The Perfect Airbnb House Manual (What to Include)

If guests keep asking where the trash goes or how the hot water works, your Airbnb house manual isn't doing its job yet. The fix isn't a longer document. It's putting the right answer in the right place, at the moment the guest needs it.

Start here: open your message history for the last few months and copy every question a guest asked more than once into a list. That list, not a generic template, decides what your manual needs. If you want a ready-made layout to fill in afterward, use our Airbnb house manual template. This post is about choosing the content and deciding where each piece should live.

What to include in an Airbnb house manual?

Include anything a guest needs to use the home without messaging you: wifi, entry, heating and cooling, appliances, trash and recycling, safety equipment, emergency contacts, house rules, checkout steps and a short local guide.

Airbnb describes the house manual as the place for "day-to-day details, like how to turn on the hot water heater, or where to find an extra blanket" (Airbnb Help Center). That's the bar. A few principles keep it usable:

• Put the urgent page first. Wifi name and password, your contact number, the local emergency number, and the property's full street address. Guests calling for help often don't know the address they're staying at.
• Write steps, not descriptions. "Press the top button twice, then wait for the green light" beats "The boiler is in the hallway."
• Say where things are. Fuse box, water shutoff, fire extinguisher, first-aid kit, spare bedding, router.
• Frame rules as reasons. "Please put tied bags in the green bin by the gate so animals don't get into them" gets better compliance than a list of capitalized DON'Ts. Our guide to setting house rules on Airbnb covers wording in more depth.
• Keep the local guide short. Two or three places you'd actually send a friend, with a note on whether they need reservations, are worth more than a list guests can find on a map app.

Where is the house manual on Airbnb, and who sees it?

On Airbnb, you add the house manual in the Listing editor under "Arrival guide," and only guests with a confirmed reservation can open it, so it's safe for details you wouldn't post publicly.

That same Arrival guide holds your check-in and checkout instructions, and each has different visibility (Airbnb Help Center):

• Check-in instructions: guests see your check-in method right away but "won't see the detailed check-in instructions until 48 hours before check-in."
• Checkout instructions: available to guests before they book, so keep them short and reasonable. Long chore lists here can put people off. See why you shouldn't ask guests to clean.
• House manual: confirmed guests only.

This suggests a simple split: door codes go in check-in instructions, anything sensitive or detailed goes in the house manual, and checkout steps stay brief because anyone browsing can read them.

How to write an Airbnb house manual that guests actually use?

Build it from your repeat questions, then place each answer where the guest will look at that moment: the Airbnb app before arrival, a printed page in the home during the stay.

Use this diagnostic to sort your list:

Our recommendation: keep both a digital and a printed version. The digital one is searchable and easy to update between stays. The printed one works when the wifi is down, which is exactly when guests reach for it. Label device instructions on the device itself too; a small sticker on the heating controller answers the question where it's asked.

Consider a hypothetical host whose list shows the same three questions every week: wifi, the washing machine, and where to leave keys. Moving the wifi details to a framed card by the router, adding a photo guide to the machine, and adding one line to checkout instructions targets all three without rewriting the whole manual. Recheck the message list after a month to see whether those questions actually dropped.

Airbnb house manual examples: what to leave out?

Leave out anything that ages quickly, contradicts your listing, or pushes guests off Airbnb, because stale or conflicting instructions create more messages, not fewer.

• Off-platform booking offers. Airbnb's policy prohibits "asking or encouraging users to move current, future, or repeat bookings... off of Airbnb" and "offering or soliciting discounts to book off of Airbnb" (Airbnb Off-Platform policy). A "book direct next time" discount card in an Airbnb guest's manual fits that description, so don't include one. Direct-booking marketing belongs in channels you own, as covered in why you need a direct booking website.
• Opening hours and prices for restaurants or attractions. Link to their own pages instead, or leave them out.
• Rules that aren't on your listing. If it matters enough to enforce, it belongs in your listing's house rules, not only in a binder.
• Long backstories. One welcome line is plenty.

When this advice does not apply

• Booking.com and other channels: each platform has its own fields for arrival information and its own visibility rules. The Airbnb Arrival guide timing above doesn't carry over.
• Serviced or staffed properties: if someone greets every guest, the manual can be shorter and focus on after-hours issues.
• Local legal requirements: some areas require specific safety or registration information to be displayed. Check your local rules; this post doesn't cover them.

What to do next

1. Export or scroll your recent guest messages and list every question asked twice or more.
2. Sort each question with the table above and move the answer to its best location.
3. Update the Arrival guide in your Airbnb Listing editor: check-in instructions, house manual, and a short checkout list.
4. Print page one (wifi, address, emergency numbers, your contact) and place it where guests land.
5. Review the list again after a month and rewrite any answer that's still generating questions.

FAQ

Can guests see my house manual before booking?

No. Airbnb says only guests with a confirmed reservation can access the house manual. Checkout instructions are different: they're visible before booking.

Is a vacation rental welcome book the same as a house manual?

Mostly, yes. "Welcome book" usually means the printed version left in the home, often with more local tips. The practical content, like wifi, appliances, rules and checkout, should match your digital house manual word for word.

How long should an Airbnb house manual be?

As long as your repeat questions require and no longer. A one-bedroom apartment might need a few pages; a house with a pool, hot tub and complex heating needs more. Short sections with headings matter more than total length.

Sources

• Airbnb Help Center, "Adding a house manual to your home listing" — Verified 2026-09-30
• Airbnb Help Center, "Add check-in and checkout instructions to listings" — Verified 2026-09-30
• Airbnb Help Center, "Off-Platform Policy" — Verified 2026-09-30