Booking
Verified“Amsterdam's brand, Delaware's company.”
- Listing
- NASDAQ: BKNG
- Revenue (2024)
- $23.7B
- Scale (2024)
- 1.1B room nights
- Employees
- ~24,300
38 = midpoint of Control 34 & Data 41
Sovereignty Quadrant
Control ↑ who owns & governs the company · Data → where your data lives. Every dot is a company — click to open it.
Every number below traces to 13 sourced facts across 7 independent sources, last verified 2026-06-12. 3 open questions hold confidence at 85% — they lower confidence, never the score.
Control ↑
Who legally and economically controls the company
Legal & Jurisdiction
52
The operating entity is genuinely Dutch and squarely within EU enforcement reach (GDPR controller, DMA gatekeeper), but it sits under a Delaware parent, so it is EU-operating under foreign ownership.
Why 52? 4 sourced facts · click to expand
Booking.com is operated by Booking.com B.V., a company incorporated in the Netherlands and registered in the Dutch Commercial Register, with its registered office in Amsterdam.
Booking.com Privacy Notice · as of 2026-06-12
Booking.com Holding B.V. was founded in the Netherlands on 24 May 2013 (Dutch Commercial Register no. 57987823, Oosterdokskade 163, Amsterdam) and its 100% shareholder is Priceline.com Bookings Acquisition Company Limited, incorporated in the United Kingdom, ultimately under Booking Holdings.
Booking.com Holding B.V. Financial Statements 2022 (German Lobbyregister) · as of 2022-12-31
The EU designated Booking as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act on 13 May 2024, confirming that EU regulators assert direct jurisdiction over Booking.com's core platform service.
European Commission (Digital Markets Act) · as of 2024-05-13
The ultimate parent, Booking Holdings Inc., is a Delaware corporation (formed as a Delaware LLC in 1997, converted to a Delaware corporation in 1998) headquartered in the United States.
Wikipedia (Booking Holdings) · as of 2026-06-12
Control & Ownership
16
Voting control and the economic majority sit with Booking Holdings Inc., a US Delaware corporation listed on NASDAQ; EU shareholding is incidental.
Why 16? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Booking.com's operating entity is 100% owned through the Booking Holdings group, so all voting control flows to the US parent.
Booking.com Holding B.V. Financial Statements 2022 · as of 2022-12-31
Booking Holdings Inc. is publicly listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker BKNG and is a component of the Nasdaq-100 and S&P 500.
Wikipedia (Booking Holdings) · as of 2026-06-12
Booking Holdings reported 2024 net income of about $5.8 billion, with economic returns accruing to its US-listed public shareholders rather than EU owners.
Wikipedia (Booking Holdings) · as of 2024-12-31
Data →
Where your data lives and who can reach it
Data & Infrastructure
28
Booking.com B.V. is the EU controller, but data is shared across the US-parented Booking Holdings group and can be transferred to or accessed from the US under SCCs/BCRs, leaving CLOUD Act exposure; no published EU-only data residency.
Why 28? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Booking.com's privacy notice states data could be accessible from, transferred to, or stored in countries that may not have the same data protection laws, with Standard Contractual Clauses and Binding Corporate Rules used for transfers outside the EEA within the Booking Holdings group.
Booking.com Privacy Notice · as of 2026-06-12
Personal data may be shared within Booking.com group entities and other Booking Holdings Inc. companies, and Booking.com may act as a service provider under the US California Consumer Privacy Act.
Booking Holdings Privacy Notice · as of 2026-06-12
Booking.com runs significant infrastructure on US hyperscale cloud, with a Booking.com Site Reliability Engineering Manager presenting on migration and modernization with Amazon CloudFront at AWS re:Invent 2024.
AWS re:Invent 2024 (CDN305 slides) · as of 2024-12-01
Operations & People
60
Day-to-day the Booking.com brand is run from Amsterdam with a large Dutch workforce, but the parent's executive leadership, HQ and reporting currency are US, making operations genuinely mixed.
Why 60? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Booking.com's platform is operated and controlled out of Amsterdam by Booking.com B.V. at Oosterdokskade 163, 1011 DL Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Booking.com Holding B.V. Financial Statements 2022 · as of 2022-12-31
The parent Booking Holdings Inc. is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, USA, and is led by CEO Glenn D. Fogel, with the group reporting financials in US dollars.
Wikipedia (Booking Holdings) · as of 2026-06-12
Booking Holdings reported approximately 24,300 employees as of 31 December 2024 across the group, a large share of them attached to the Amsterdam-based Booking.com operation.
Booking Holdings Q4 2024 Earnings Release · as of 2024-12-31
Aligned to the EU Commission’s official Cloud Sovereignty Framework (SEAL, Jun 2026) →
What we don’t know
3 open questions — they lower confidence, never the score
- ?
Exactly where Booking.com's primary user-data infrastructure is physically hosted and under which providers/regions (own data centers vs. AWS vs. others).
Directly affects the infra score; if material workloads run in EU regions of US hyperscalers, residency is EU but CLOUD Act exposure remains.
- ?
What share of group revenue, profit and employees is attributable specifically to the Amsterdam Booking.com B.V. operation versus other Booking Holdings brands (Priceline, Agoda, Kayak, OpenTable).
Refines the operations and ownership picture for the EU-run entity specifically.
- ?
Current DMA compliance status as of mid-2026 (whether the Commission has opened formal non-compliance proceedings).
Affects how strongly to characterise EU legal enforceability in practice; hospitality groups argue ongoing non-compliance.
EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework lens
The EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework (SEAL) is designed to rate cloud service providers; applying it to a US-controlled travel platform like Booking.com is an analogous mapping for context, not a certification.
Strategic
Strategic control, capital allocation and AI roadmap sit with the US-listed Booking Holdings parent, not with the EU operating entity.
Legal & jurisdictional
EU operating entity is GDPR controller and a DMA gatekeeper (EU law clearly applies), but ultimate ownership and control are US/Delaware, exposing it to US law.
Data & AI
Personal data is shared across the US-parented group and transferable to/accessible from the US under SCCs and BCRs; no structural EU-only data isolation.
Operational
Day-to-day platform operations and a large workforce are in Amsterdam, but executive leadership and reporting currency are US.
Supply chain
Insufficient public detail on the geographic split of core technology vendors and subprocessors to score reliably.
Technological
Core platform leans on US hyperscale cloud (AWS relationship evidenced publicly); no EU sovereign-cloud commitment found.
Security & compliance
Mature GDPR program with Binding Corporate Rules and SCCs, but compliance is group-wide and ultimately US-governed.
Environmental sustainability
Out of scope for this sovereignty read; no sovereignty-relevant environmental data assessed.
EU alternatives
Düsseldorf-based hotel metasearch, but majority-controlled by US-listed Expedia Group — EU-run, US-owned, similar pattern to Booking.
Privately held Cologne-based travel/lodging platform, EU-incorporated and EU-controlled; stronger sovereignty profile for business travel.
Major EU online travel agency, incorporated in Luxembourg and listed in Madrid; EU-listed but with significant international institutional ownership.
How the method works
Methodology v2 (provisional): the score is the midpoint of two axes — Control (who owns and governs the company) and Data (where your data lives and who can reach it). Each axis is scored only on verified evidence; unknowns reduce confidence, never the score. Every input below is sourced; the weights and judgments are open to challenge.
Spotted an error? Every claim is sourced — challenge it and we correct the record.
- 2026-06-12 — Initial golden profile, authored from primary sources (human + AI review).
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Verified 2026-06-12 · Human + AI joint review (sources independently checked) · Methodology