No, you don’t have to own a home to exchange it with others when you travel. As long as you are up to date on rental payments and your lease allows you to have visitors, you can use your rental to swap homes.

This is a question we get asked a lot, so we thought that it might be worth breaking it down a bit.

• You are not acting as a vacation rental when you swap. Most people think you have to get special approvals from the city to swap homes. But, that’s not the case. Those type of approvals are only required for properties that are being “rented” out to others. Since you aren’t exchanging money with other travelers, home swapping doesn’t qualify as a vacation rental or any rental for that matter. You aren’t renting to another renter. This means that opening up your home to swap doesn’t qualify as “subleasing” either.

• Does your landlord ask you about every guest that enters your home? We sure hope not! Typical leasing and rental agreements don’t specify the nature of the relationship you have with guests that enter your home. And, we can probably bet that your landlord doesn’t ask how long you’ve known your friends and how you met before they allow them in. So, if you make a connection for a home swap online, it’s fair game.

• Your guests actually have higher degrees of vetting when you home swap. You can be sure that home swapping on 48 dots provides proper vetting for your guests including video interviews and background checks. In any other alternative to home swapping such as vacation rentals or just inviting a group of people over, you probably don’t have the individual’s criminal history, employment history, and living arrangements vetted.

So go ahead! List the home you rent on 48 dots and start traveling more freely!