Our community is built on the principles of inclusion, belonging, and respect, which includes welcoming and supporting people with disabilities. In general, guests who require reasonable accommodation and services should not be discriminated against or denied service while using Staybnb.
In some jurisdictions, legal requirements may expand or limit the reasonable accommodation a Host must provide. Hosts and guests must comply with these legal requirements.
Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals
Service Animal: A dog or miniature horse that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.
What we allow:
Guests are allowed to be accompanied by service animals during a stay and are not required to disclose the presence of a service animal before booking. A Host may qualify for an exemption in certain circumstances – for instance, if the service animal directly threatens their health or safety.
Hosts are only allowed to ask the following about a guest’s need for a service animal:
Whether the guest requires their service animal because of a disability
What work or task the service animal has been trained to perform
Hosts and guests are responsible for understanding and complying with all applicable national and local laws, rules and regulations.
What we don’t allow:
When a guest is accompanied by a service animal, Hosts are not allowed to:
Refuse a reservation
Charge pet fees or other additional fees
Apply differential treatment
Use discriminatory language
Hold guests to different rules
A guest’s service animal must not be:
Out of control
Not house-trained
Left alone at the listing without prior approval
Allowed into areas that are considered unauthorised to the guest
Allowed in a public space without being harnessed, on a lead or tethered and not under the guest’s control
Emotional Support Animal: An animal that provides companionship, relieves loneliness or helps with depression, anxiety or certain phobias but is not required to have special training to perform tasks that assist people with disabilities
What we allow:
Unless the reservation is a stay in New York or California (USA) or another location where applicable law prohibits it:
Hosts may charge pet fees for a guest who is travelling with an emotional support animal
Hosts are allowed to decline the presence of emotional support animals from a stay
What we don’t allow:
For jurisdictions where Hosts are required to accept emotional support animals (unless the Host has an exemption), a Host cannot:
Charge pet fees, decline a guest or apply different rules, treatment or behaviour to a guest travelling with an emotional support animal
Ask for information or documentation about a guest’s emotional support animal beyond the questions outlined above for service animals
For jurisdictions where Hosts are required to accept emotional support animals, a guest’s emotional support animal must not be:
Out of control
Not house-trained
Left alone at the listing without prior approval
Allowed into areas that are considered unauthorised to the guest
Allowed in a public space without being harnessed, on a lead or tethered and not under the guest’s control
Reasonable Accommodation
We encourage Hosts and guests to communicate in advance of a booking about reasonable accommodation. Hosts should try to accommodate a guest’s reasonable requests around accessibility needs.
What we allow:
Guests are allowed to request reasonable accommodation at a stay that would help them access a stay or communicate during a reservation. Hosts are allowed to make a reasonable counter-offer to a guest’s original reasonable accommodation request.
Hosts are allowed to refuse certain unreasonable or unattainable requests that:
Increase the safety risk to the Host or others
Require a structural modification to a building or listing
Require the Host to take on added responsibilities that are time-intensive or put a significant physical or financial burden on them
Ask a Host to violate local laws or HOA/building requirements
What we don’t allow:
Hosts are not allowed to refuse a guest’s reasonable request for accommodation when the request is specific, clearly expressed, made with sufficient notice, and is not unreasonable or unattainable. (Check out our list of requests that qualify as unreasonable or unattainable above.)
Hosts are not allowed to commit to providing reasonable accommodation and fail to fulfil it at the time of the reservation.
Additional considerations:
A Host will not be penalised if the Host’s failure to make reasonable accommodation is deemed out of their control or if the Host has objectively shown why the request is unreasonable or unattainable for them.
What happens when a Host or guest does not comply with our policies?
We ask our community to work together to make Staybnb as accessible as reasonably possible. Staybnb may take steps up to and including suspending or removing the Host or guest from the Staybnb platform if they are unwilling to comply with our policies.