We currently have a hard system limit 30 days maximum length of stay due to regulatory restrictions both from governments around the world as well as the financial services providers that are integrated into our system.
The main reasons why we restricted the maximum length of stay to 30 days are the following.
- The average length of stay for short term rentals, hotels, business or leisure trips is 2.4 (EU) to 6.5 (USA) days depending in the destination (see https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-length-of-stay). A length of stay of more than 25 days accounts for less than 0.5% of the bookings for hotels and vacation rentals.
- The payment for trips longer than 30 days is often in excess of several $10.000 and thus poses a higher risk for our financial services partners processing these payments. Over 80 % of credit card issuing banks, especially outside the US, also require preapproval for transactions beyond $10.000.
- Many governments have limitations on short term rentals and tourism that legally limit the length of stay for tourism purposes to 30, 90 and sometimes 120 days. Governments in the EU often require reporting to local authorities and a proof of income for stays longer than 30 days. EU Schengen visa and the US Visa Waiver Program allow for a maximum 90 days length of stay. Holders of US visas under the VWP are also very limited on what they are allowed to do: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/visa-waiver-program.html
- The long term rental market is vastly different to the short term rental market and long term rental generally comes with significantly higher regulations and lower margins than short term rental. The revenue potential for providing an online booking solution for long term rental does not justify investments for both us and our customers at the moment.
Our analysis of the current state of long term rental came to the conclusion that it is currently not suitable for online booking. Since an online booking process facilitates a rental agreement between two parties online and many jurisdiction require upfront paperwork for long term rental agreements, these requirements can currently not be met with online booking. However that may change in the future and we keep monitoring regulatory restrictions of the long term rental market.
What we recommend you for long term rentals: if you wish to provide an option for long term rental in your properties, we recommend providing contact details (e-mail, phone) or a contact form with which customers for long term rental agreements can contact you an inquire about long term stays. This allows you to evaluate the regulatory requirements before providing a rental agreement to your customer.