through an EU company that actually has you registered on their platform as a UK resident, and is witholding UK VAT,  that you might still qualify to use the ODR platform? My apologies if that's not the case, but given the complicated circumstances, it would be very surprising if they weren't at least willing to hear your grievance, and if not, perhaps be able to point you in the direction of the relevant complaints body in your own jurisdiction. 

 

Good idea contacting the UK Vat authorities though. Hope you get everything sorted soon. Do let us know how you get on! 

Thank you for your support and help. I am amazed that Airbnb have no way of recognising that residency is often different from citizenship. I am sure that everyone knows at least one person who was born in another country.

I found an email address for the ODR department that you sent me the link for. so I have emailed them.

I have also called the UK VAT helpline, but so far they told me they were too busy and cut my call off, but not before telling me that I only need to pay UK VAT if my eligible earnings exceed £85k. Seeing as Airbnb only charge VAT on Service fees I will never earn this much, even in my lifetime, let alone in a year. 

I have also raised a case with Airbnb Support to recognise my residency and they closed it within 20 minutes,  after telling me that they would not look into it for me and to raise a Feedback request. This is a new record for speed in stonewalling me.

I will not give up as a matter of principle but the longer it goes on, the lower my opinion of Airbnb becomes.

 

Timea3
Level 2
Kloten, CH

Same problem here. They are totally wrong with what they are saying. They do not make the difference between citizenship and country of residence, which is totally crazy. More then that, they say a RESIDENCE PERMIT is not accepted to proove THE RESIDENCE. This is totally illogical. The most interesting part is how they say that login activity can also change the things. Really? In 2019? People are traveling. People can have two residencies and even 2 citizenships (my case exactly). And they charge the bigger VAT, which is not for the country where I live, where I have a residence permit and where I am hosting. 

"Since further communication will not change the outcome of this case, we must respectfully distance ourselves from further discussion." And that is, they closed the case.