Short answer: if your case is pending outside California, your subpoena has no force here until it is domesticated — reissued as a California subpoena by a California court — and then personally served on Airbnb’s registered agent in Sacramento.
That agent is ten minutes from our office. We handle the domestication, the court filing, and the service for $395 flat. The price is on this page because most of our competitors will not put theirs on theirs.
What Records You Can Actually Get
Read this part before you spend money on a subpoena. It is the question we get asked most, and it is the one nobody else answers up front.
The Stored Communications Act (18 U.S.C. § 2702) bars providers like Airbnb from handing the contents of communications to a civil litigant. Content is released on a search warrant, and search warrants are not available in civil cases. No subpoena — domesticated or not — changes that.
What a civil subpoena will not get you:
- The text of messages sent between a host and a guest on the Airbnb platform
- Review drafts, support-chat transcripts, or any other message content
What a properly domesticated subpoena can reach — the subscriber and transactional records, which is usually what the case actually turns on:
- Reservation dates and the number of guests on a booking
- The address of the listing
- Amounts paid, and the payment instrument the guest used
- The bank account a host receives payouts into
- Account registration details and associated identifiers
For premises-liability, landlord-tenant, and judgment-enforcement work, that transactional set is the evidence — who booked it, when, for how many people, who was paid, and into which account.
Exactly Who You Serve
Entity: Airbnb, Inc.
Registered agent for service of process: CSC – Lawyers Incorporating Service, 2710 Gateway Oaks Drive, Suite 150N, Sacramento, CA 95833
Under Code of Civil Procedure § 416.10, a corporation is served through its designated agent, an officer, or another person authorized to receive process. A records subpoena to a company is served the same way — on the agent, in person.
Common mistakes that get a subpoena rejected
- Mailing it. A California deposition subpoena is served personally. Mail is not service.
- Serving the San Francisco headquarters instead of the agent. The agent of record is the address that counts.
- Captioning the wrong entity. The name on the subpoena has to match the entity registered with the California Secretary of State.
- Serving the out-of-state subpoena as-is. It has no effect in California until a California court reissues it.
How Domestication Actually Works in California
California adopted the Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act at Code of Civil Procedure §§ 2029.100–2029.900. There is no motion, no hearing, and no need to open a California case.
- An SUBP-030 application is filed, together with a true and correct copy of your foreign subpoena and a matching California subpoena form.
- The clerk issues the California subpoena. It must carry the caption and case number of your out-of-state action, incorporate the identical terms of your subpoena, name the issuing California court, and list all counsel of record.
- The issued subpoena is personally served on the registered agent, and a proof of service comes back to you.
The reissued subpoena has to say exactly what yours says. California paperwork cannot paraphrase, shorten, or tidy up the original — a mismatch in the caption is one of the more common reasons a clerk hands the packet back.
The Trap That Voids Most Out-of-State Subpoenas
Two of them, and both are fatal after you have already paid.
1. Who issued it. Under CCP § 2020.210(b), a self-represented party cannot issue their own deposition subpoena — the clerk must issue it. A subpoena signed by a pro per litigant in the issuance block is invalid on its face, and it will be invalid again after domestication, because domestication copies the defect forward. We check the issuance block before anything is filed.
2. Notice to Consumer. When the records sought are personal records about an individual, CCP § 1985.3 requires that the consumer be served with a notice and a copy of the subpoena before the production date, and the custodian may not produce until that clock has run. Airbnb account records about a named individual are exactly this situation. Skip it and the production does not happen — or it happens and gets thrown out.
We flag both before filing so you find out now rather than on the production date.
What It Costs
Standard — $395 flat. Domestication, court filing, personal service on the registered agent, and the proof of service. Five business days.
Rush — $495 flat. Same scope, expedited.
Both are all-in. The $45 court filing fee and the $15 witness fee are absorbed, not added at the end. Where a Notice to Consumer is required, we identify it up front and quote it with the order rather than discovering it later.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to open a California case first?
No. The UIDDA exists precisely so you do not have to. No motion, no hearing, no local counsel required.
Do I need a California attorney?
Not to domesticate. The clerk issues the California subpoena on the application. A California-licensed attorney may also issue one, but that is an alternative route, not a requirement.
Can I just email or mail the subpoena to Airbnb?
No. A California deposition subpoena is personally served, and it has to be a California subpoena. Sending your home-state subpoena to a legal-process email address is the single most common wasted step we see.
Will the proof of service be accepted by my home-state court?
Yes. Service is proved under California law by a registered California process server, which is what the UIDDA contemplates. The proof comes back to you signed and ready to file.
What if the records I need are message content?
Then a civil subpoena is the wrong tool, and we will tell you before you order. The usual route is to obtain the content from the account holder in your own case through party discovery.
Do you serve other Sacramento custodians on the same trip?
Yes. Google, Meta, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Reddit all use the same registered agent at the same Sacramento address. If your case needs more than one, say so on the order and we will handle them together.