A compiled reference of 40 verified statistics on safety devices in short-term rentals and lodging: how many listings report a smoke alarm, a carbon monoxide detector, a fire extinguisher or a first aid kit, the carbon monoxide record on the largest booking platform, where platform policy stops and state law starts, and what the fire and poisoning loss data says the missing device is worth. Every figure is drawn from a named public source (the journals Injury Prevention, Preventive Medicine, Preventive Medicine Reports and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, plus the National Fire Protection Association, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Conference of State Legislatures, Airbnb, Vrbo and NBC News) and independently checked before publishing.
Key statistics
6 highlights from this report
Key statistics
Key takeaways
Safety device coverage in short-term rentals is high for smoke alarms, roughly a coin flip for carbon monoxide, and below half for fire extinguishers and first aid kits. Platform policy asks rather than requires, most state law does not explicitly reach temporary lodging, and the loss data on both fire and carbon monoxide shows the missing device is the one that decides the outcome.
Only 57.5% of US Airbnb venues reported a carbon monoxide detector.
42% reported a fire extinguisher, 36% a first aid kit.
Listings that allow smoking: 46% had smoke detectors, versus 64% of non-smoking listings.
NBC News identified 19 deaths since 2013 at Airbnb properties allegedly involving carbon monoxide.
Only 15 states have a CO requirement that explicitly reaches temporary lodging.
59% of home fire deaths happened where alarms were absent or failed to operate.
How we built this report
Every figure below was compiled in July 2026 from named public sources and verified against the original before publishing.
- Compiled from primary sources
Peer-reviewed journal abstracts read in full, federal agency reports read as published PDFs, platform policy pages read live, the state legislature summary table parsed row by row, and investigative reporting read at the original outlet.
- Only explicitly stated figures
We include only numbers a named source states directly, and attribute each inline at the point it appears. Where a percentage and a raw count were both published, we carry both.
- Self-reported data labeled as such
The listing prevalence figures are host-reported amenity fields, not inspection results. We say so wherever they appear rather than presenting them as measured installation rates.
- Independent review
Written by one co-founder, reviewed by the other before publishing.
Scope caveat: the largest prevalence studies here were published in 2018 and 2019 and remain the only peer-reviewed counts of this size, so they describe the platform as it was sampled then, not as it is today. They are also host-reported amenity data, which means they measure what hosts said, not what an inspector found. Treat them as the upper bound on device coverage. The loss data and the regulatory summaries are current as of the dates given.
Short-term rental safety devices, by the numbers
All 40 figures, grouped by theme, each from a named public source and independently verified against the original.
What listings actually report
The largest published count of safety devices in short-term rentals is a Johns Hopkins study of the amenity fields hosts fill in themselves. According to Kennedy, Jones and Gielen, writing in the journal Injury Prevention in a study of 120,691 Airbnb venues across 16 US cities, 80% of venues reported a smoke detector, 57.5% reported a carbon monoxide detector, 42% reported a fire extinguisher and 36% reported a first aid kit. The authors' own summary is blunt: while most venues had smoke alarms, approximately half had CO alarms and less than half reported having a fire extinguisher or first aid kit. A companion study by Jones, Kennedy, Welding, Gielen and Frattaroli in Preventive Medicine widened the sample to 413,339 venues in 43 cities across 17 countries and found the coverage gap concentrates exactly where it is most dangerous: among the 9.3% of venues that permit smoking, only 46% reported smoke detectors against 64% of venues that prohibit smoking, and only 19% reported CO alarms against 33%.
Reported device coverage
Share of 120,691 US Airbnb venues whose listing reported each device, and the share that did not.
96,087 of 120,691 venues
69,346 of 120,691 venues
50,884 of 120,691 venues
43,497 of 120,691 venues
All four figures from Kennedy, Jones and Gielen, Reported fire safety and first-aid amenities in Airbnb venues in 16 American cities, Injury Prevention. Host-reported amenity data, not inspection results.
Statistic 1
The largest published sample of short-term rental safety amenities covers 120,691 Airbnb venues across 16 US cities.
