Identity verification for short-term rental platforms

What short-term rental platforms ask of identity checks

A hotel knows its own rooms. A short-term rental platform does not: it is a marketplace of other people's homes. Three things have to line up before a listing is trusted: a real person stands behind the account, the unit belongs to a registered offer where the area requires one, and the same person does not come back under a new name after a listing has been removed. The identity check serves the first and the third. The second is a data problem, and it sits in the platform's own systems.

• Verify the person who creates the host account.
• Read the host's name and address from the document, so they can be compared with the declaration.
• Recognise a host who returns after a listing was taken down.
• Invite existing hosts in batches when a new rule arrives.

The flow

1. Host sign-up. The host opens an account and starts a listing in your product.
2. Start. Your backend creates a session. The host continues in the web widget on a phone, or scans a QR code to move from a desktop to a phone.
3. Declaration data. The questionnaire collects name, birth date, contacts and the custom fields you need, such as the registration number the host declares, before the KYC starts.
4. Document and face. The host photographs a passport, national ID card, driver's licence or residence permit. The document is read and checked for fraud, the selfie is matched to the document portrait and active liveness confirms a live person.
5. Returning hosts. Repeat-user search looks for the same face among earlier verified users, and your own person lists and blocklists are checked in the same flow.
6. Registration number. Your product first decides whether a registration procedure applies to the area of the unit. Where it does, the host must have provided a registration number before the offer is allowed, and your own systems check the number the host declared against the register; the platform does not do this lookup. Where no procedure applies, there is no number to collect or check.
7. Publication. Your product reads the session status or receives a webhook, and its own rule lets the listing go live once the person is verified and, where a registration procedure applies, the number is present.
8. Later changes. When a host changes the name or the address, the returning user is compared with a stored reference face.
9. Bulk invitation. When a new rule arrives, existing hosts receive one-time links and are verified in batches.

Where this differs from the travel and hospitality page

The travel and hospitality page is about the guest who arrives: passport capture at check-in, remote arrival and group invitations. This page is about the host who lists. A platform has no front desk and no hotel register of its own, so its identity task is at the supply end: who is behind the listing, and what stops a removed host from coming back. The regulation below also puts a duty on the platform that no check at the door can meet, a registration number before the offer goes live where a registration procedure applies.

Modules used

• Document verification, face verification and liveness.
• Repeat-user search and blocklists, described on the face verification page. A returning user is compared with a stored reference face.
• Questionnaire and QR hand-off.
• Bulk link invitations for existing hosts.
• Web SDK and widget for desktop and mobile browsers.
• REST API and webhooks.

Regulatory frame

One European Union text: Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 of 11 April 2024 on data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services. It applies from 20 May 2026.

• Article 5(1), point (b), requires a host who is a natural person to submit, when registering a unit, the name, a national identification number or other information allowing the identification of the person, the address, a contact telephone number and an electronic mail address for the competent authority.
• Article 4(3), point (b), requires registration procedures that allow the automatic and immediate issue of a registration number, which shall not include personal data, for a specific unit.
• Article 7(1), point (b), requires online short-term rental platforms to design their interface so that, where a registration procedure applies, they ensure that hosts have provided a registration number prior to allowing the offering of the unit, and that hosts display it clearly in the listing.
• Article 7(1), point (c), requires platforms to make reasonable efforts to randomly check on a regular basis the declarations of hosts about the existence of a registration procedure and the validity of the registration number, and Article 7(2) requires them to inform the competent authorities and the hosts of the results concerning incorrect declarations, misuse of a number or invalid numbers.
• Article 6(7), point (c), lists among the contents of a competent authority's order to remove a listing, where available, the identity of the host and the registration number.
• Article 5(6) makes hosts responsible for the accuracy of the information they provide to the competent authorities and to the platforms.

This block describes the text, not our service. For information; not legal advice.

Sources

• Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 on data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1724, Official Journal text, fetched 27 October 2026.

Next

Try the interactive tour, read the bulk link invitations use case or compare with the travel and hospitality flow.