To join the Airbnb Co-Host Network you need an active listing, 10 or more stays in the past 12 months (or 3 or more stays totalling at least 100 nights), a 4.8 average guest rating, a cancellation rate under 3%, and a verified account in good standing. The network is live in Canada. The part almost nobody mentions: in Alberta, being paid to manage someone else’s rental may require a RECA property management licence.
By Cody Wise, founder of Wise Media. Last updated 12 September 2026.
Summary
- The Co-Host Network is Airbnb’s marketplace for paid co-hosts. Hosts search it to find someone local to run their listing. It launched in October 2024 and is available in Canada, operated by Airbnb Living LLC.
- Five requirements, all hard gates. Active listing, the volume test, 4.8 rating, sub-3% cancellation rate, verified account in good standing.
- The volume test has two doors. 10 or more stays in 12 months, or 3 or more stays adding up to 100 or more nights. The second door is how owners of one large chalet qualify.
- You can offer six individual services or a full-service package. Full service means all six: listing setup, pricing and availability, booking requests, guest messaging, onsite guest support, and cleaning.
- Your service area is capped at roughly 100 km. This is a local business by design, not a remote one.
- Your profile must carry your personal name, not your company’s, unless you host as a business in Australia, the EEA or the UK. Canada is not on that exemption list.
- The Alberta licensing question is the real risk. RECA’s own published example says managing a friend’s property for compensation requires a property management licence and brokerage registration. Airbnb’s own page warns that some areas require real estate broker licences.
- Calgary adds a municipal layer. Short-term rentals need a business licence, and a separate short-term rental company licence category carries a $3,000 CAD annual fee.
Table of Contents
- What is the Airbnb Co-Host Network?
- What are the requirements to join in 2026?
- How do you actually apply, step by step?
- What services can you offer, and how is pricing set?
- The Alberta licensing question nobody asks
- Calgary’s municipal layer: licences and fees
- Common mistakes that get applications rejected
- Is the Co-Host Network worth it? Pros and cons
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The Bottom Line
What Is the Airbnb Co-Host Network?
The Co-Host Network is a searchable directory inside Airbnb where property owners go to hire someone to run their listing for them. You build a profile, list the services you provide, state your pricing, and hosts in your area contact you directly. Airbnb describes it as a way to “earn money using the skills you’ve developed hosting.”
It went live on 16 October 2024 and is currently available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Spain, the UK and the US. In Canada and the US it is powered by Airbnb Living LLC, which is a detail worth noting if you ever need to read the terms closely.
The strategic point for an experienced host: this is Airbnb handing you a demand channel for a property management business you may already be running informally. You are not marketing into a cold market. You are appearing in front of owners who have already decided they want help and are actively searching for it.
How the network decides who hosts see
Airbnb states that the network’s search algorithm “takes into account many factors, including quality, engagement, and location.” Engagement is the one people underestimate. A profile that answers host enquiries slowly is a profile that gets shown less, which is the same mechanic that governs listing visibility on the guest side of the platform.
What Are the Requirements to Join the Co-Host Network in 2026?
There are five requirements and all five are gates, not preferences. Miss one and the application does not proceed.
| Requirement | The exact threshold | What trips people up |
|---|---|---|
| Active listing | An active listing as a host, or as a co-host with full access, or as a co-host with calendar and messaging access | Limited co-host access levels do not count. You need full access or calendar and messaging access. |
| Hosting volume | 10 or more stays in the past 12 months, or 3 or more stays totalling at least 100 nights | People assume it is 10 stays only. The 100-night door exists for long-stay and large-property hosts. |
| Guest rating | 4.8 average or higher over the past 12 months, across all listings you host or co-host | It is an average across everything, not your best listing. One weak property pulls the whole application down. |
| Cancellation rate | Below 3%, with exceptions for certain valid reasons beyond your control | On a small number of stays, a single host cancellation can blow past 3% on its own. |
| Account standing | Account in good standing, identity verified, meets name and photo requirements | The name and photo rules are stricter than the ordinary Airbnb profile rules. See below. |
Why the rating rule is the one that actually blocks people
The 4.8 threshold applies across every listing you host or co-host with qualifying access, averaged over 12 months. If you run four strong properties and one problem unit you inherited mid-year, the problem unit is in your average. Hosts planning to apply usually need to fix or drop the weak listing a full season before applying, because a 12-month rolling average moves slowly.
The name and photo rules are a real constraint on companies
To appear on the Co-Host Network your display name must be your individual name, not a business name. Airbnb carves out an exception for hosts operating as a business in Australia, the European Economic Area or the UK. Canada is not in that carve-out. A Canadian management company cannot list itself as the brand on the network. You can say you are part of a business in your profile intro and in the “About me” section, but the name at the top of the profile is a person.