Injury Prevention, Kennedy, Jones and Gielen (2019, Epub May 2018)
Statistic 2
80% of those venues, or 96,087 listings, reported having a smoke detector.
Injury Prevention, Kennedy, Jones and Gielen (2019)
Statistic 3
57.5%, or 69,346 listings, reported having a carbon monoxide detector.
Injury Prevention, Kennedy, Jones and Gielen (2019)
Statistic 4
42%, or 50,884 listings, reported having a fire extinguisher.
Injury Prevention, Kennedy, Jones and Gielen (2019)
Statistic 5
36%, or 43,497 listings, reported having a first aid kit.
Injury Prevention, Kennedy, Jones and Gielen (2019)
Statistic 6
The study's stated conclusion is that local and state governments or Airbnb must implement regulations compliant with current National Fire Protection Association fire safety standards.
Injury Prevention, Kennedy, Jones and Gielen (2019)
Statistic 7
A companion multi-country study analyzed 413,339 Airbnb venues in 43 cities across 17 countries.
Preventive Medicine, Jones, Kennedy, Welding, Gielen and Frattaroli (June 2019)
Statistic 8
9.3% of that sample, or 38,525 venues, permitted smoking.
Preventive Medicine, Jones et al. (June 2019)
Statistic 9
Among venues that permit smoking, 46% had smoke detectors, against 64% of the 374,814 venues that do not permit smoking, a statistically significant difference.
Preventive Medicine, Jones et al. (June 2019)
Statistic 10
Among venues that permit smoking, 19% had CO alarms, against 33% of venues that prohibit smoking.
Preventive Medicine, Jones et al. (June 2019)
Venues that permit smoking
38,525 venues, 9.3% of the sample
Venues that prohibit smoking
374,814 venues
What this means: Smoke alarm coverage is decent and carbon monoxide coverage is a coin flip, but the more useful finding is the correlation: the listings that carry the most ignition risk are the least equipped to detect it. That is the shape of a self-reported system with no verification step. Note also what these numbers are not. They measure what a host typed into an amenity field, not whether a device is present, powered, in date, or unobstructed. The gap between a listed detector and a working one is exactly the gap that turnover documentation can close.
The carbon monoxide record
The single best-documented consequence of voluntary device policy is Airbnb's carbon monoxide history. According to an NBC News investigation published November 30, 2023, reporters identified 19 deaths since 2013 at Airbnb properties alleged to have involved carbon monoxide poisoning, assembled from interviews with victims' families and a review of news articles, autopsy reports, police records, and court and government documents, with the company facing at least three related lawsuits at the time of publication. NBC News also documented that in February 2014 Airbnb publicly committed to require all hosts to confirm CO detectors were installed by the end of that year, and that the mandate was never put in place. In a follow-up published May 19, 2024, NBC News reported CEO Brian Chesky's response that it is very hard to verify whether a property has a carbon monoxide detector and that it is really hard to mandate things in 220 countries and regions, and reported that only 2.3% of the platform's 7 million active listings had received a detector through the company's free program. Airbnb's own newsroom, in a post dated October 14, 2021, describes that free program as running since 2014, alongside 2018 changes that flag missing alarms to guests at booking, search filters for CO and smoke alarms, and a $1 million contribution to the Red Cross Home Fire Campaign.
Statistic 11
19 deaths since 2013 occurred at Airbnb properties and are alleged to have involved carbon monoxide poisoning.
NBC News investigation (November 30, 2023)
Statistic 12
In February 2014 Airbnb committed publicly to require all hosts to confirm CO detectors were installed by the end of 2014. The mandate was never put in place.
NBC News (November 2023 and May 2024)
Statistic 13
As of November 2023 the company faced at least three lawsuits pertaining to carbon monoxide deaths or poisonings.
NBC News investigation (November 30, 2023)
Statistic 14
Only 2.3% of Airbnb's 7 million active listings had received a carbon monoxide detector through the company's free program.
Airbnb statement reported by NBC News (May 19, 2024)
Statistic 15
Asked about the unfulfilled mandate, CEO Brian Chesky said it is very hard to verify whether or not a property has a carbon monoxide detector, and that it is really hard to mandate things in 220 countries and regions.
