Most of the Airbnb house manual template advice you'll find online is really just a list. Eleven things to include. Fifteen. Twenty. All useful, until you sit down to actually write the thing and realise nobody told you what order to put it in, what to write in each section, or what to safely leave out.

So here's a different kind of template. Eight sections, in the order guests actually open them, with copy-paste text you can drop straight in and edit. I've built and rebuilt manuals across my own listings for years, and the version below is what's left after cutting everything that never got read.

Quick definition before we start, because the words get muddled. A house manual is the practical, operational document: how to get in, how things work, what the rules are, who to call. A welcome book or guidebook usually wraps that up with local recommendations and a bit of personality. They overlap. If you want the wider picture on the format itself, the digital guidebook vs printed welcome book comparison covers which one earns its keep. This piece is about the manual: the part that stops your phone buzzing at 11pm.

What should an Airbnb house manual include?

An Airbnb house manual should include eight core sections: a short welcome with your contact details, access and check-in instructions, WiFi and tech, house rules, a room-by-room "how things work" guide, checkout instructions, local recommendations, and emergency and safety information. Order them by urgency, putting access and WiFi near the top, because that's what guests reach for first.

Everything below fills in those eight. You don't need all of it. A studio flat and a five-bedroom lake house need very different manuals. Treat the template as a skeleton and put muscle only where your property actually needs it.

Section 1: Welcome and how to reach you

Two jobs here, and only two. Make the guest feel like a person booked them a stay rather than an algorithm, and tell them exactly how to get hold of you. That's it. Skip the three-paragraph life story.

The mistake I see constantly is hosts burying their phone number on page nine. Your contact details belong at the very top, because a guest who can't find them doesn't shrug and wait. They leave a frustrated review about feeling abandoned.

Welcome!

Hi [guest first name], and welcome to [property name]. We're really glad you chose us for your trip to [town/city]. Everything you need for a smooth stay is in this guide, so have a quick scroll when you arrive.

Need us?

Message us first on [Airbnb app / WhatsApp on +XX XXX XXX] between [hours]. For anything urgent outside those hours, call [phone number]. We usually reply within [X] minutes.

Set the response-time expectation and then beat it. "Within an hour" that turns into ten minutes makes you look brilliant. The reverse makes you look unreachable. If you want your tone consistent across every touchpoint, line this up with your Airbnb welcome message templates so the manual sounds like the same human who messaged them before arrival.

Section 2: Getting in (access, address, parking)

This is the section that prevents the worst possible start to a stay: a guest stood outside in the rain, bags at their feet, unable to get in. Get this right and most of your one-star risk disappears.

Be painfully specific. Not "the lockbox is by the door." Which door? What colour? What's the code, and what does a working keypad actually look like when you press the buttons? Photos do more work than sentences here. A picture of the exact gate, the exact box, the exact key beats a paragraph every time.

Address: [full address, including flat/unit number and postcode]

Parking: [Space number X / permit on the dashboard / free on Mill Street after 6pm]. A photo of the bay is below.

Getting in: [Walk to the blue door on the left. The lockbox is on the railing to its right. Enter [code] then press the tick. Lift the handle up to open.]

If the code fails: Try once more, slowly. Still stuck? Message us and we'll talk you through it in under five minutes.

Self check-in is where vague instructions cause the most pain, so it's worth treating as its own craft. If you're tightening this part up, how to write self check-in instructions your guests will actually follow goes deep on photo placement and the troubleshooting block that saves you a call.

Section 3: WiFi and the tech that confuses people

Here's a small truth that took me embarrassingly long to accept: more guests message about WiFi than about anything else. Not the hot tub. Not the parking. The WiFi password, typed slightly wrong, at the worst possible moment.

So give it its own section, near the top, in large clear text. Write the network name exactly as it appears, capital letters and all. If your password has an "l" that could be a "1" or an "O" that could be a zero, say so in brackets. Tiny detail, huge reduction in messages.

WiFi network: [exact name, case-sensitive]

Password: [exact password] (note: that's a lowercase L, not a one)

Smart TV: Already logged into Netflix and the telly. Please don't log into your own accounts, and don't log us out.

Heating: [Thermostat in the hallway. Press the dial, turn to set. Please keep it under 22°C.]

While you're listing tech, cover only the things that genuinely puzzle people: the awkward shower, the induction hob, the heating that runs on a schedule. Resist the urge to write an instruction for the toaster. Over-explaining buries the two things that matter under twenty that don't.

Section 4: House rules (clear, fair, and enforceable)

Vague rules cause disputes. Specific rules prevent them. "No parties" means nothing to a guest who thinks six friends round for drinks is just a normal evening. "No events or gatherings of more than [X] people, and no visitors staying overnight who aren't on the booking" leaves no room to argue.

Write each rule as a plain instruction, then, where it helps, a short reason. People follow rules they understand far more than rules that read like a tenancy agreement.

House rules

- Quiet hours: [10pm to 8am]. We have neighbours close by who've been lovely about the rental, and we'd like to keep it that way.

- No smoking or vaping anywhere indoors. There's an ashtray by the back step if you smoke outside.

- Pets: [Allowed / not allowed]. [If allowed: please keep them off the beds and sofas.]

- Maximum occupancy: [X] guests, as booked. No extra overnight visitors.

- Before you go out: Lock the door and take your key. The latch doesn't hold on its own.

Two things on enforceability. First, the rules in your manual should match the rules on your listing and in your messages, word for word where you can manage it, because a contradiction is a guest's favourite loophole. Second, a rule a guest never saw is a rule you can't enforce, so put the important ones in front of them more than once. For the full treatment, the Airbnb house rules template that prevents problems before they happen has rule blocks you can lift straight into this section.

