Airbnb House Manual Template

Most house manuals fail for the same reason: hosts treat them like a fire-drill binder, and guests treat them like a movie credit roll. Twelve pages of bold text, two color photos of the breaker box, and a five-paragraph essay on garbage day — nobody reads it. Then at 11 PM the guest texts you asking which remote turns on the TV.

The fix is not a longer manual, it is a sharper one. This page gives you an Airbnb house manual template you can paste into a Notion page, a Touch Stay guide, a printed binder, or a wall-mounted Fire HD 10. It is built for hosts running smart-home gear — locks, thermostats, voice assistants, smart TVs — because that is where most guest confusion lives. Every section is short on purpose. Every section answers the question a guest is actually about to ask. Skip what does not apply, paste in your specifics, and you have a manual that gets used instead of ignored. If you want the deeper digital-only treatment, our Airbnb digital house manual guide covers tablet-kiosk setup end to end.

Who this template is for

You own or co-host one to ten short-term rentals. You have at least one smart device on the property — usually a Schlage Encode or Yale Assure on the door, an Ecobee Premium or Nest Learning on the wall, maybe a Sonos One in the living room or a Philips Hue lamp by the bed.

You are tired of the same five guest questions hitting your phone every check-in: Wi-Fi password, how do I lock up, why is the thermostat blinking, where is the trash, how does the TV work. This template handles all of them on one page. If you run a more analog rental — mechanical lock, dial thermostat, regular TV — the structure still works; just delete the smart-home rows you do not need.

The complete Airbnb house manual template

Paste this into whatever platform hosts your manual. Replace bracketed fields with your specifics. Keep the section headings intact — guests scan, they do not read.

Wi-Fi

Network: [network name]
Password: [password]
Both bands are on the same name; your phone will pick the better one. If the connection drops, the eero 6 router is in [closet/cabinet location] — unplug it for 20 seconds and plug it back in. For the long version of this section, see our Airbnb Wi-Fi instructions template.

Front door / smart lock

Your code is in your Airbnb message. To unlock: press the [Schlage Encode / Yale Assure] button to wake the keypad, enter the code, then press the lock button or wait three seconds. The lock will chime once when it opens. To lock from the inside, press the lock icon — or just close the door, it auto-locks after 30 seconds. The code expires at 11 AM on your checkout date. The full smart lock instructions template drops straight into this slot if you want a longer version.

Thermostat

The [Ecobee Premium / Nest Learning / Honeywell T9] is in the hallway. The setpoint is locked between [68] and [76] for system efficiency — tap the up or down arrows on the screen to adjust within that range, or say "Alexa, set the temperature to 72". If the screen is blank, give it 30 seconds; it sleeps after activity. Do not turn the unit off at the breaker. Drop in our Airbnb thermostat instructions template if you want the deeper version with brand-specific buttons.

TV

One Roku Voice Remote runs everything — it is on the coffee table. Press the round center button to wake it. Use the four buttons at the top for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and YouTube. Sign in with your own accounts if you want to watch your stuff; we sign out the cleaner each turnover, so anything left signed in will not be there. To turn off, hold the power button for two seconds. Pair this with our Airbnb TV instructions template for the long-form version.

Alexa / voice assistant

The Echo Show 8 on the kitchen counter handles lights, music, and the thermostat. Try:

"Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights."
"Alexa, set the temperature to 72."
"Alexa, play [artist] on Sonos."
"Alexa, good night." — this turns off all lights and locks the front door.

The microphone-off button is on top if you want privacy. There is no camera and no recording inside the home. Need a fuller voice-command sheet? Use our Airbnb Alexa instructions template.

Appliances

Coffee: [Nespresso Vertuo / Breville drip] machine on the counter; pods/grounds are in the cabinet to the right. Dishwasher: Cascade pods are under the sink; press start, no special cycle needed. Washer/dryer: regular cycle handles most loads; pods are on the shelf above. Trash: bins are in [garage/side yard]; pickup is [day]. Recycling goes in the blue bin. The appliance instructions template covers each row in detail if you want to expand.

House rules

No smoking inside.
No parties or events.
Quiet hours after 10 PM.
Pets [allowed/not allowed] — [details].
Outdoor Ring Video Doorbell at the front entry. No cameras or microphones inside.

Checkout

Checkout is by [11 AM]. Before you go: load the dishwasher and start it, put used towels in the bathtub, take any trash out to the bin in [location], and just close the front door — it locks itself. That is all we need.

