Your Airbnb house manual is not a formality. It is the document that determines whether guests feel taken care of or left to figure things out on their own. The difference shows up in your reviews.
After three years of hosting in Long Beach and earning both Superhost and Guest Favorite status, I can tell you: a good house manual does not just answer questions. It prevents them from being asked in the first place.
Here is what to include, how to structure it, and what separates a manual that guests actually read from one that sits unopened on the counter.
What Is an Airbnb House Manual?
Airbnb gives every host a built-in “House Manual” field in their listing settings. Guests can access it through the app before and during their stay. It is the place to document anything a guest needs to know about the property itself.
Most hosts fill it in with a few bullet points. The hosts who consistently earn 5-star reviews treat it like a real document: organized, thorough, and specific to their property.
What to Include in Your Airbnb House Manual
Check-In Instructions
Be specific. Include the exact address (not just the one in your listing), parking instructions for the first night, access codes or key locations, and the step-by-step process for getting inside. If anything is easy to miss or confusing in person, explain it here.
WiFi Information
Put this first, or at minimum, make it impossible to miss. Every guest asks for the WiFi password. Every single one. Save yourself the message.
How to Use the Appliances
This is where most hosts underinvest. Every property has at least one thing that needs explaining: a finicky oven, a smart TV with an unusual remote, a washer that requires a specific cycle, a thermostat that only one person in the world understands.
Write short instructions for each appliance a guest is likely to use. Bullet points work fine. Photos help even more.
House Rules
Airbnb gives you a separate field for house rules, but repeating the most important ones in your manual keeps everything in one place. Write them clearly and explain the why when it helps. Rules feel less like restrictions when guests understand the reason behind them.
Check-Out Instructions
Tell guests exactly what you expect when they leave. Dishes in the dishwasher and started? Trash in the outdoor bin? Towels left in the bathroom? Key returned to the lockbox? A short, specific list removes any ambiguity and reduces the chances of a dispute over the deposit.
Emergency Information
Include your contact number, a backup contact, the nearest urgent care clinic, and a local pharmacy. You also want guests to have the non-emergency police line for situations that need local attention but are not 911 emergencies.
Local Recommendations
This section turns a house manual into something guests actually enjoy reading. Your neighborhood has restaurants, coffee shops, parks, and spots that do not make the typical tourist lists. Share them.
Include:
- Your top restaurant recommendation
- The best coffee within walking or driving distance
- A grocery store that is convenient for a stock-up
- Anything seasonal or local worth knowing about
Guests remember these suggestions. They sometimes mention them by name in reviews.
What Most Hosts Get Wrong
The most common mistake is writing a house manual that is either too thin (a few bullet points that leave guests guessing) or too long (a wall of text that no one reads past the first paragraph).
The goal is a document that is comprehensive enough to answer every likely question, and organized well enough that guests can find any specific piece of information in under 30 seconds.
That means clear section headers, short paragraphs, and no assumption that guests will read start to finish. Most will skim.
Digital vs. Physical: Which Format Works Better?
Airbnb’s built-in manual lives in the app. It is accessible before arrival and during the stay, which is useful. But it disappears after check-out, it is not easy to browse casually, and it does not work for guests who are not constantly checking their phones.
A physical guidebook left in the property solves all of these problems. Guests pick it up when they arrive, flip through it over coffee, and refer back to it throughout the stay without opening an app.
The best setup is both: a digital version guests can access before arrival, and a printed version waiting in the property when they get there.
How to Build One Without Starting from Scratch
A Canva template is the fastest path to a house manual that looks professional and covers every section you need. The Complete Airbnb Guidebook template is built specifically for short-term rental hosts, with sections for all of the above, laid out in a design that reflects the care you put into your property.
It takes about an hour to customize for your space. Once it is done, you print it, leave it in the unit, and watch it show up in your reviews.
The Reviews That Come from a Good House Manual
Guests do not usually write “the house manual was excellent.” What they write is: “Everything was so easy to find,” “We never had to ask a single question,” “The host thought of everything,” “Felt like a 5-star hotel experience.”
Those reviews come from a house manual that does its job quietly and completely. That is the goal.
If you are serious about the guest experience, treat your house manual like a product. Design it with intention, update it when things change, and make it something guests are glad they found.