The photo rules are equally specific: high resolution, file size up to 100 MB, clearly showing your face, and not blurry. Logos do not qualify. If your brand identity is the thing you have invested in, this is a genuine friction point, and it is one of the reasons a co-host running any volume eventually wants a website of their own rather than relying on a platform profile.
How Do You Actually Apply, Step by Step?
The process is short but the timelines are longer than most people expect. Budget several weeks from submission to a live profile.
- Audit yourself against all five requirements first. Pull your 12-month stay count, your rolling average rating and your cancellation rate before you touch the form. If you fail a gate, applying does not help you, and you would rather spend the season fixing the gap.
- Confirm your access level on every listing you co-host. You need full access, or calendar and messaging access. If you have something narrower, ask the owner to change it before applying.
- Fix your Airbnb profile name and photo. Individual name, face clearly visible, high resolution. Do this before submitting, not after.
- Submit the join request through Airbnb’s Co-Host Network form.
- Wait for one of three outcomes. You are accepted, waitlisted for your region, or told to reapply. The regional waitlist is real and it is not a rejection, so do not treat it as one.
- Complete your profile from the emailed link. Once eligibility is confirmed, Airbnb emails you a link to build the co-host profile. Nothing appears publicly until this is done.
- Wait again for the profile to go live. Airbnb says it may take a few weeks for your profile to appear, and that you will get an email before it is displayed and active.
Questions during the process go to cohosts@airbnb.com, which Airbnb publishes on its own help page for profile setup.
What Services Can You Offer, and How Is Pricing Set?
You choose individual services, a full-service package, or both. Full service is defined precisely: it means you offer all six of listing setup, setting prices and availability, booking request management, guest messaging, onsite guest support, and cleaning. Offering five of the six is not full service.
| Category | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Individual ongoing services | Listing setup, pricing and availability, booking requests, guest messaging, onsite guest support, cleaning |
| Full-service package | All six of the above, with the option to bolt on extra one-time services |
| Extra one-time services | Listing photography, interior design and styling, licensing and permits, plus anything else you describe |
| Other services you can describe freely | Landscaping, business analysis, hospitality coaching |
On pricing, Airbnb asks you to set a price range for full-service support if you offer it, and states that hosts can discuss the cost of any service directly with you. You are not locked into a platform-set commission. That is a meaningful difference from the guest side of Airbnb, and it means your positioning is yours to control.
Two other profile settings matter more than they look. Minimum time commitment runs from no minimum up to one year, and it is your main filter against owners who want to try you for three weeks. Local service area is where you can provide services in person, capped at about 60 miles or 100 kilometres. From Calgary, 100 km reaches Canmore and most of the Bow Valley corridor. It does not reach Banff townsite and back comfortably as a daily operating radius, which is a practical constraint on how you staff turnovers rather than a rule to argue with.
What your profile shows automatically
Some of your profile is not editable copy, it is pulled from your record. Hosts see how many listings you currently support, how many years you have been hosting based on when you started, and the overall guest rating for listings you have hosted or co-hosted. They also see guest reviews for those listings, filterable by highest and lowest rated and searchable by keyword.
Read that again: prospective clients can filter straight to your worst reviews. Your profile copy is not where you win this. Your operational record is.
The Alberta Licensing Question Nobody Asks
Here is the part that is missing from every guide to the Co-Host Network we could find, and it is the part with the most downside.
Airbnb itself flags it, briefly: “It’s your responsibility to know what local regulations apply to you and to have all the required licenses, permits, and registrations. For example, some areas may require real estate broker licenses depending on your services.” That sentence is doing a lot of work and almost nobody follows it up.
In Alberta, the Real Estate Council of Alberta regulates property management as a sector of real estate. RECA’s published position is that anyone who trades in real estate on behalf of others for compensation must hold a real estate licence unless an exemption applies, and that trading in real estate “also includes activities such as property management when performed for another person.”
RECA lists the activities that require a property management licence:
- Leasing or offering to lease real estate
- Negotiating, approving, or offering to negotiate or approve leases or rentals
- Holding money received in connection with a lease or rental
- Advertising or conducting activities that further leasing or rental transactions
Now put that beside the Co-Host Network’s own full-service definition. Setting prices and availability, managing booking requests, and running the listing are, on their face, activities that further rental transactions. And RECA publishes an example that maps onto the co-hosting scenario almost exactly:
“A property owner manages their own property. A friend asks them to manage another property. A property management licence and brokerage registration are required.”
That is the Co-Host Network business model described by the regulator, with the regulator’s answer attached.
