A guest needs an invoice for work. What can you give them?

"Could you send me an invoice for my stay? I need it for expenses." It's a common message from business travellers, and it can make hosts nervous. Do you have to produce one? What should it say? In most cases, Airbnb has already done the work.

Start with Airbnb's receipt

Every Airbnb booking comes with a receipt the guest can download. It shows the listing, dates, nightly price, fees, taxes Airbnb collected, and the total paid. For most employers and expense systems, that's enough.

Guests find it in their trips in the Airbnb app or website. Point them there first:

Thanks for staying. Airbnb provides a full receipt for every booking. You'll find it in your Trips, under this stay, and you can download it as a PDF.

Short, helpful, and usually the end of it.

Adding business details

Some companies need their name or a business address on the receipt. Airbnb generally lets guests add these themselves when they download it. If they're travelling on a company account, Airbnb's business travel tools may also handle this.

If a guest asks you to add a company name, explain that they can do it from their receipt. You don't need to edit anything.

When the receipt isn't enough

Occasionally a guest needs something more formal, often a tax invoice showing a registration number. This is where it depends on your situation:

• If you're not registered for any sales tax or VAT, you generally don't have a registration number to show, and Airbnb's receipt is the right document.
• If you are registered, the rules where you live may require you to issue a proper invoice on request. What it must include varies by country.

Tax on short-term letting is very local. Our post on tracking income and expenses covers keeping good records, and an accountant can tell you what applies to you. Don't guess on this.

Never create a receipt that doesn't match

You might be asked to change the dates, split the amount, or add things that weren't part of the stay. Don't. A receipt or invoice must match exactly what was booked and paid. Changing it could be fraud on the guest's employer, and it's your name on it.

If a guest pushes, a polite no is enough:

I'm sorry, I can only provide records that match the booking exactly. The Airbnb receipt shows the full breakdown.

Our post on saying no to a guest's request has more on keeping these refusals friendly.

Extra charges paid separately

If a guest paid you anything through Airbnb's Resolution Centre, like an extra guest fee or a damage payment, those transactions have their own records in Airbnb. Point the guest to them rather than making your own.

Watch for requests that don't add up

Most invoice requests are exactly what they look like. Occasionally one isn't. Be careful if someone who hasn't booked asks for an invoice to "get approval first" and wants you to send payment details by email, or if a guest asks you to send an invoice to a different email address to pay the balance outside Airbnb. Both are ways to move money off the platform, and you lose every protection that comes with it. Keep payments and receipts inside Airbnb.

A note for long work stays

Companies booking stays of a month or more sometimes need extra paperwork, like a supplier form or proof of address for the property. That's fine to provide if it's genuine and matches the booking. If the request comes through a corporate travel tool, the company may already have most of what it needs from Airbnb directly, so ask what's missing before filling anything in.

Make it easy next time

If you get a lot of business travellers, add a line to your listing or your welcome book: "Need a receipt for work? You'll find one in your Airbnb trips." It saves you a message and makes your place look set up for work stays, which is a reason those guests book again.