VRBO API Documentation: What Exists and How to Get Vacation Rental Data

There is no VRBO developer portal.
Searching for VRBO API documentation leads to a chain of redirects that ends at Expedia Group partner pages, because VRBO is an Expedia Group brand and its APIs live inside that partner ecosystem.
Every one of those programs gates its documentation behind an application.
None of them serves the person who usually runs this search: a developer who needs listing or review data for properties they don't manage.
This guide maps where the official docs actually live, covers the property-ID mechanics you'll need for any data work, and shows the open route to VRBO review data with a real request and response.

Key Takeaways

• VRBO has no standalone API. Official access runs through Expedia Group's vacation rental partner programs, all of them application-gated.
• The official programs serve suppliers. Property managers and their software connect their own listings; a market-data API for arbitrary properties isn't on offer.
• The property ID is the number in the URL. vrbo.com/19006312 means property 19006312, and that ID is the key to every data call.
• Review data has an open route, returning verified stay reviews with pre-tagged sentiment labels and host responses as structured JSON. The same pattern we mapped for Airbnb data.
• VRBO reviews are stay-verified. Only guests who booked can review, which makes the pool small but unusually trustworthy per review.

Where VRBO API Documentation Actually Lives

VRBO's developer story is Expedia Group's developer story.

The connectivity route is the real documentation people find fragments of: it's substantial, and it's for suppliers.
If you manage properties listed on VRBO or build software for hosts who do, apply there; that's your door.
The traveler-side story is thinner.
Expedia Group's seller APIs focus on bookable lodging inventory for partners with commercial agreements, and public review or market data for VRBO properties isn't part of the offer.
So the honest summary of "where is the VRBO API documentation": supplier docs behind the partner gate, and no official docs at all for the data-reading use case.

How to Find a VRBO Property ID

Every data workflow starts with property IDs, and VRBO makes them easy to get.
1. Open any VRBO listing page.
2. Look at the URL: the number after the domain is the property ID. vrbo.com/19006312 → property ID 19006312.
3. Regional domains and localized paths work the same way; the numeric segment is the ID wherever it appears.
4. For bulk conversion, send full URLs to an extract-id endpoint and get IDs back programmatically, no manual copying.
That's the entire lookup.
Unlike TripAdvisor's location IDs or Accor's internal codes, VRBO puts the identifier in plain sight, which is why "vrbo.com/property_id" style searches have a one-line answer.

Getting VRBO Listing Data Without a Partnership

Three routes, familiar shape.
The partner application is correct for suppliers and pointless for data: the programs exist to connect your listings, and rejected data-use applications cost weeks.
Scraping VRBO pages works with the usual tax: bot detection, markup churn, and silent breakage.
Our hotel listings scraping guide covers the technique and the honest maintenance math, most of which transfers directly.
A data API handles extraction behind documented endpoints.
The VRBO API from StayAPI currently covers two surfaces: listing reviews and URL-to-ID conversion.
Scope honesty: that's reviews and identifiers today, so broader vacation-rental analysis (pricing, calendars) runs through the Airbnb endpoints under the same key, and the two platforms' markets overlap heavily.

Worked Example: VRBO Reviews as JSON

Property 19006312 is a real listing with 15 reviews.

curl -X GET "https://api.stayapi.com/v1/vrbo/listing/reviews/19006312?page=1&page_size=10" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

The response (truncated):

{
  "property_id": "19006312",
  "total_reviews": 15,
  "has_more": true,
  "reviews": [
    {
      "rating": 10,
      "rating_text": "Excellent",
      "title": "Perfect beach getaway!",
      "reviewer_name": "Sarah J.",
      "verified": true,
      "sentiments": ["Great location", "Clean", "Responsive host"],
      "host_response": "Thank you so much for your wonderful review!"
    },
    ...
  ]
}

The sentiments array deserves attention: it's sentiment analysis you don't have to run.
Aggregate those tags across a market and you have a theme breakdown (cleanliness, location, host responsiveness) without touching an NLP pipeline.
Full parameters, including sort_by, are in the VRBO reviews endpoint documentation.

VRBO URL Parameters, Decoded

Some VRBO URLs carry extra query parameters, and top_dp is the one people search for.
It's undocumented.
In shared and tracked listing links it appears to carry a display price hint, and its value can differ from what the page shows for your dates.
Treat it as link plumbing: interesting to notice, unsafe to build on.
The parameter worth extracting is the one covered above: the numeric property ID in the path, which is stable, documented in practice, and the input every data endpoint expects.

Getting Started

1. Sign up at stayapi.com. Free tier, no credit card, no partner application.
2. Collect property IDs from your listing URLs, or send the URLs to the extract-id endpoint for bulk conversion.
3. Make your first reviews call with the curl example above.
4. For a no-code pipeline, the VRBO reviews to Google Sheets integration lands the data in a spreadsheet, and the same pattern feeds Looker Studio, Power BI, N8N, or Make.com. For portfolio-scale review monitoring, book a demo call.

FAQ

Does VRBO have a public API?

No.
VRBO's APIs are Expedia Group partner programs for property suppliers and travel sellers, all gated behind applications.
Third-party data APIs are the open route for review and listing data.

Where is the official VRBO API documentation?

Inside Expedia Group's partner portals, visible after joining the relevant program.
The substantial docs are the vacation rental connectivity ones, and they cover managing your own listings.

How do I find a VRBO property ID?

It's the number in the listing URL: vrbo.com/19006312 → 19006312.
For bulk lists, an extract-id endpoint converts full URLs to IDs programmatically.

What does the top_dp URL parameter mean?

It's an undocumented parameter that appears in shared listing links and seems to carry a display price hint.
It's not reliable for data work; use the numeric property ID from the URL path instead.

Can I get VRBO reviews through an API?

Yes.
A data API returns a property's full review set as structured JSON: ratings out of 10, verified-stay flags, pre-tagged sentiment labels, and host responses, paginated for any volume.