Airbnb Guest Favorite: how to earn the badge

Guest favorite is a badge Airbnb gives to individual listings, not to accounts, after comparing their reviews with those of other places to stay worldwide and in the same country. To be in the running, a listing needs at least 5 reviews in the last 4 years, including at least one in the last 2 years. What earns the badge is strong ratings across every category, good written reviews and very few host cancellations. The Help Center article on Guest favorites lists these factors but publishes no minimum rating.

That's why a 5.0 isn't enough. Superhost has published criteria, with 4.8 as one of four requirements. Guest favorite is a comparison recalculated every day. So a Superhost who has held a 5.0 for five years can miss out while listings rated 4.7 display the badge.

This guide covers the difference between the two badges, what goes into the calculation and why a 5.0 can fall behind. Then comes a checklist in priority order for earning the badge, and what to do when the badge arrives but the bookings don't. If your goal is the account-level status, the path is in our guide on how to become an Airbnb Superhost.

Key takeaways

• Per-listing badge: each property is assessed on its own, every day.
• Minimum of 5 reviews in 4 years, with one in the last 2.
• No published minimum rating: the 4.9 from the launch was an average, not a requirement.
• Category ratings matter: a 4 in cleanliness or check-in can hurt more than it seems.

What's the difference between Superhost and Guest favorite?

Superhost assesses the host against fixed criteria every quarter. Guest favorite assesses each listing against the others, every day. Superhost is the account status of hosts who meet four targets over the past 12 months, according to the Help Center article on Superhost. They are 10 stays, or 3 reservations totaling 100 nights; a cancellation rate under 1%; an overall rating of at least 4.8; and a response to 90% of new messages. It isn't a fully mechanical test: Airbnb may withhold the status over a high rate of removed reviews or cancellations.

A listing can have both badges, one or neither. When announcing the feature, Airbnb said almost two thirds of Guest favorites belonged to Superhosts. That leaves roughly a third of badged listings belonging to hosts who aren't Superhosts.

You'll hear that Guest favorite "carries more weight than Superhost" in search. According to a report on Rômulo Villela's channel, a Brazilian YouTube channel for hosts, about a host event, members of Airbnb's team said Guest favorite has more relevance. Airbnb doesn't publish the weight of either badge in ranking, so treat that as an unconfirmed remark. How search works in general is covered in our guide to the Airbnb algorithm.

The official badge criteria

The badge looks at a listing's reviews and reliability, compared with those of places to stay worldwide and in the same country. The Help Center lists the overall rating, written reviews, messages between guest and host on the platform, and the six category ratings: check-in, cleanliness, accuracy, communication, location and value. Your cancellation rate, your rate of removed reviews and quality incidents reported to support also count. The page notes that other factors and exceptions may apply and that the criteria are subject to change, with no notice period stated. In practice, no list of criteria, this one included, is final: it's worth checking the official page from time to time. The eligibility rule has already changed once:

The 2024 rule comes from press coverage at the time, not from an official page that's still live. The direction is clear: the window got longer, and the badge still has no published minimum rating. Plenty of pages still say you "need a 4.9" as if it were a requirement.

Why isn't a 5.0 rating enough to get the badge?

Because the badge doesn't measure whether you cleared a score; it measures how you do against others. Relative ranking is a system where your position depends on how competitors perform, not just on you. In a ranking like that, standing still means falling when nearby listings improve. A host in a Brazilian Airbnb host forum wrote in 2026 that their listing moved from Top 10% to Top 5% during a period when it was booked less. Their explanation was that the others had slipped further.

Roberto Rizo Patrón, Airbnb's commercial director for South America, described the badge as resting on three pillars in an interview on Rômulo Villela's channel. The first is category ratings and the tags guests select. The second is the text of the review, where a detailed comment is worth more than "it was great." The third is the listing's reliability, including responsiveness and cancellations. The director gave a hypothetical example, with a caveat: sometimes a listing with a 5 overall and 4s across the categories may perform worse than a listing with a 4 overall and 5s across the categories.

In a forum thread from the badge's launch in November 2023, a Superhost with about 95 five-star reviews didn't get Guest favorite, and support replied that it "was a test." Another participant posted listings rated 4.3 and 4.7 that had the badge. A moderator replied with the wording in use at the time: the Guest favorites average was above 4.9, with some listings above and some below. Those were the rules then, different from today's, and the thread records no resolution. Even with all 5s, a place can miss out, because Airbnb doesn't publish every factor or how much each one weighs. The Help Center describes no appeal process, and an improvised support reply isn't a rule. What moves the badge is what goes into the calculation.

