Important Updates Coming to Your Viator Global Supplier Agreement
We are rolling out an essential refresh to our Global Supplier Agreement to keep pace with the rapidly evolving digital travel landscape. These changes are designed to optimize your automated connectivity, upgrade financial security, and expand your reach to more travelers across the globe.
Because these updates will govern our partnership moving forward, we highly recommend taking a few minutes to read through this summary below to check exactly what’s new. We’ve broken down the key updates so you can quickly see how these requirements protect your travelers, benefit your business, and shape your day-to-day operations.
1. Elevating Global Marketplace Safety Standards
To ensure a safe marketplace for all travelers, maintaining valid Public Liability Insurance (PLI) is a mandatory global baseline. Under the new terms, Viator has sole discretion to set required coverage minimums based on your activity risk and destination.
If your documentation expires or is found insufficient, your account will be automatically frozen from taking new sales. If such a freeze is put in place, you are contractually required to honor all pre-existing bookings. Your account will return to an active status once Viator reviews and approves the updated policy documents you provide.
Good to know:
Keeping your Public Liability Insurance (PLI) current is the best way to ensure your products remain active. Once you upload your updated policy documentation, our team works to verify it promptly. Remember to honor all existing bookings even during document updates to keep your travelers happy and your account in good standing.
2. Improving Competitiveness of Retail Pricing
To capture more bookings through targeted regional deals and loyalty perks, the new terms clarify Viator and its partners have autonomy over the final Retail Price displayed to consumers.
Your payout is decoupled from this shelf price and remains anchored to the Net Rate you establish when you set your product pricing. As part of this structure, Viator absorbs all retail currency conversion risks and marketplace-funded promotional discount costs, ensuring your expected Net Rate payout remains predictable.
Good to know:
Viator optimizes retail pricing to attract more travelers to your tours. Rest assured that your payout is always protected—it remains locked to the Net Rate you set in the Supplier Management Center, regardless of any promotional pricing or currency shifts on the front end.
3. Transparency on Mandatory In-Destination Fees
To comply with consumer protection laws—for example, those aimed at combating confusing pricing—suppliers are now contractually required to disclose all mandatory, non-avoidable on-site third-party fees (such as national park entries, local port taxes, or mandatory equipment rentals).
Only covering these fees within general text descriptions is not enough: you must use Viator’s structured data fields in product exclusion descriptions.
If a traveler is forced to pay an undisclosed mandatory fee at check-in, Viator reserves the right to refund the traveler and charge that cost back to your account.
Good to know:
Transparency builds trust. By entering mandatory in-destination fees into our structured pricing fields, you ensure travelers know exactly what to expect at checkout. This clarity helps prevent disputes and ensures you get paid correctly while complying with global consumer protection regulations.
4. Expanding Your Reach via Global Networks
When you list products on Viator, you grant the platform broad, discretionary rights to syndicate and sell your inventory across our entire multi-channel ecosystem.
This includes Viator and Tripadvisor (web and mobile apps), and our extensive network of global third-party distribution partners and affiliates, maximizing your exposure without requiring separate agreements for each channel.
Good to know:
Where eligible, your listings are automatically syndicated across our entire partner network—including Tripadvisor and major affiliate sites. This gives your products maximum visibility to millions of travelers without you needing to manage individual agreements for each channel.
Changes that may affect you, dependent on locations or setup choices
5. Automated Operations with API Connectivity
For suppliers utilizing Supply API integrations, the live data received from your booking software serves as the absolute “single source of truth” for real-time rates, cut-off times, and availability.
Under these updated terms, your booking software and its technical staff are legally defined as your authorized agents.
You bear the sole responsibility for any data discrepancies, overbookings, or incorrect rates which are due to data received by Viator through the API.
Good to know:
When using the Supply API, your booking software acts as your trusted automated agent. Keeping your software settings accurate is the key to seamless operations; it ensures that your rates and availability stay perfectly synced with Viator for every booking.
6. Automated Tax Handling for Eligible Regions
For experiences that take place in jurisdictions with active marketplace facilitator tax laws, Viator will automatically calculate, collect, and remit applicable sales taxes directly to the local tax authority.
For bookings occurring within these tax-handled zones, your payout format transitions to a “Net of Tax” model. This ensures it’s clear at a product level where Viator will remit tax, so you don’t have to.
We’ll share further details with you if these changes are applied in jurisdictions where you provide experiences.
Good to know:
In specific regions, Viator automatically manages local sales tax collection and remittance for you. To simplify your accounting, we adjust the payout model for these bookings to “Net of Tax,” meaning you don’t have to worry about handling those specific tax payments yourself.
7. Regulated Payments Services
Depending on your business location, you may be required to onboard with a specific group- or partner-regulated payment services provider (such as Owl Payments Europe, our group payment services entity regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland for EU-based operators).
