How renting a house can help you get free World Cup tickets
The staggering cost of tickets for the 2026 FIFA World Cup has caused alarm among football fans, but now some relief is in sight after short-term rental company Airbnb promised to give away more than 1,300 free tickets to customers renting one of their properties during the tournament.
Airbnb announced on June 9 that “select” properties in “all sixteen host cities,” including New York City, Miami and Los Angeles, will now receive a free local match ticket for each person included in the booking.
Listings that are part of this sporting giveaway will be clearly marked with a football on the Airbnb website, the company revealed.
“Airbnb hosts don’t just give you a place to stay, they offer a more authentic way to experience a destination,” Dave Stephensonessentials of Airbnb, said about the initiative.
“And this World Cup they are doing something extraordinary: helping fans follow their teams wherever the tournament takes them, with select houses including free tickets in each host city.”
Guests can visit during the months of June and July Airbnb.com or use the Airbnb app to search for available stays on the selected dates the competition takes place in each host city. Available rentals currently average $385 per night, according to a statement from the company.
The tickets on offer include matches at every stage of the tournament, from the group stage – taking place in all 16 host cities – to the final, which will be held at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Bookings for accommodations in New York are also eligible.
Anyone hoping to get tickets for the group stages or the knockout round of 32 can start booking Airbnb listings now, while tickets for later stages of the tournament will be made available at later dates. Bookings with free tickets for the World Cup Round of 16 will be available from June 18, while bookings for the quarter-finals will begin on July 1.
For the semi-finals, guests can start looking for a rental on July 9, while the bundles for the finals will be open to the public from July 16.
Once a reservation is finalized, the home host will share details on how to redeem the tickets for each guest.
The first World Cup match of 2026 will take place on June 11 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, while the final will be held on July 19.
Airbnb’s promotion will no doubt come as a welcome relief to some World Cup fans, especially after it emerged that many people hoping to attend a match would be forced to fork out the equivalent of a monthly mortgage payment or more for the thrill of seeing the action in person.
In at least five of the eleven host cities in the US, the least According to an analysis by a real estate research firm, expensive game tickets are more expensive than the typical monthly mortgage for that market PropertyShark.
The most expensive tickets currently sold are, unsurprisingly, for the final, where the cheapest seats currently cost $7,256.
In New York, the average monthly mortgage payment is $4,096 and the average monthly rent is $4,872. This means that it will cost New York homeowners an average of 1.77 months of mortgage payments and New York renters 1.49 months of rent to attend, even in the cheapest places. And that’s just for An ticket.
Meanwhile, the cheapest tickets for the July 14 Dallas semifinals cost $2,391, while the city’s average mortgage payment is $2,351 and the average rent is $1,578.
Atlanta will host another semifinal on July 15, with the cheapest tickets costing $2,208. The average mortgage payment in Atlanta is $2,149, and the average rent payment is $1,814.
In Kansas City, where one of the semifinal games will take place on July 11, the cheapest seats cost $1,567, while the average monthly mortgage is $1,477 and the average rent is $1,342.
And in Miami, where Colombia will face Portugal in a highly anticipated match on June 27, the least expensive seats go for $2,700. That’s roughly equal to the city’s average monthly mortgage payment of $2,731 and the average rent of $2,696.
