The check-in day message is the single highest-stakes automated message you'll ever send. Get it right and your guest walks in without texting you once. Get it wrong and you're on the phone at 11pm talking someone through a lockbox in the dark.

This post gives you a copy-paste check-in day message template, plus variants for smart locks, lockboxes, and late arrivals. But first, the 40-second version.

What to send on check-in day

Send one short message on the morning of arrival containing the door code or lockbox location, a photo of the entrance, parking instructions, your check-in time, and a direct line for help. Keep it under 150 words. Everything else (WiFi, house rules, local tips) belongs in your guidebook link, not the message.

That's the formula. The rest of this post explains why each piece matters, what most hosts get wrong, and exactly what to write.

This is not your pre-arrival message

Hosts mix these up constantly, and the confusion costs them. Your guest journey has three separate messages around arrival, and they do different jobs:

The pre-arrival message goes out around 3 days before check-in. It confirms dates, asks about arrival time, and flags anything the guest needs to plan for (ferry timetables, supermarket hours, that sort of thing). No door codes yet. Codes sent three days early get buried under 40 WhatsApp messages and two boarding passes by the time anyone needs them.

The check-in day message goes out on the morning of arrival. This one carries the code, the photos, and the parking note. It's the message guests actually open while standing outside your property.

The welcome message goes out after they're inside. It's short and warm, checks the entry went smoothly, and points to the guidebook. If you need wording for that one, steal from our Airbnb welcome message templates.

Why split them? Because a message does one job well or three jobs badly. I learned this the slow way: my early check-in messages ran 400 words and covered everything from bin collection to the dishwasher quirk. Guests skimmed them, missed the door code buried in paragraph four, and messaged me anyway. The full sequence, with timing for every message from booking to review, is mapped out in our complete timeline for guest communication.

When exactly to send it

Between 8am and 10am local time on the day of arrival.

Early enough that guests see it before they set off. Late enough that it sits at the top of their inbox instead of under last night's messages. If your guest confirmed a late arrival (after 8pm), send it around midday instead so it's fresher when they land.

Some hosts send codes the night before. I'd avoid it. A code sent at 9pm gets read on the sofa, half-remembered, and hunted for the next day at the airport. A code sent at 9am gets read over breakfast on travel day, when arrival logistics are the only thing on the guest's mind.

One exception: guests arriving on a red-eye or before 9am. Send the message the previous evening, and say so in your pre-arrival note ("I'll send your entry details tomorrow evening since you're arriving early").

The check-in day message template

Copy this, swap the brackets, save it as a scheduled message:

Morning [First name]! Today's the day. Here's everything you need to get in:

🏠 Address: [full address]

🕒 Check-in: anytime from [time]

🔑 Door code: [code] (keypad on the left of the door, photo below)

🚗 Parking: [one clear sentence, e.g. "Use the gravel space directly in front of the house, not the neighbour's paved drive"]

[Photo of the entrance] [Photo of the keypad or lockbox]

Everything else (WiFi, heating, our favourite bakery) is in your digital guide: [guidebook link]

If anything at all goes wrong on the way, call or text me directly on [number]. I answer fast on arrival days.

That last line is doing more work than it looks like. More on it below.

Why this structure works

The code sits high, on its own line, with a visual anchor. A guest standing in the rain with 8% battery can find it in two seconds. That's the entire design brief.

The parking line is one sentence because parking instructions expand to fill whatever space you give them. If yours genuinely can't fit in a sentence, put the full version in your guidebook and link to that section directly. Same rule for entry steps: if your building needs more than "code in the keypad", write proper self check-in instructions guests will actually follow and link them.

And nothing else. No house rules recap, no checkout time, no WiFi password. Every extra line pushes the code further from the top and raises the odds the guest reads none of it.

The two photos that prevent 90% of arrival problems

Text describes. Photos confirm. Attach exactly two:

Photo 1: the entrance, from the street. Taken from where the guest will actually stand, at eye level, ideally at dusk with the porch light on. Guests arrive at night more often than hosts photograph at night. If your door is one of four identical blue doors, this photo is the difference between a smooth entry and a guest trying their code on your neighbour's keypad. This happens. Ask me about apartment 4B sometime.

Photo 2: the lock itself. The keypad, lockbox, or handle, close up, with a finger pointing to anything non-obvious ("press the * key first"). Keypads differ. Some want a code then a tick, some want CODE then #, some light up only after you touch them. The photo answers the question before it becomes a phone call.

Take them once, attach them to your saved message, and they work for every booking. Ten minutes of effort, permanently banked.

Door code security: three rules

A door code in a message thread is a key you've posted through the internet, so treat it with mild paranoia.

Rotate codes between guests. If you're on a smart lock, generate a per-stay code (most smart locks tie codes to booking dates automatically). If you're on a fixed-code lockbox, change it monthly at minimum, and always after a bad guest experience. A guest from March shouldn't be able to open your door in July.

Send the code on arrival day only. This is the security argument for the timing rule above. The shorter the window between code-sent and guest-inside, the smaller the exposure.

Never put the code and the full address in a public place together. Fine in a private Airbnb thread. Not fine in a review reply, a listing description, or a screenshot you share for help in a host forum with the details unblurred.