If this applies to your account this financial relationship requires passing mandatory identity verification checks, proactively providing up-to-date profile information any time your details change, and being subject to monitoring and checks for legally-mandated purposes such as Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (CFT). Payouts may be withheld pending additional checks, if verification requirements are not kept up to date.
Good to know:
To maintain a secure marketplace, in certain jurisdictions our setup requires onboarding to regulated payment providers. Keeping your identity verification documents and profile information up to date ensures your payouts are processed without delay and helps us keep the platform secure for everyone.
8. Compliance with Mandatory Tax Reporting
To comply with global transparency mandates e.g. DAC7 in the European Union and SERR in Australia, Viator is required to directly report supplier identification data, tax numbers, and gross platform earnings to sovereign tax bureaus.
When this kind of data sharing is a statutory requirement, Viator is not obligated to provide prior notice to suppliers before transmitting this information to government regulators.
We are committed to global financial transparency. To ensure compliance with regional mandates like DAC7 and SERR, Viator automatically submits necessary earnings and tax identification data to government authorities, helping you focus on running your business.
9. Boosting Your Reach with Flexible Promotional Programs
Participation in promotional initiatives like Viator Accelerate or supplier-funded Special Offers remains completely voluntary. When you choose to activate these features, you explicitly agree to temporarily lower your baseline Net Rate on specific listings for the duration of an offer in exchange for merchandising advantages.
Good to know:
Flexibility is key. Programs like Viator Accelerate are completely optional and temporary. You choose when to activate them to gain extra merchandising visibility, and they only impact your Net Rate for the specific duration of the offer you’ve selected.
10. Setting Up the Right Account Type
At registration, suppliers must accurately select their correct legal taxonomy: either a Company (registered corporate entities, LLCs) or an Individual (sole traders, natural persons).
If a verification check reveals that an account was set up under the wrong entity type, Viator reserves the sole discretion to suspend or close the account immediately, requiring a clean registration or data migration subject to Viator’s agreement.
Good to know:
Selecting the correct business entity type—Company or Individual—at registration is vital for accurate tax and financial compliance. Keeping your account details up to date and correctly classified ensures a smooth and continuous partnership.
Important reminder for all suppliers:
Protecting Your Account with Delegated User Permissions
The designated Primary Contact remains the sole legal signatory and anchor for your supplier account. While the Primary Contact has the authority to add secondary users and delegate operational permissions (such as managing calendars or toggling API connectivity), the Supplier entity remains fully liable for all actions, configuration updates, or operational errors committed by those delegated users.
Good to know:
You can easily empower your team by delegating tasks like calendar management or API connectivity to secondary users. To keep your account secure, simply remember that the Primary Contact remains the anchor, and all actions taken by your team are attributed to your business under their supervision.
This Updated Supplier Agreement and Your Options
These updated terms will officially take effect on August 1, 2026. By continuing to use the Viator Supplier Management Center, maintaining your product listings, or accepting new bookings after this date, you are deemed to have accepted the revised Agreement in full.
If you do not agree to these changes, you must notify us and begin the process of de-listing your products and closing your account prior to the effective date. Please note that should you choose to leave the platform, you are still contractually required to honor any pre-existing bookings.
We truly value our partnership and hope to continue growing alongside you under these modern new standards.
Future changes to the Supplier Agreement
- To keep platform operations agile, Viator reserves the right to update contract terms system-wide by publishing notices in the Supplier Management Center or via email.
- Manual acknowledgement or signatures are not required to implement changes; your continued use of the platform, maintenance of live listings, or acceptance of new bookings after the notice period constitutes binding legal acceptance of the revised terms.
Please also check: Updated Supplier Code Of Conduct
As you know, Viator suppliers are required to abide by our current Supplier Code of Conduct, which helps us to maintain a safe, trusted marketplace for travelers.
We’ve recently added requirements to this code including:
- Mandatory fitness & medical briefings
Before starting any experience, your guides must deliver guests a clear safety briefing detailing required physical fitness levels and highlighting specific risks associated with pre-existing medical conditions. Guests must also sign written acknowledgments before kicking off the activity. - Zero-device driving rules
For any product involving transportation, vehicle operators are strictly prohibited from using cell phones or mobile devices while the vehicle is in motion. - Motor vehicle standards
Activities utilizing motorized vehicles (like ATVs or mopeds) must feature integral manufacturer roll cages covered in impact protection material, securely fixed seating, and operational seatbelts with reinforced mounting points. You must also maintain proper maintenance records. - Marine safety
For boat tours and water sports, your life raft capacity must be configured so that if one entire raft is lost or rendered unserviceable, the remaining rafts still provide 100% capacity for all passengers and crew. - Subcontractors should follow this code too
The Code of Conduct applies to any subcontractors, agents, or third parties you hire. Your business carries ultimate responsibility for their compliance and on-site actions.
Helpful Resources:
- To read the full Supplier Agreement, go here.
- For an easy-to-read recap of key points to keep an eye on in the agreement, go here.
- Review Supplier Code of Conduct
- Review Viator’s Animal Welfare Policy