What is clearly on the safe side of the line
Two things are unambiguous from RECA’s own material. First, you do not need a licence to manage your own property, provided you own 25% or more of it. Buying, selling and managing your own real estate is not trading on behalf of another person. Second, the exemption list includes an on-site manager who resides in the residential property, which is a narrow but real route for a live-in arrangement.
It is also worth noting, for anyone in our line of work, that RECA explicitly lists “designing or maintaining a website for a brokerage” and “publishing property listings without providing representation or advice” as activities that are not trading in real estate. Building the marketing asset is not regulated. Running the rental transaction may be.
What is genuinely unresolved, and how to handle it
We are not going to tell you that paid short-term rental co-hosting definitively requires a RECA licence, because RECA’s published guidance addresses property management and leasing without carving out short-term accommodation specifically, and we could not confirm a short-term rental exemption in the primary material. Anyone who tells you the answer with confidence in either direction is guessing.
What we will tell you is the sensible sequence:
- Write down exactly which of the six services you intend to sell. A cleaning-only or guest-messaging-only offer sits in a very different place from a full-service offer that sets pricing and handles money.
- Note whether you will hold guest funds at any point. “Holding money received in connection with a lease or rental” is on RECA’s list by name. Letting payouts flow directly to the owner’s account is a materially different arrangement from routing them through yours.
- Put the question to RECA directly before you sign a client. RECA publishes info@reca.ca and 1-888-425-2754. A written answer about your specific service mix costs you one email.
- Get it reviewed by an Alberta lawyer if you are going to scale. One property is a question. Fifteen properties is a business with regulatory exposure.
This is general information, not legal advice, and it is not a determination about your situation. Verify with RECA and with your own counsel before you take on a paid management engagement.
Calgary’s Municipal Layer: Licences and Fees
Provincial licensing is one question. The City of Calgary is a separate one, and it applies to the properties you manage regardless of how the RECA question lands for you.
Calgary requires a business licence to operate a short-term rental, and the city now defines a short-term rental as stays from zero up to 180 consecutive days. The licence class depends on whether the unit is a primary or non-primary residence. Published 2026 fees:
| Item | Fee (CAD) |
|---|---|
| New licence, primary residence | $172 |
| New licence, non-primary residence | $510 |
| Renewal, primary residence | $131 |
| Renewal, non-primary residence | $260 |
| Fire inspection | $117 |
| Short-term rental company licence, annual | $3,000 |
These are published City of Calgary rates and fee schedules change. Verify against the current business licence fee schedule on calgary.ca before you quote a client a number.
The $3,000 CAD annual company licence is the line item that matters strategically. It exists as its own category in the Business Licence Bylaw, and it is the sort of fixed annual cost that makes a two-property side business uneconomic and a fifteen-property business perfectly normal. Know which one you are building before you commit.
There is one more trap here worth naming, because it catches co-hosts specifically. Calgary licenses short-term rentals up to 180 consecutive days. The federal Income Tax Act short-term rental expense rules in section 67.7 use a different test, “less than 90 consecutive days.” Those two numbers are not measuring the same thing, and a stay can be compliant with one framework while sitting in a different category under the other. If you are advising owners on anything tax-adjacent, that mismatch is worth understanding properly. We covered it in detail in our piece on how the CRA can deny short-term rental expenses, and there is a fuller treatment of the municipal rules in our guide to what Alberta short-term rental compliance actually costs. If any of the properties you manage take bookings outside the platforms, the Alberta tourism levy filing rules land on the host rather than on Airbnb, which is a filing obligation co-hosts are routinely expected to handle.
Common Mistakes That Get Applications Rejected or Stalled
- Applying while a weak listing is dragging the average. The 4.8 is across all listings over 12 months. Fix or exit the problem property first.
- Using a company name as the display name. Canada does not get the business-name exemption. It has to be a person.
- Using a logo or a group photo as the profile picture. The photo must clearly show one face, unblurred, high resolution.
- Having the wrong co-host access level. Full access, or calendar and messaging access. Narrower access does not satisfy the requirement.
- Treating a regional waitlist as a rejection. It is one of three documented outcomes and it resolves.
- Promising a service area far wider than 100 km. The field is capped and in-person delivery is the point.
- Selling full service without the licensing question answered. This is the expensive one. The platform gate is easy. The regulator is not.
- Building the entire business on a platform profile. You cannot brand it, you cannot rank it, and the reviews shown are filterable to your worst. It is a lead source, not a business.
