Half of Superhosts are one bad review from losing it
Plenty of people have counted how many Airbnb listings sit above 4.8. Nobody publishes the number that actually matters to a host: how many of those are clinging on by a single review. We measured it across 51,484 listings in the UK and Ireland.
of listings clearing the 4.8 Superhost line would fall below it
after one 1-star review
Put the other way round: of every two hosts who currently meet the rating requirement, one is a single bad stay from not meeting it. Widen the question to two bad reviews and the figure reaches 72.8%.
What we measured
Every listing in five UK and Ireland cities with at least 10 reviews, which is the review floor Airbnb itself applies to Superhost. That leaves 51,484 listings. For each one we reconstructed the total number of stars awarded from the displayed rating and review count, then solved exactly how many 1-star reviews it could absorb before its average dropped below 4.8.
That last step is the part usually skipped. "Percentage above 4.8" is easy and tells a host nothing about their own risk. The buffer is the number they can act on.
| City | Listings | Above 4.8 | Zero buffer | Median buffer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | 37,772 | 52.5% | 56.0% | 0 |
| Edinburgh | 4,567 | 63.8% | 28.8% | 2 |
| Greater Manchester | 3,444 | 54.8% | 45.8% | 1 |
| Bristol | 1,805 | 63.2% | 40.3% | 1 |
| Dublin | 3,896 | 56.1% | 43.0% | 1 |
| All five | 51,484 | 54.3% | 50.8% | — |
"Zero buffer" is the share of listings already above 4.8 that one 1-star review would push under. "Median buffer" is how many 1-star reviews the typical qualifying listing in that city could absorb.
London is both the hardest and the most fragile
London has the lowest share of listings clearing 4.8, at 52.5%, and the highest share of those sitting on zero buffer, at 56.0%. Its median qualifying listing has no margin at all. Edinburgh is the mirror image: 63.8% clear the line and only 28.8% of them are one review from losing it, with a median buffer of two.
The likeliest explanation is review volume rather than hospitality. A listing with 300 reviews can absorb several bad ones; a listing with 15 cannot. Dense, high-turnover markets have many newer listings with thin review counts, and thin review counts are what make a rating brittle.
Why 4.8 is so unforgiving
The threshold sits near the ceiling of the scale, and that asymmetry does the damage. A 5-star review lands only 0.2 above the line. A 1-star review lands 3.8 below it. One bad review therefore carries nineteen times the weight of a good one, and no amount of goodwill changes the arithmetic.
This is also why "just get more 5-star reviews" is weak advice. Recovering from a single 1-star review at 4.8 takes nineteen perfect stays. At 4.9, for Guest Favorite, it takes thirty-nine.
Your own number. Enter your rating and review count below and you will see your exact buffer, or exactly how many 5-star stays stand between you and 4.8.
The other end of the distribution
45.7% of listings sit below 4.8. Most are a long way off, but 2,915 of them, 12.4% of those below the line, are within five consecutive 5-star reviews of reaching it. For a listing taking regular bookings that is weeks of work, not months, and it is the group for whom the next quarterly assessment is genuinely winnable.
At the top, 32.0% of all listings measured sit at 4.9 or above, the usual target for Guest Favorite. It is a target, not a guarantee or a strict cut-off: that badge also weighs category ratings, cancellations and how a listing compares with similar ones nearby.
The same question, worldwide
After publishing the UK figures we ran the identical calculation across every market Inside Airbnb covers: 871,667 listings with at least 10 reviews, in 123 cities across 37 countries. It is the same arithmetic, the same threshold and the same code.
Globally, 44.0% of listings clearing 4.8 have zero buffer, and 66.1% would fall below the line on two bad reviews. 62.1% of all listings measured clear 4.8, and 37.3% reach 4.9, the usual Guest Favorite target.
So the UK is not typical. It is among the most fragile markets measured, which is why the headline figure at the top of this page is higher than the worldwide one.
| Country | Listings | Above 4.8 | Zero buffer |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 149,154 | 68.6% | 36.2% |
| Italy | 101,788 | 60.4% | 44.0% |
| Australia | 60,271 | 65.1% | 39.9% |
| Spain | 59,937 | 44.1% | 46.7% |
| France | 55,934 | 57.8% | 53.1% |
| United Kingdom | 47,588 | 54.2% | 51.5% |
| Brazil | 47,130 | 69.9% | 46.5% |
| Greece | 40,528 | 73.5% | 45.5% |
| New Zealand | 33,171 | 76.7% | 34.5% |
| Canada | 28,326 | 67.4% | 41.4% |
| Portugal | 25,842 | 45.5% | 40.1% |
| Ireland | 24,094 | 71.4% | 34.4% |
| Japan | 21,367 | 52.8% | 53.3% |
Countries with at least 20,000 measured listings. Across all markets with 5,000 or more, Denmark is the most fragile at 66.9% and Hungary the least at 30.5%. Copenhagen is the most fragile of the large markets, with two thirds of its qualifying listings on no margin at all.