NBC News interview (May 19, 2024)
Statistic 16
Airbnb has administered a program offering free combination CO detectors and smoke alarms to active, qualifying hosts since 2014.
Airbnb Newsroom, Airbnb and CO Safety (October 14, 2021)
Statistic 17
Since 2018, Airbnb flags to guests at booking when a host has not reported a smoke or CO alarm, and offers search filters for both devices.
Airbnb Newsroom, Airbnb and CO Safety (October 14, 2021)
Statistic 18
Airbnb contributed $1 million in 2018 to the Red Cross Home Fire Campaign to raise awareness of fire and carbon monoxide safety.
Airbnb Newsroom, Airbnb and CO Safety (October 14, 2021)
Statistic 19
Airbnb's guest-facing safety article states that CO alarms are not common in many parts of the world and recommends guests bring one with them.
Airbnb Help Center, Fire and carbon monoxide safety (2026)
What this means: The gap between 57.5% reported coverage and 2.3% program uptake is the whole story of voluntary safety hardware: awareness campaigns, free devices and booking-time warnings move the number, but not far. The operational lesson for a professional manager is the one Chesky named without solving, which is verification. Knowing a detector exists is a different problem from having evidence it exists, and evidence is something a documented turnover produces as a byproduct.
Platform policy versus state law
Neither major platform requires the devices outright, and state law reaches short-term rentals unevenly. According to Airbnb's Help Center article Home safety: Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, the company strongly urges hosts to install smoke and carbon monoxide alarms rather than requiring them, and lets a host mark a CO alarm as not necessary if the place uses only electric appliances and has no attached garage. According to Vrbo's help article About safety essentials for your property, hosts must comply with regional laws and are prompted to declare whether the property has a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm when onboarding, with the platform recommending an alarm outside each sleeping area, monthly testing and annual battery replacement. That pushes the binding requirement down to the states, and the states are inconsistent: we parsed the National Conference of State Legislatures summary of carbon monoxide detector installation statutes, updated September 29, 2025, and counted 35 jurisdictions with a catalogued requirement, of which 30 cover dwellings, 15 explicitly cover temporary lodging and 9 cover long-term lodging. The NCSL summary, citing the CDC, also notes that CO poisoning is the second most common cause of non-medicinal poisoning death, that over 100,000 people seek emergency treatment for accidental CO poisoning each year and that more than 400 people in the US die from it.
Requirement flagged as covering temporary lodging 15 states
Requirement flagged as covering long-term lodging 9 states
Counted by RapidEye from the National Conference of State Legislatures table Carbon Monoxide Detector Installation Statutes, updated September 29, 2025. The NCSL notes its summary is a reference for legislators and may not reflect all requirements, and that several states leave fire and building codes to local jurisdictions. Always confirm against your own state and municipal code.
Statistic 20
Airbnb strongly urges hosts to install smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in spaces that use fuel-burning appliances. It does not require them.
Airbnb Help Center, Home safety: Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms (2026)
Statistic 21
Airbnb lets a host select that a carbon monoxide alarm is not necessary if the place uses only electric appliances and has no attached garage.
Airbnb Help Center, Home safety: Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms (2026)
Statistic 22
Vrbo prompts hosts to indicate whether the property has a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm when onboarding a new property, and recommends an alarm outside each sleeping area, monthly testing and annual battery replacement.
Vrbo Help, About safety essentials for your property (2026)
Statistic 23
35 states and the District of Columbia appear in the NCSL catalogue of carbon monoxide detector installation statutes.
National Conference of State Legislatures (updated September 29, 2025), counted by RapidEye
Statistic 24
30 of those jurisdictions have a requirement flagged as covering dwellings.
National Conference of State Legislatures (updated September 29, 2025), counted by RapidEye
Statistic 25
Only 15 states have a requirement flagged as covering temporary lodging.
National Conference of State Legislatures (updated September 29, 2025), counted by RapidEye
Statistic 26
Only 9 states have a requirement flagged as covering long-term lodging.