How do you get the Guest favorite badge on Airbnb?

Start with category ratings, then work on what guests write in their reviews and on reliability. That's the order of the pillars, and it's also the order of what you control best. The table follows that priority:

Of the categories, cleanliness, check-in, communication and accuracy are in your hands. You have less control over location and value, so a 4 in any of the first four is the first target. How to raise each one is in our guide to 5-star reviews. In practice, the check-in rating drops when guests arrive and can't work out how to get in, and the communication rating drops when replies are slow. Hosts who run properties day to day tend to see the two fall together, on the same night, because of the same unanswered question: the lock code, the parking spot, the Wi-Fi password. Anfitrione answers these arrival questions at any hour through a QR code at the property, or over WhatsApp when guests themselves choose to reach out there. The reservation conversation stays in Airbnb messages, which is where, according to the Help Center, messages count toward the badge.

The official page refers only to the "host cancellation rate," without separating out involuntary cancellations, so a cancellation may count even when it wasn't your fault. In 2026, support told a new host with 6 excellent reviews that the badge was being held back because of a duplicate-reservation cancellation Airbnb had processed on their behalf. That same day, another host checked and both listings were already showing the badge, which fits the daily re-evaluation described in the Help Center. Our guide to cancellation policies shows how to avoid host cancellations.

The removed-review rate needs nuance. Asking Airbnb to remove a review that breaks the rules is still legitimate, and the process is in our guide on removing an unfair review. What counts against you is the rate: frequent removals add up. Under the Superhost rules, a review only counts once both sides have reviewed or the 14-day review window closes. The Guest favorite page does not specify how quickly a particular new rating changes the badge, so do not infer a precise update delay.

Finally, reviews age. A rating older than 4 years leaves the window, and a listing that relied on old reviews can lose eligibility without receiving a single bad rating. A duplicate listing is another stumbling block: reviews get split between two listings for the same property, and neither builds up the volume.

What if I have several listings, private rooms or a new listing?

Each listing is assessed on its own, and that applies to entire homes and private rooms alike. In the forum reports, one host had 2 of 4 rooms earn the badge within three months. A new listing can earn the badge before its host reaches Superhost: several hosts say they got it in under three months, while they still lacked the bookings needed for the account status.

How do the Top 10%, 5% and 1% tiers work?

They're steps within the badge itself, rolled out around mid-2024. The Help Center describes the tiers as the top 10%, 5% and 1% of eligible listings by reviews. The top tiers appear in gold, with a highlight at the top of the listing page and a label above the reviews. Because the comparison is relative, tiers move. In a 2025 report, a listing with all 5-star reviews earned the badge in late January, reached the Top 5% in early February and the Top 1% in early March. In a 2026 report, a host in the Top 1% received a single 4-star rating, over the towels, and dropped a tier. Three months later, at 4.97, the listing was in the Top 10%.

What does the "bottom 10%" label mean?

That's how hosts in the forum usually refer to it. The Help Center describes a label for the 10% of eligible listings with the lowest ratings, shown above the reviews and only after Airbnb has contacted the host about quality. If you've received that notice, read what it points to and start with your lowest categories, which are the same ones in the priority table.

I have the badge but no bookings: now what?

The badge can help a listing get noticed and clicked, but it doesn't guarantee bookings. In a Brazilian Airbnb host forum, we found 9 reports from hosts with the badge, sometimes in the Top 1%, complaining of weeks or months without bookings. It's a small sample, not representative data. The causes raised are the usual ones: a nightly rate out of line with the market, fees that put guests off, low season, a city that depends on events. The badge doesn't fix pricing or availability. The first number to check is conversion, explained in our guide to the performance dashboard. If the listing doesn't even appear, the problem is a different one, and the diagnosis is in our guide on listings that don't show up in search.

What you control and what you don't

Going after the badge is usually worthwhile, as long as you know what you control. You control your cleanliness, check-in, communication and accuracy ratings, the care that turns into detailed reviews and the discipline not to cancel. You don't control the comparison with other listings or the factors Airbnb doesn't publish, which is why a 5.0 can miss out without anything being wrong. And even with the badge, bookings depend on price and demand. This week, open your category ratings and find the lowest one. That's where your next step up comes from.