Airbnb check-out instructions template
A check-out list works when it's short enough that a guest running late for a flight will still do it, and clear enough that nothing gets missed.
- A short checklist guests will actually finish
- Explicit note on what they don't need to do
- Late checkout and forgotten-item lines included
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Click any line to rewrite it. Add headings, bullets, or checkboxes, drag to reorder, and delete what you do not need.
Add a checkout task
Check-out instructions
Tips
- 1If a step isn't strictly necessary, cut it. Every extra ask on a check-out list is something a rushed guest will skip anyway.
- 2Keep it to five or six steps. A long list reads as demanding even when the individual asks are reasonable.
- 3Say explicitly what guests don't need to do, that's often more reassuring than the list of what they do.
When you need Check-out instructions
Check-out instructions exist to protect the turnover, not to extract free labour. Every item you add is a minute your cleaner does not have to spend and a minute the guest has to. The balance matters: a short, reasonable list gets completed, and a long one gets skimmed and abandoned halfway.
The bigger reason to write this down is that unstated expectations become review problems. A guest who did not know you wanted the bins taken out has not done anything wrong, but a host who is annoyed about it will show it, and that shows up in the review. Writing it down converts an unspoken grievance into a simple instruction.
Where it goes
On the fridge or by the door, where a guest packing up will physically pass it, and in a message the morning of checkout. Not in the welcome book, because nobody reopens the welcome book on the last day. If you only do one, do the sign, since it is there whether or not they read the message.
Common mistakes
Asking for too much
Strip the bed, run the dishwasher, take out the bins, sweep, water the plants. Each item feels small alone; together they read as unpaid work, and guests who feel that way say so in reviews.
Not saying what they can skip
Telling guests they do not need to strip the bed or clean the bathroom is often more reassuring than the list of what they do need to do. It signals the cleaning fee is doing its job.
Silence on late checkout
If you cannot offer it because of a same-day turnover, say so in advance. A guest who asks at 10am and gets a no feels refused; one who read it three days earlier feels informed.
No forgotten-item process
Someone will leave a charger. One line about what happens next saves a stressful exchange at exactly the moment the guest is about to leave a review.
Printing this is fine. Coho turns it into a page guests actually open.
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