San Francisco, Aug 20 (IANS) Home rental company Airbnb has filed documents confidentially with the US regulators to begin its initial public offering (IPO).

The disclosure comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic appeared to have put the San Francisco-headquartered company's plan to go public on hold.

"Today, Airbnb confidentially submitted a draft Registration Statement on Form S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock," the company said on Wednesday.

The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined, it added.

The initial public offering is likely to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.

Airbnb's listing is expected to be one of the largest this year. The company's decision to begin the process of filing for an IPO only indicates that it is seeing signs of recovery in the core market that got badly bruised due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Citing the pandemic, Airbnb had earlier decided to cut about 25 per cent of its staff.

"Our business has not recovered, but we are seeing encouraging signs," Airbnb said in July.

On July 8, guests booked more than one million nights' worth of future stays at Airbnb listings around the world.

"It's the first day in more than four months, since March 3, that the 1 million nights threshold has been reached," the company had said.