Is the Co-Host Network Worth It? Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Demand-side intent. Owners searching the network have already decided to hire. | You cannot use your brand name or logo. The profile is a person, not a company. |
| You set your own pricing and negotiate directly. | Prospective clients can filter your reviews to the lowest rated. |
| No minimum commitment required, so you can start narrow with one or two services. | Visibility depends on an algorithm weighing quality, engagement and location, which you do not control. |
| Zero cost to list, unlike directory placements that charge for presence. | Capped at roughly 100 km, so it cannot become a remote business. |
| Airbnb’s own distribution does the discovery work for you. | Regulatory exposure sits entirely with you. Airbnb states this explicitly. |
Our read: the Co-Host Network is a very good acquisition channel and a poor foundation. Use it to get your first clients and to keep a steady inbound trickle. Do not let it be the only place a prospective owner can find you, because everything that makes you distinctive as an operator, your name, your standards, your pricing model, your local proof, is flattened into a template on somebody else’s platform.
The operators who win the category locally are the ones who publish their fee structure and their process on a site they own. In Calgary that is already happening: multiple management companies now rank on dedicated fees pages, and fee transparency has become the differentiator in search results. If your only asset is a platform profile, you are invisible to every owner who starts on Google instead of inside Airbnb. That is what a properly built website is for, and it is why we treat search visibility as part of the same job rather than an add-on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Airbnb Co-Host Network available in Canada?
Yes. Airbnb lists Canada among the countries where the Co-Host Network operates, powered by Airbnb Living LLC. The full current list is Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Spain, the UK and the US.
How many stays do I need to join the Co-Host Network?
Either 10 or more stays in the past 12 months, or 3 or more stays totalling at least 100 nights in the same period, as a host or as a co-host with full access or calendar and messaging access. The second option exists so that hosts of larger properties taking longer bookings are not excluded by a raw stay count.
Can I join the Co-Host Network as a company?
You can operate as a company, but your Co-Host Network profile must display your individual name rather than the business name. Airbnb exempts hosts who operate as a business in Australia, the European Economic Area and the UK from that rule. Canada is not included in the exemption, so Canadian companies list a named person and mention the business in the profile intro and “About me” section.
Do I need a licence to co-host someone else’s Airbnb in Alberta?
It depends on what you are actually doing, and you should get it confirmed rather than assumed. RECA regulates property management as a sector of real estate and requires a licence to trade in real estate on behalf of another person for compensation, with listed triggers including negotiating or approving rentals, holding money received in connection with a rental, and conducting activities that further rental transactions. Managing your own property, where you own 25% or more, does not require a licence. Airbnb’s own guidance warns that some areas require real estate broker licences depending on your services. Contact RECA about your specific service mix and speak to an Alberta lawyer before scaling. This is general information, not legal advice.
How long does it take to get on the Co-Host Network?
Expect several weeks in total. After you submit, you are accepted, waitlisted for your region, or asked to reapply. Once eligibility is confirmed you receive an email with a link to set up your profile, and Airbnb says it may then take a few weeks for the profile to appear on the network, with an email before it goes live.
What is the difference between full service and individual services?
Full service means you offer all six of listing setup, setting prices and availability, booking request management, guest messaging, onsite guest support, and cleaning. Individual services means you pick from that same list. You can also offer both, and add one-time extras such as listing photography, interior design and styling, or licensing and permits.
How far can my Co-Host Network service area extend?
Airbnb caps the local service area at roughly 60 miles or 100 kilometres from your location, because the services are delivered in person. From Calgary that covers Canmore and much of the Bow Valley corridor, but it is a hard boundary on how far the network will surface you to owners.
The Bottom Line
The Airbnb Co-Host Network is one of the cleanest client acquisition channels available to an experienced Canadian host, and the entry requirements are achievable for anyone already running a couple of properties properly. Ten stays, a 4.8 average, a clean cancellation record, and a verified profile in your own name gets you in front of owners who are actively shopping.
Do the regulatory homework before the marketing, though. The platform gate is a checklist. The Alberta licensing question and Calgary’s licence classes are the ones with real consequences, and they are specific to your service mix rather than to the category. Answer them in writing, then build the demand.
Build the Asset You Actually Own
A platform profile is a lead source. A site you control, with your fee structure published and your local pages ranking, is the business. If you are building a short-term rental management operation in Calgary or anywhere in Alberta and want the web presence to match, tell us what you are building through our intake form and we will scope it properly. You can also see how we approach direct booking and property sites or review our full range of services.
Sources
- Airbnb, “Join the Co-Host Network” (requirements, country availability, services, regulatory notice)
- Airbnb Help Centre, “Set up your Co-Host Network profile” (name and photo rules, service area, pricing, minimum commitment)
- Real Estate Council of Alberta, “Licence Types” (property management licence triggers, exemptions, licensing examples)
- City of Calgary, short-term rental business licence rules and regulations
- City of Calgary, 2026 Business Licence Fee Schedule (PDF)