Does every Airbnb need an emergency info card? Yes, here's what goes on it

Most of what goes into a welcome book gets used within the first day: Wi-Fi, check-in, house rules. An emergency card is different. It might sit untouched for the entire stay, and that's fine, that's the point. The value isn't in daily use, it's in being there and being fast to find on the one occasion it's actually needed.

Why "guests can just call 911" isn't quite enough

In a moment of actual stress, a guest doesn't want to figure things out. They want the answer already sitting in front of them.

That's true even for something as simple as the local emergency number, which isn't 911 everywhere. It's 112 across the EU, 999 in the UK, 000 in Australia, and a guest who has flown in from somewhere else may reach for the number from home without thinking. It's also true for things a guest has no way to know on their own: where the fire extinguisher is, whether there's a gas shutoff, which hospital is closest.

None of this needs to be dramatic. It's a short, calm, factual card, not a warning label. Tone matters here, because a card that reads like a hazard notice makes a place feel less safe rather than more.

The address is the most important line on the card

This is the part hosts most often leave off, and it's the part that matters most.

A guest calling emergency services from an unfamiliar property frequently cannot say where they are. They arrived after dark, or by taxi, or the booking was made by someone else in the group. They know the neighbourhood vaguely and the street name not at all. The dispatcher's first question is the one question they can't answer.

Write the full address on the card, including the things that are obvious to you and invisible to a visitor: unit number, floor, which entrance, the building name if it has one, and the gate or buzzer code if responders would need it. If your building is genuinely hard to find, add the same landmark note you'd give a guest arriving for the first time.

What actually belongs on it

• The full property address, including unit, floor, and entrance
• The local emergency number, correct for wherever the property actually is
• Your contact number, with a realistic sense of how fast you typically respond
• Nearest hospital with an emergency department, name and rough drive time
• Nearest urgent care, for the far more common non-emergency
• Fire extinguisher and first aid kit locations
• Water shutoff, gas shutoff, and circuit breaker locations
• The non-emergency police line, for things that need reporting but not sirens

That's the whole card. It doesn't need a list of every possible scenario, just the handful of things a guest genuinely couldn't work out on their own in a hurry.

Water shutoff earns its place more than fire does

Fire gets all the attention on safety cards. In practice, the emergency a short-term rental actually sees is water.

A supply hose lets go behind a washing machine, a toilet overflows, a radiator valve fails. A guest who knows where the stopcock is turns a mopping job into a non-event. A guest who doesn't stands there watching it spread while texting you, and if you're asleep or out of signal, that's a floor and possibly a ceiling.

Say where the shutoff is and, if it isn't obvious, what it looks like and which way it turns.

Print it, don't link it

An emergency card is the one piece of guest information that should not live only in a digital welcome book.

The moments it exists for are the moments when a phone is dead, or dropped, or already in use calling someone, and when nobody wants to navigate a menu. Paper works with no battery, no signal, and no login, and it works for the guest's teenager or friend who never got sent the link in the first place.

Somewhere fixed and findable without hunting: on the fridge, inside a kitchen cabinet door, taped inside the entry closet. High contrast, large enough to read at arm's length, and in a spot you'd be able to describe over the phone yourself.

Check the details are still true

Unlike most host tasks, this one barely needs maintenance. But the facts on it can quietly go stale.

Hospitals close departments. Urgent care clinics move. Your own phone number changes. Once a year, read the card as though you're using it, and confirm the hospital still has an emergency department and the numbers still connect. That's the whole maintenance burden.

A ready emergency info card gives you a filled-out example to edit rather than a blank page, so the whole thing takes a few minutes. If you're putting together the rest of the printed set at the same time, what to actually print and post at check-in covers which other pieces are worth having on paper.