Our Major Disruptive Events Policy (the “Policy”) explains how Airbnb handles cancellations and refunds when large-scale events prevent or legally prohibit completion of a reservation. The Policy excludes weather or natural conditions that are common enough to be foreseeable in a given location, except when they result in another covered Event (as defined in the Policy) that prevents completion of the reservation, such as a mandatory evacuation order or large-scale outage of essential utilities. Below is a non-exhaustive list of the most common foreseeable weather events, natural conditions and endemic diseases. This list is subject to change over time, and users should consult this page for updates.
We encourage guests to research their destination before booking and carefully review their reservation’s cancellation policy.
Below are examples of the regions most frequently affected by tropical storms, cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons, and their storm seasons.
REGION | SEASON |
Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea Examples: Belize, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, The Bahamas, the United States (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas), the US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands. | June to November |
North Atlantic Ocean Examples: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina and Virginia. | June to November |
Eastern Pacific Ocean Examples: Mexico, Guatemala and Hawaii. | May to November |
Western Pacific Ocean Examples: Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines and Vietnam. | May to September |
Indian Ocean Examples: coastal regions in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand. | May to June, and October to November |
South Pacific Ocean Examples: Fiji, Solomon Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Vanuatu and Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia). | November to April |
Below are examples of areas regularly affected by winter conditions and storms, and their seasons.
REGION | SEASON |
Northern Hemisphere Examples: North America: Much of the United States (including Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming), and all of Canada. Europe & Central Asia: Afghanistan, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Ukraine. Japan: Hokkaidō, Tōhoku, Kantō, Koshinetsu, Chūbu, Kansai, Chūgoku, Shikoku and Kyūshū. Other Asia: India (northern states such as Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), Mongolia and Nepal. | December to February |
Southern Hemisphere Examples: Argentina, Chile and New Zealand (central area of North Island, South and East of South Island, and mountainous areas). | June to September |
Below are examples of endemic diseases commonly found in different regions that are not covered by the Major Disruptive Events Policy. Affected reservations therefore remain subject to the host’s cancellation policy for the listing.
REGION | DISEASES |
Africa and the Middle East | Cholera, hepatitis, yellow fever, malaria, meningitis, rabies, typhoid, Zika, schistosomiasis, river blindness, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis, lymphatic filariasis, viral haemorrhagic fever, chikungunya, giardia and HIV/AIDS. |
Asia | Cholera, dengue, hepatitis, malaria, rabies, typhoid, Zika, schistosomiasis, tuberculosis, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, giardia and HIV/AIDS. |
Australia | Hepatitis, measles, Japanese encephalitis, rabies, dengue and HIV/AIDS. |
Europe | Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, tick-borne illnesses (including Lyme’s disease), measles, gonorrhoea, chlamydia and tuberculosis. |
Latin America and the Caribbean | Chagas disease, cholera, dengue, hepatitis, yellow fever, malaria, rabies, typhoid, Zika, schistosomiasis, river blindness, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis, tick-borne illnesses, giardia, chikungunya, cyclosporosis, leptospirosis and HIV/AIDS. |
South Pacific Ocean | Cholera, dengue, hepatitis, malaria, rabies, typhoid, Zika, tuberculosis, leprosy, soil helminths, lymphatic filariasis, trachoma and HIV/AIDS. |
United States and Canada | Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, tick-borne illnesses (including Lyme’s disease), measles, West Nile virus, eastern equine encephalitis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia and tuberculosis. |
The weather events and endemic diseases listed above are informed by data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Guy Carpenter Asia-Pacific Climate Impact Centre, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization, among other sources.