Airbnb is cracking down on rowdy house parties in Philadelphia ahead of Memorial Day weekend

If you’re looking to throw a Project X-style Memorial Day weekend rager in Philadelphia, you’re going to have to do it elsewhere — and not in an Airbnb.

The vacation rental booking giant announced Monday that it will be applying its anti-party detection technology to screen last-minute bookings for Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends for the fourth summer in a row.

The technology is being deployed across the United States and in Puerto Rico “with the aim of reducing the risk of disruptive parties,” Airbnb said in a news release posted to its website.

The platform officially banned parties in 2020, disallowing open-invite gatherings and for listings to advertise rentals as perfect for partying. Shortly after, it began screening reservations for riffraff during Halloween and New Year’s Eve before applying the technology to the summer holidays in 2022.

Airbnb’s party-pooping technology has worked, the company said in its statement: The platform has seen a 50% decrease in the rate of party reports since 2020. Last year less than 1% of Airbnb reservations in the U.S. resulted in a party.

During Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends alone in 2024, Airbnb said, it deterred approximately 51,000 people across the United States from placing a potentially disruptive booking. In Philly, that number was 600, which a spokesperson for the platform told The Inquirer was about the same as in 2023. The dual summer holidays also sparked slightly more deterrences than New Year’s Eve, the spokesperson said, but slightly fewer than Halloween.

Those stats pale in comparison to sleeper party hub Houston, which the Houston Chronicle reported had over 1,100 reservations blocked for both holiday weekends.

» READ MORE: From 2023: A family thought they’d rented a Philly home on Airbnb. But the owner never made the listing.

Artificial intelligence.

“Our anti-party technology is designed to help identify and prevent certain attempts to book one-to-two-night stays in entire home listings that could be higher risk for a disruptive party,” the company said in its statement.

The algorithm looks at a range of factors, Airbnb said, to determine if a reservation feels like a party: the type of rental being booked, its duration, the listing’s distance from the renter’s primary location, and whether or not the reservation is last-minute. Users barred from booking entire homes will have the option to find alternative accommodations on Airbnb.

Not planning on throwing down but got flagged anyway? Users can contact support to sign what is called an “anti-party attestation,” or a contract that states you promise not to throw a party.

The platform also encourages neighbors to snitch on unruly ragers with its Neighborhood Support Line, a 24-hour channel where community members can report issues like parties in progress or other disturbances.

The interventions came after two people sued Airbnb for negligence after a shooting occurred at an Easter party in Pittsburgh in 2022, where two teenagers died and eight others were injured. Other Airbnb parties have caused thousands of dollars in damages.

» READ MORE: From 2022: Woman injured in Pittsburgh mass shooting sues Airbnb, rental company

A spate of house parties gone wrong galvanized Philadelphia City Council to pass a bill in 2022 that required property owners who rent their homes on Airbnb to apply for short-term rental licenses and be treated as commercial business owners.

Then in 2023, the city started applying stricter zoning regulations to Airbnbs and other short-term rentals and stated that platforms will be held liable for listings that do not have correct licenses. About 85% of properties reviewed by L&I at the time were considered unlicensed, which put them at risk for being delisted from Airbnb.

» READ MORE: How to comply with Philly’s new Airbnb, limited lodging laws