National Conference of State Legislatures (updated September 29, 2025), counted by RapidEye
Statistic 27
Over 100,000 people seek emergency treatment for accidental carbon monoxide poisoning each year in the US, and more than 400 die from it.
National Conference of State Legislatures, citing the CDC (2025)
Statistic 28
Carbon monoxide poisoning is the second most common cause of non-medicinal poisoning death.
National Conference of State Legislatures (2025)
What this means: For a manager running units in more than one state, the compliance floor is not one rule, it is a patchwork where fewer than a third of states name temporary lodging at all. That makes it a portfolio standard problem rather than a legal one: the operators who handle this well set a single internal device standard that clears the strictest jurisdiction they operate in, then verify it every turn. For state-level depth, see our guides to Florida smoke and CO detector requirements, whether Florida requires CO detectors in vacation rentals, and Tennessee vacation rental fire safety requirements.
What the loss data says
The reason a missing device matters is that the presence of a working one changes the outcome distribution more than almost any other variable in residential fire. According to the National Fire Protection Association report Smoke Alarms in US Home Fires, published June 2024, smoke alarms were present in 74% of reported home fires from 2018 to 2022, and nearly three out of five home fire deaths occurred in properties with no smoke alarms, at 43%, or smoke alarms that failed to operate, at 16%. The NFPA puts the death rate per 1,000 home structure fires at approximately 60% lower in homes with working smoke alarms. Power source matters too: hardwired alarms operated in 94% of fires large enough to trigger one against 85% for battery-only alarms, and 66% of the fatal injuries in homes that had alarms occurred in properties with battery-only power. On the carbon monoxide side, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission report Non-Fire Carbon Monoxide Deaths Associated with the Use of Consumer Products, published February 2025, there were an estimated 204 unintentional non-fire CO poisoning deaths from consumer products in 2021 across 169 reported incidents, with 86% occurring at a home location.
Statistic 29
Smoke alarms were present in 74% of reported home fires from 2018 to 2022.
NFPA, Smoke Alarms in US Home Fires (June 2024)
Statistic 30
59% of home fire deaths were caused by fires in properties with no smoke alarms (43%) or smoke alarms that failed to operate (16%).
NFPA, Smoke Alarms in US Home Fires (June 2024)
Statistic 31
The death rate per 1,000 home structure fires is approximately 60% lower in homes with working smoke alarms than in homes with no alarms or none that operated.
NFPA, Smoke Alarms in US Home Fires (June 2024)
Statistic 32
Hardwired smoke alarms operated in 94% of fires considered large enough to trigger an alarm. Battery-only alarms operated 85% of the time.
NFPA, Smoke Alarms in US Home Fires (June 2024)
Statistic 33
66% of the fatal injuries from fires in homes with smoke alarms occurred in properties with battery-only powered alarms.
NFPA, Smoke Alarms in US Home Fires (June 2024)
Statistic 34
Missing or non-functional power sources, including missing, disconnected or dead batteries, were the most common factors when smoke alarms failed to operate.
NFPA, Smoke Alarms in US Home Fires (June 2024)
Statistic 35
An estimated 204 unintentional, non-fire carbon monoxide poisoning deaths were associated with consumer products in 2021, across 169 reported incidents.
US Consumer Product Safety Commission (February 2025)
Statistic 36
86% of those 204 deaths resulted from carbon monoxide exposure in a home location.
US Consumer Product Safety Commission (February 2025)
What this means: Two numbers do the work here. A working alarm cuts the death rate by roughly 60%, and the most common reason alarms do not work is not a broken sensor but a missing, disconnected or dead battery. That reframes the problem for an operator: installation is a one-time purchase, but working is a recurring condition that decays between guests, and the only routine that touches every unit often enough to catch the decay is the turnover.