What does not explain it
The obvious theory is that markets where lots of listings clear 4.8 must be the fragile ones, because a crowd bunched just above the line has nowhere to fall. We tested it and it is wrong. Across the 95 cities with 2,000 or more listings the correlation between "share above 4.8" and "share with zero buffer" is -0.38, which is weak and points the other way: markets where more listings clear the line tend to be slightly less fragile, not more.
Asheville is the clearest case. 87.1% of its listings clear 4.8 and only 19.8% of those have zero buffer, with a median buffer of three. Copenhagen is the genuine outlier rather than the rule: 73.2% clear the line and 66.9% of them are one review from losing it.
What the buffer really tracks is review volume. A listing with 300 reviews can absorb several bad ones; a listing with 15 cannot, whatever its rating. That is why the practical advice is to keep asking for reviews rather than to chase a higher number.
Does clearing 4.8 actually make you a Superhost?
Everything above measures the rating bar. It is worth being blunt that the rating bar is not the badge, and Inside Airbnb happens to publish the badge itself, so we measured the gap rather than guessing at it. Across the same 871,140 listings, 51.1% hold Superhost status.
| All-time rating | Listings | Hold the Superhost badge |
|---|---|---|
| Below 4.50 | 63,270 | 6.2% |
| 4.50 to 4.69 | 130,830 | 19.4% |
| 4.70 to 4.79 | 132,112 | 39.7% |
| 4.80 to 4.89 | 212,173 | 61.2% |
| 4.90 to 4.94 | 145,243 | 69.1% |
| 4.95 and above | 187,512 | 70.9% |
The rating you can see is a weak guide to the badge. Hosts watch the number on their listing and assume it is the one being judged. Across the whole sample, 25.1% of listings below 4.8 hold Superhost anyway, and 33.4% of those above it do not. In the band immediately below the line, 4.70 to 4.79, it is 39.7%.
We originally framed this as "there is no cliff at 4.8", and a reader was right to push back on it. No theory predicts a cliff here, because the horizontal axis is the all-time rating while Airbnb assesses the trailing 12 months. Those are different variables. The honest claim is the narrower one above: the public number is a poor proxy for the one that decides the badge.
One more precision, from the same reader. Every figure here is per listing, while Superhost is awarded per host. A host with ten listings is counted ten times. That is listed in the limitations below, but it belongs next to the numbers rather than buried at the end, so the chart now says it too.
The reason is the one stated in the limitations below: the public rating is all-time and Airbnb assesses the trailing 12 months. A host who has improved carries a poor lifetime average and a strong recent one. A host who has slipped carries the reverse.
Review volume matters as much as rating
| All-time rating | 10-24 reviews | 25-49 | 50-99 | 100-249 | 250+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.70 to 4.79 | 32.2% | 37.5% | 41.3% | 45.5% | 52.8% |
| 4.80 to 4.89 | 43.7% | 56.1% | 65.2% | 73.4% | 81.8% |
| 4.90 to 4.94 | 47.7% | 65.8% | 77.0% | 85.5% | 92.2% |
| 4.95 and above | 52.7% | 72.1% | 82.4% | 89.1% | 94.2% |
Read the corners against each other. A listing at 4.70 to 4.79 with 250 or more reviews holds the badge 52.8% of the time. One at 4.80 to 4.89 with 10 to 24 reviews manages 43.7%. Being below the line with a long history beats being above it with a short one.
Two more things fall out of the same data. Nothing rescues a genuinely low rating, since below 4.50 the figure sits near 6% at every review count. And nothing guarantees the badge either: even at 4.95 and above with 250 or more reviews it is 94.2%, because the response rate, cancellation and completed-stay requirements are still there.