If something is wrong

Message me through the Airbnb app or text [phone] for anything urgent — lockout, no power, no hot water. I respond within 15 minutes during the day and an hour overnight. Cleaner contact: [name / phone] for towels and supplies.

Why the structure works

Notice what is not in there: a welcome paragraph, a paragraph about the neighborhood, a section on local restaurants, a thank-you letter from the host. Those belong in a different document — the welcome card, the local recommendations sheet, the digital city guide.

The house manual has one job: answer operational questions fast. Nine sections, one screen of scrolling on a phone, every heading a question the guest is silently asking. When you stack everything onto one mega-document, guests give up. When you split content by purpose, the manual gets read.

How to customize the Airbnb house manual template

Walk through your property with this template open and edit each section in real time. If a row does not apply, delete it — do not leave "N/A" placeholders.
Name the actual gear. "Schlage Encode" beats "smart lock." "Ecobee Premium" beats "thermostat." Specifics save guest support time.
Add one photo per section if you are publishing digitally — a phone snap of the actual remote, the actual lock keypad. Skip stock photos.
Test it on a friend who has never been to the property. Ask them to find the Wi-Fi, change the temperature, and lock up. If any step takes more than 30 seconds, rewrite that section.
Update it once a quarter. Old appliance instructions and old voice commands are the source of half your repeat questions.

Where the manual should live

Three places, in order of how often guests use them. First, an in-home tablet on the kitchen counter or wall — a Fire HD 10 or iPad in kiosk mode pinned to a Notion page or hosted PDF. Second, a digital link in your Airbnb pre-arrival message: a Touch Stay, Hostfully, or hosted-PDF URL guests can save to their phone. Third, a single printed card with just the door code, Wi-Fi, and your phone number, on the kitchen island. The printed card is the fallback when batteries die and Wi-Fi drops. The tablet is the daily-use surface. The digital link is what guests pull up at 10 PM from the couch.

If you want a smart-home-first variant of the same template, use our smart home house manual template — it leans harder on routines, voice commands, and unlock-triggered scenes.

Common pitfalls

Writing in paragraphs. Manuals are reference material, not essays. Use short headings, fragments, and bullets.
Burying the door code. Even though it is in the messaging thread, restate it on the manual's first page. Guests who lock themselves out look at the manual, not their inbox.
Listing too many voice commands. Pick three or four. The rest go on a smart-home cheat sheet linked separately if guests want it.
Conflicting info between Airbnb listing, manual, and welcome message. Pick one canonical source for each fact (checkout time, pet policy, Wi-Fi) and link the others to it.
Putting indoor cameras anywhere. Even mentioning them implies surveillance. Outdoor doorbell only, and say so explicitly. Our privacy-safe monitoring guide walks through the disclosure language to use in the listing and the manual.

Frequently asked questions

Should the Airbnb house manual template be digital or printed?

Both, but heavier on digital. A wall-mounted Fire HD 10 or a phone-friendly link gets used dozens of times per stay; a printed binder gets opened once. Print only the items that matter when tech fails — door code, Wi-Fi, host phone, fire extinguisher location. Everything else — appliance instructions, smart lock instructions template, thermostat detail — lives on the digital version where you can edit it without reprinting.

How long should an Airbnb digital house manual be?

One screen of phone scrolling per major topic. If your Wi-Fi instructions section runs more than 50 words, you have written too much. The same applies to the thermostat, the TV, and the appliance sections. Aim for 30-50 words per section, with one bolded value (the network name, the setpoint, the channel) so guests can find it at a glance.

Do I need a separate smart home house manual template?

No, just integrate the smart-home rows into the main manual the way the template above does. A separate document means guests have to know which one to open. The exception is a one-page "voice command cheat sheet" you can leave next to the Echo Show 8 — that is helpful as a supplement, not a replacement. The main manual still owns the canonical Alexa instructions.

Where do house rules go — in the manual or as a separate Airbnb house rules script?

Both, but the version in the house manual is the short list (no smoking, no parties, quiet hours, pets). The longer Airbnb house rules script — with consequences, fees, and policy language — lives in your Airbnb listing's House Rules field, where guests must agree to it at booking. Repeating the long version inside the home reads as adversarial. The short version inside the manual is just confirmation.

Next steps

Copy the template above into a Notion page or Google Doc, customize it for your property in under 30 minutes, and load it onto a kitchen Fire HD 10 today. For more, see the broader house manual template library.