The lodging record: hotels, motels and resorts
Hotels have the same exposure as short-term rentals and a longer published record of it. According to Weaver and Deru, writing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2007, 68 incidents of CO poisoning at US hotels, motels and resorts between 1989 and 2004 poisoned 772 people and killed 27, with faulty lodging-operated room heating causing 45 incidents and pool or spa boilers causing 16. The authors also recorded that public verdicts averaged $4.8 million per incident, ranging from $1 million to $17.5 million, and noted that despite these incidents, most properties did not install CO alarms and requirements for CO alarms at lodging were rare. According to Hampson, Hauschildt, Deru and Weaver, writing in Preventive Medicine Reports in 2019, the pattern continued: 905 guests were poisoned in 115 identified incidents between January 2005 and December 2018, including 22 fatalities, with children representing 16% of those poisoned and 27% of the fatalities. Their conclusion was that most poisonings were caused by natural gas fueled appliances and could likely have been prevented by an in-room carbon monoxide alarm.
Statistic 37
68 CO poisoning incidents at US hotels, motels and resorts between 1989 and 2004 poisoned 772 people, of whom 27 died and 66 had confirmed sequelae.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Weaver and Deru (July 2007)
Statistic 38
Faulty lodging-operated room heating caused 45 of those incidents, pool and spa boilers caused 16, and CO entrained from outdoors caused 5.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Weaver and Deru (July 2007)
Statistic 39
Public verdicts in those cases averaged $4.8 million per incident, with a range of $1 million to $17.5 million.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Weaver and Deru (July 2007)
Statistic 40
905 guests were poisoned in 115 identified lodging incidents from 2005 through 2018, including 22 fatalities. Children were 16% of those poisoned and 27% of the fatalities.
Preventive Medicine Reports, Hampson, Hauschildt, Deru and Weaver (2019)
What this means: The hotel series is the closest thing this field has to a controlled comparison, because guest rooms have been required to carry smoke alarms by congressional mandate for decades while CO alarms have not, and the poisonings kept coming. The financial tail is the part underwriters look at: an average public verdict of $4.8 million is not a maintenance line item, it is an existential one, which is why detector presence is increasingly an underwriting question rather than a housekeeping one.
The gap between listed and working
Every prevalence number on this page shares one weakness, and it is the same weakness the platforms have: it records a claim, not a condition. A host ticks an amenity box once and it stays ticked for years. A detector can be listed and be sitting in a drawer, chirping with a dead battery, painted over, unplugged by a guest who found the low-battery beep annoying at 3am, or mounted behind a wardrobe that got moved. The NFPA finding that missing and dead power sources are the leading cause of alarm failure is precisely a description of drift, not of bad intentions.
For professionally managed portfolios, that drift is measurable, because the property is already photographed after every stay. Turnover documentation is the only routine that touches every unit on the cadence at which the condition actually changes, which makes it the natural verification layer for safety devices as well as for damage. A ceiling-mounted smoke alarm with a hanging cover, a detector missing from a wall bracket that used to hold one, an extinguisher gauge in the red, an obstructed egress path: all of it is visible in the photos a cleaner already takes, and none of it gets seen when nobody reviews the photos. That is the case we make in the safety hazards inspectors miss and in our guide to reviewing turnover photos at scale.
The insurance side is converging on the same conclusion from the other direction. Carriers are already buying and shipping hardware to reduce loss frequency, as we documented in our research on water leak detection and property insurance, and verified condition evidence at a known point in time is what turns a device from a checkbox into a defensible fact. RapidEye works with insurance providers on exactly that: flagging missing, blocked or obviously non-functional safety devices out of the turnover photos an operator is already capturing.
Cite this study
Academic or press use: copy a ready-made reference. RapidEye is the publisher.
Quick FAQ
What percentage of Airbnb listings have carbon monoxide detectors?
57.5%. A study of 120,691 Airbnb venues across 16 US cities, published by Johns Hopkins researchers in the journal Injury Prevention, found that 69,346 venues, or 57.5%, reported having a carbon monoxide detector. Smoke detectors were reported by 80%. The figures are host-reported amenity data rather than an inspection, so they are the ceiling rather than the floor of what is actually installed.
What percentage of short-term rentals have fire extinguishers and first aid kits?
42% and 36% respectively. In the same sample of 120,691 US Airbnb venues, 50,884 reported a fire extinguisher and 43,497 reported a first aid kit. The authors concluded that safety deficiencies were present and that local and state governments or Airbnb must implement regulations compliant with current National Fire Protection Association fire safety standards.