Variants for different setups

Smart lock version

🔑 Your personal entry code: [code]. It's active from [time] today until checkout. Type the code and the lock opens automatically, no confirm button needed.

The phrase "active from [time]" quietly enforces your check-in time without a rules lecture. Guests who show up at noon discover the code works at 3pm, exactly as the message said.

Lockbox version

🔑 Keys are in the lockbox mounted [precise location, e.g. "on the wall to the right of the garage door, at knee height"]. Code: [code]. Scroll the dials, press the black lever down, and the front pops open. Please shuffle the dials after you've closed it.

Lockboxes need one extra sentence of operating instructions because, unlike a keypad, the failure mode is silent: the guest enters the right code, pulls instead of pressing, and concludes the code is wrong.

Late arrival version

Add this block for anyone arriving after dark:

Arriving late? No problem, check-in is self-service whenever you land. The porch light stays on and the code works all night. Text me when you're in so I know you made it, even at 2am.

That last sentence isn't fluff. Guests arriving at midnight in a foreign country are quietly anxious, and "even at 2am" tells them they're not an inconvenience. Anxious guests who feel looked after write different reviews than anxious guests who felt alone. If reviews are your current focus, our guide on getting more 5-star reviews on Airbnb goes deeper on exactly this effect.

The reassurance line

Every check-in day message ends the same way: a direct phone number and a promise of speed.

If anything at all goes wrong on the way, call or text me directly on [number]. I answer fast on arrival days.

Here's the counterintuitive part: including this line reduces the number of calls you get. Guests with no escape hatch escalate small worries into big ones ("what if the code doesn't work and I can't reach anyone?"). Guests with a visible safety net relax, try the keypad twice, and get in. The line is an insurance policy that lowers its own claim rate.

Two details matter. "Directly" signals they're skipping the platform inbox and reaching an actual human. And "on arrival days" makes the speed promise credible without committing you to 24/7 instant replies for the whole stay.

What to leave out (and where it goes instead)

The discipline of the check-in day message is subtraction. Here's where the usual clutter belongs:

WiFi password. Guidebook. Nobody needs WiFi while standing outside. Inside, they'll open your guide on mobile data, and the password should be the first thing they see.

House rules. Guests agreed to them at booking, and a rules recap hours before arrival reads as distrust. Keep the full set in your listing and your guide. If your rules need work, start from our Airbnb house rules template.

Checkout instructions. Sending departure logistics before the guest has arrived is a strange welcome. They get their own message the evening before checkout; here's the checkout instructions template for that one.

Appliance guides, bin schedules, local tips. All guidebook material. If you haven't built one yet, what to include in your Airbnb guidebook covers the full list, and a house manual built step by step handles the how.

The pattern: the message carries what's needed in the next four hours. The guide carries everything after.

When the message fails anyway

Even a perfect message meets reality sometimes. Three failure modes worth planning for:

Dead phone. The guest lands, phone at 2%, and your beautifully structured message is unreachable. Defence: mention the code in your pre-arrival exchange too ("your entry code will be the last 4 digits of your booking phone number" style systems work here), or keep a backup lockbox with a physical key and share its location only when needed.

No signal at the property. Rural hosts know this one. The guest had your message in town, lost data on the lane, and can't reload the photos. Defence: a digital guide that works offline once opened, and a message short enough that the crucial line (the code) was memorable. This is also the honest argument for a digital guidebook over a printed welcome book: the good digital ones cache on the guest's phone, and the printed one is locked inside the house they can't enter yet.

Wrong code. You rotated the lockbox code and updated the smart lock but not the saved message template. Now the message is confidently wrong, which is worse than no message. Defence: put "check saved message codes" on your turnover checklist, next to the towels.

None of these will happen often. All of them will happen eventually. The hosts who look calm and competent in guest reviews are just the ones who decided in advance what the backup plan was. If you're still building out these systems, everything you need before your first Airbnb guest arrives is the full setup list.

Automate it once, forget it

Airbnb's scheduled messages handle the timing natively: write the template, set it to send at 9am on check-in day, insert the dynamic fields for name and dates. Booking.com and VRBO have rougher equivalents, and if you take direct bookings you'll schedule it from whatever email or SMS tool runs those.

The piece most hosts leave manual is the guidebook link, because their guidebook is a PDF that changes, or a Google Doc with a link nobody can remember. That's the bit worth fixing properly. With GuestIntro your guide lives at one permanent link that never breaks, updates instantly when you change a detail (new WiFi router, new bakery recommendation), and works on any phone with nothing to download. The free plan covers one property, so the check-in day message you write today can carry the same guide link for years.

Write the message once. Take the two photos once. Set the schedule once. Then spend arrival days doing literally anything else.

Quick answers

What should I message my Airbnb guest on check-in day?

One short message with the door code or key location, a photo of the entrance, one line of parking instructions, your check-in time, and your direct phone number. Link your digital guidebook for everything else. Under 150 words, sent between 8am and 10am.

When should I send the door code?

On the morning of arrival, not days before. Codes sent early get buried in the guest's inbox and widen your security window. The exception is very early arrivals, who should get the message the evening before.

Should check-in instructions include photos?

Yes, exactly two: the entrance from the street and a close-up of the lock or lockbox. Photos taken at dusk with lights on match what most guests actually see when they arrive.

Check-In Day Message Template (Door Codes, Photos, and Reassurance)