Budapest, August 7, 2025 – The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) suspects that Airbnb is not adequately informing Hungarian users, thereby potentially misleading them. As a result, the GVH has initiated a competition supervision proceeding against the Ireland-registered company operating the online accommodation booking platform. In recent years, the national competition authority has paid particular attention to the online accommodation intermediation market, and this is not the first time Airbnb has come under the GVH’s scrutiny.
Airbnb’s online accommodation booking platform allows users to list and book accommodation. The company was founded in August 2008 in San Francisco, California. The site currently has more than 2 million listings in 34,000 cities in 191 countries around the world. In Hungary it began operating in the early 2010s, and traffic to its Hungarian-language website averaged more than 500,000 visits per month between April and June 2025.
The competition supervision proceeding is justified by the fact that the GVH noticed that Airbnb Ireland UC, private unlimited company (Airbnb Ireland, a subsidiary of Airbnb), are extensive, fragmented, contradictory, and in some cases only available in English. Thus, the company is unlikely to be informing consumers about the terms and conditions of its services in accordance with the requirement of professional diligence, with particular regard to accommodation requests and refunds. The GVH also noted that Airbnb Ireland’s website and mobile app likely fail to disclose the important fact that certain accommodations can also be booked on other platforms or even on the accommodation providers’ own websites, meaning that, according to the GVH, the company is withholding significant information from consumers.
All of this means that Airbnb Ireland is likely engaging in unfair commercial practices and misleads consumers.
The initiation of the competition supervision proceeding does not imply that the company has committed the suspected infringement. The proceeding aims to clarify the facts and, where applicable, prove the alleged infringement. The statutory time frame for the procedure is three months, which may be extended twice, each time by up to two months, if justified. The GVH also notes that, under the Competition Act, the period between the authority’s request for information and the company’s response is not included in the procedural time limit.
In recent years, the GVH has systematically monitored the online accommodation booking market, undertaking multiple investigations of principal actors. In 2023, the GVH also conducted an accelerated sector inquiry into the domestic online accommodation brokerage and accommodation market, and in its report made several recommendations to strengthen market competition and protect consumers. The GVH had already launched an investigation against Airbnb Ireland in 2016, which ended in 2018 with the acceptance of commitments. However, during the follow-up investigation, which was completed in 2021, it was found that had failed to fully comply with its commitments, for which the GVH imposed a fine of HUF 40 million on the company.
The official registration number of the case is VJ/29/2025.
GVH Press
Further information:
Bálint Horváth, Head of Communication +36 20 238 6939