Does Airbnb require carbon monoxide detectors?
No. Airbnb's Help Center states that it strongly urges hosts to install smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, but installation is not a platform requirement. Airbnb committed in February 2014 to require hosts to confirm carbon monoxide detectors in every listing by the end of that year, and according to NBC News reporting in November 2023, that mandate was never put in place. Airbnb has run a free combination smoke and CO alarm program since 2014, which as of a company statement reported in May 2024 had reached 2.3% of its 7 million active listings.
How many states require carbon monoxide detectors in short-term rentals?
Fifteen states have a carbon monoxide requirement flagged as covering temporary lodging in the National Conference of State Legislatures summary updated September 29, 2025: California, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia. Thirty states and the District of Columbia have a requirement covering dwellings generally, which may or may not reach a short-term rental depending on how the state defines the unit. Local codes can be stricter than state law.
How many people have been poisoned by carbon monoxide in hotels?
At least 1,677 across two published case series. Weaver and Deru, writing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2007, identified 68 incidents at US hotels, motels and resorts between 1989 and 2004 that poisoned 772 people and killed 27. Hampson and colleagues, writing in Preventive Medicine Reports in 2019, identified 115 incidents from 2005 through 2018 that poisoned 905 guests and killed 22. Children were 16% of those poisoned and 27% of the fatalities in the later series.
Do working smoke alarms actually reduce fire deaths?
Yes, by roughly 60%. According to the National Fire Protection Association report Smoke Alarms in US Home Fires, published June 2024, the death rate per 1,000 home structure fires is approximately 60% lower in homes with working smoke alarms than in homes with no alarms or none that operated. Nearly three out of five home fire deaths from 2018 to 2022 occurred in properties with no smoke alarms, at 43%, or smoke alarms that failed to operate, at 16%. The leading reason alarms failed was a missing, disconnected or dead power source.
Data sources
Every figure in this report traces to one of these named public sources, each checked against the original before publishing. We name each source and show its domain as plain text rather than linking out, so this page stays the citable reference.
Injury Prevention (BMJ Journals)Reported fire safety and first-aid amenities in Airbnb venues in 16 American cities, Kennedy HR, Jones VC, Gielen A (2019)bmj.com
Preventive Medicine (Elsevier)The prevalence of fire and CO safety amenities in Airbnb venues that permit smoking, findings from 17 countries, Jones VC, Kennedy RD, Welding K, Gielen AC, Frattaroli S (2019)sciencedirect.comPreventive Medicine Reports (Elsevier)Carbon monoxide poisonings in hotels and motels: The problem silently continues, Hampson NB, Hauschildt KL, Deru K, Weaver LK (2019)sciencedirect.com
American Journal of Preventive MedicineCarbon monoxide poisoning at motels, hotels, and resorts, Weaver LK, Deru K (July 2007)ajpmonline.org
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public HealthInstitutional home of the Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Institute for Global Tobacco Control, which produced both Airbnb prevalence studiesjhu.edu
PubMed, US National Library of MedicineIndexed abstracts of record used to verify every journal figure in this report (PMIDs 29735746, 30802470, 17572307, 31534900)nih.gov
NBC NewsAirbnb's silent killer: 19 carbon monoxide deaths in 10 years, but detectors still not required (November 2023); Airbnb carbon monoxide detector mandate would be 'very hard,' CEO says (May 2024)nbcnews.com
AirbnbAirbnb and CO Safety, Airbnb Newsroom (October 2021); Home safety: Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, Help Center; Fire and carbon monoxide safety, Help Centerairbnb.com
VrboAbout safety essentials for your property, Vrbo Help (2026)vrbo.com
National Fire Protection AssociationSmoke Alarms in US Home Fires, Tucker McGree (June 2024)nfpa.org
US Consumer Product Safety CommissionNon-Fire Carbon Monoxide Deaths Associated with the Use of Consumer Products, 2021 Annual Estimates, John Topping (February 2025)cpsc.gov
National Conference of State LegislaturesCarbon Monoxide Detector Installation Statutes, updated September 29, 2025ncsl.org