The activity gap is the clearest single number in the whole study. Superhosts have a median of 18 reviews in the last 12 months. Everyone else has 7. Superhost requires 10 completed stays in that window, so a large share of non-Superhosts are not failing on quality at all. They are simply not busy enough.
What this means if you are below 4.8. Your all-time average is not the thing being assessed. Work the last 12 months, keep the review flow up, and check how listings like yours actually do rather than reading the 4.8 line as a verdict.
Method, in full
Source data is Inside Airbnb, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The UK figures use the June 2026 snapshots for London, Edinburgh, Greater Manchester, Bristol and Dublin. The worldwide figures use every dataset in the catalogue, 123 cities across 37 countries, whose snapshot dates vary by city. Two fields are taken per listing: the overall review score and the number of reviews.
A displayed rating is rounded, so the true total of stars awarded sits in an interval rather than at a point. We take the nearest whole star-sum consistent with the displayed rating and review count, then solve the closed form for how many 1-star reviews keep the mean at or above the threshold. No simulation is involved and the result is exact for a given star-sum. The same code runs inside our own rating calculator, so the study and the tool cannot disagree.
What this study cannot tell you
These are all-time ratings. Airbnb assesses Superhost on the trailing 12 months, which the public data does not break down by star. For a host whose recent reviews match their history the two figures agree. For one who has improved, or slipped, they do not. Every figure here should be read as "the rating guests see", not "the figure Airbnb will assess".
Rating is one of four requirements. Superhost also needs a 90% response rate, under 1% cancellations and 10 completed stays, none of which this data exposes. That is why "clears 4.8" is not the same as "is a Superhost" - and the section above now measures how far apart the two actually are.
The badge is quarterly, the rating is continuous. Airbnb assesses on 1 January, April, July and October, and status only changes on those dates. A host who qualified on 1 April keeps the badge until 1 July even if their rating slips in between. Our snapshots are from June, near the end of a quarter, so badge status reflects the April assessment while the rating includes everything since. Some of the gap measured above is that lag rather than the all-time versus trailing-12-month difference. Separating the two would need snapshots taken either side of an assessment date, which we have not done. Raised independently by several readers after publication, and a fair hit.
Snapshots, not live data. Each city is a single dated extract, June 2026 for the UK cut and varying dates for the rest. It describes those markets at those moments. It also covers only the cities Inside Airbnb publishes, which skews towards large urban markets.
Frequently asked questions
How many Airbnb listings have a 4.8 rating or higher?
Across 51,484 UK and Ireland listings with at least 10 reviews, 54.3% had an all-time rating of 4.8 or above. Roughly a third, 32.0%, were at 4.9 or above, the usual Guest Favorite target.
What does it mean to have zero buffer on Airbnb?
Your buffer is the number of 1-star reviews you could receive before your average falls below the threshold. A buffer of zero means a single 1-star review takes you under 4.8. It is not the same as being close to 4.8: a listing at 4.81 with few reviews and a listing at 4.85 with slightly more can both have zero buffer.
Why is the 4.8 Superhost threshold so fragile?
Because it sits near the top of the scale. A 5-star review lands only 0.2 above the line while a 1-star review lands 3.8 below it, so one bad review has nineteen times the pull of a good one. The higher the threshold, the less headroom each new review buys.
Does this use the same rating Airbnb assesses Superhost on?
No, and that is the study's main limitation. The public data carries the all-time rating, while Airbnb assesses Superhost on the trailing 12 months. For a host whose recent reviews match their history the two agree; for one who has improved or slipped, they do not.
Is this only true in the UK?
No, but the UK is worse than average. Repeating the calculation on 871,667 listings across 123 cities and 37 countries gives 44.0% with zero buffer worldwide, against 50.8% for the UK and Ireland. Denmark is the most fragile market we measured at 66.9% and Hungary the least at 30.5%.
Reusing this
The figures are free to quote with a link back to this page. If you want a city we have not covered, or a cut we have not published, get in touch and we will run it. The underlying source data is public and the method is described above in enough detail to reproduce.
Want your own market rather than the table above? The rating benchmark compares your rating and buffer against any of 119 measured markets.
The full results are published as machine-readable data: airbnb-superhost-fragility-2026.json, with every country and all 123 cities, under CC BY 4.0. The same results, plus the Superhost badge measurements, are also on GitHub as CSV files, with the charts and a citation file: github.com/basilpaul/airbnb-superhost-data. To cite the data in research, use its permanent DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22945798 (archived on Zenodo).
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