Section 5: Room by room, and how things actually work

This is where you answer the questions you'd otherwise field by text. Where are the spare towels? How does the dishwasher start? Why won't the bathroom light come on (because it's the pull cord behind the door, of course)?

Go room by room, but only flag the things that aren't obvious. Nobody needs to be told where the sofa is. They do need to know that the oven runs hot, the second bedroom radiator has a quirky valve, and the bins go out on Thursday.

Kitchen: Dishwasher tablets under the sink. Press [the button on the right], close the door, done. Bins: general waste in the cupboard, recycling in the green caddy. Collection is [Thursday morning, please put the black bin out front on Wednesday night].

Bathroom: Hot water is always on. The shower runs hot quickly, so start it cool. Light is the pull cord by the door.

Living room: Spare blankets in the ottoman. The fire is decorative only, please don't light it.

A short, honest note about a quirk reads as care, not apology. "The kettle's a bit temperamental, give it a firm press" is the kind of human detail that makes a place feel looked-after. This section also quietly does review work: guests who never had to hunt for anything tend to mention exactly that, which is half of how to get more 5-star reviews on Airbnb.

Section 6: Checkout instructions

Checkout is where a relaxed guest meets a host who needs the place turned around in a few hours. Keep the list short and reasonable. Ask for five things and people do them. Ask for fifteen and they do none, then feel guilty enough to leave a slightly cooler review.

The trick is to request only what genuinely helps your cleaner, and to repeat the checkout time here even though it's on the listing. Guests forget. Bold it.

Checkout is [11am]. A quick message when you leave is appreciated.

Before you go, please:

- Strip the beds you used and pop the linen by the washing machine

- Load and start the dishwasher

- Take rubbish to the bin outside

- Pop the key back in the lockbox and scramble the code

- Close the windows and lock the door

Don't ask guests to clean. They paid a cleaning fee. Asking them to hoover and mop on top of it is the fastest way to a grumpy review, and it won't actually save your cleaner the visit. If you want the full version with seasonal tweaks, the Airbnb checkout instructions template breaks down what's fair to ask and what isn't.

Section 7: Local recommendations guests will actually use

This is the section that turns a functional manual into something guests screenshot and thank you for. But there's a catch: a list of forty restaurants is as useless as no list at all. People want your picks, not the whole high street.

Curate hard. Give a handful of genuine favourites with one honest line each about why. The independent coffee place two minutes away beats the chain they could find on any map. And the more personal the reason, the more they trust it.

Coffee: [Name], a two-minute walk. Best flat white locally, gets busy by 9am.

Dinner, casual: [Name] for proper wood-fired pizza. Book on weekends.

Dinner, a treat: [Name], about ten minutes by car. Ask for a window table.

Groceries: [Name] on [street] for a big shop, [corner shop] for milk-and-bread emergencies.

One local thing not to miss: [the walk / market / view most visitors never find].

If your area is a real draw, this section can grow into its own piece. Many hosts split it out and link to a fuller what to include in your Airbnb guidebook so the core manual stays lean and the local content has room to breathe.

Section 8: Emergencies and safety

The section everyone hopes goes unread, and the one that quietly signals you're a serious host. Cover the practical stuff people panic about: where the water shuts off, where the fuse box lives, what to do if the smoke alarm goes at 3am because someone burnt the toast.

Keep it calm and factual. A guest who can find the stopcock during a leak is a guest who doesn't leave a review titled "flooded and couldn't reach the host."

In a real emergency, call 999 (UK) / 112 (EU).

Nearest hospital with A&E: [name and address]

Nearest pharmacy: [name, address, opening hours]

Water shut-off: [under the kitchen sink, turn the lever clockwise]

Fuse box / trip switch: [in the hall cupboard. If the power cuts, flip any switch that's down back up.]

Fire: Extinguisher under the stairs, exits via the front and back doors. Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are tested between stays.

This is also where local safety specifics belong: the unfenced pond, the steep stairs, the road that's faster than it looks. Stating them protects your guests and protects you.

Digital or printed? A quick word on format

You can build all eight sections as a printed booklet on the hall table, and plenty of hosts do. It works. It also goes out of date the moment your WiFi password changes, can't be read before arrival, and slowly turns into a coffee-stained relic nobody opens.

A digital house manual fixes the parts that actually cost you. You can send it three days before check-in, so the access and parking questions never arrive. You can update the bin day once and every guest sees it. You can add a thirty-second video of the temperamental shower instead of writing three paragraphs about it. Most hosts I know keep a printed copy on the side as a backup and run the real manual digitally.

If you're weighing it up properly, the digital guidebook vs printed welcome book breakdown lays out the costs of each. And if you're setting up your very first stay, the manual slots neatly into everything you need before your first Airbnb guest arrives.

How to keep your house manual from going stale

A manual is never finished. It's a living document, and the hosts who get the most out of one treat it that way.

Every time a guest messages you with a question, ask yourself why the manual didn't answer it. Then fix the gap. Do that for a month and the questions dry up almost entirely, because you've slowly written down everything that confuses people. Send the manual ahead of arrival rather than leaving guests to find it, and pair it with your wider message flow so it lands at the right moment. The complete timeline for guest communication shows where the manual fits between booking and checkout.

Build your house manual in one place

You can absolutely write all of this in a Word doc and print it. But the version that saves you the most time is the one guests can open on their phone, before they arrive, updated once and live everywhere.

GuestIntro lets you build a digital house manual around these eight sections, share it with a single link, and update it in seconds when the bin day changes or the WiFi resets. It's free for your first property, so you can have the whole thing live before your next check-in. Start with the welcome and the access section, the two that cut the most messages, and add the rest as you go.

Get those eight sections right and you'll spend your evenings doing almost anything other than explaining how the dishwasher works.

The Airbnb House Manual Template: The 8 Sections Every Rental Needs