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Airbnb house rules template: protection without policing
House rules are the only part of your listing that doubles as a legal document: guests agree to them when they book, which makes them the evidence base for damage claims, extra-guest charges, and cancellations. They are also the first place a great stay can go wrong, because a wall of thirty ALL-CAPS prohibitions tells guests you expect the worst of them. The fix is a short list of specific, enforceable rules written like a human. Here is the template, then the thinking behind every line.
The template
Copy it, fill in the brackets, delete what does not apply. Every line below earns its place, and the sections that follow explain how.
Welcome! A few things that keep this home great for you and every guest after you: CHECK-IN & CHECKOUT Check-in is anytime after [4:00 PM]; checkout is by [10:00 AM]. Need different times? Just ask, we say yes when the calendar allows. WHO'S STAYING The home sleeps [6] and hosts only registered guests overnight. Planning to have a friend visit during the day? Message us first, it's usually fine. NO PARTIES OR EVENTS Gatherings beyond your registered guests aren't allowed. One noise complaint from a neighbor can end a stay, so please don't put us there. QUIET HOURS [10 PM to 8 AM]. Voices and music carry outdoors, especially [on the deck / near the hot tub]. NO SMOKING No smoking or vaping inside. Outside is fine at least [25 feet] from doors and windows; there's an ashtray on [the patio table]. An interior smoke smell costs a [$250] deep-clean fee. PETS [We love dogs: up to two, under [50] lbs, [$X] pet fee, never on the beds. / We can't host pets in this home due to allergies.] THE [HOT TUB / POOL] [Hours, cover rules, no glass, kids supervised.] Used at your own risk. PARKING [Two cars in the driveway, single file. Free street parking out front, no permit needed.] BREAKAGES & DAMAGE Things happen. If something breaks, just tell us before checkout so we can fix it for the next guest; honesty costs far less than a surprise. CAMERAS For everyone's security there is one exterior camera facing [the front door / driveway]. There are no cameras indoors, ever. Questions about any of this? Message us anytime. We'd rather answer twice than have you wonder.
Replace everything in brackets, delete rules that do not apply to your property, and resist adding more than two of your own.
Specific beats stern
The most common mistake is writing rules as moral positions instead of measurable facts. 'Respect the property' protects nothing, because no claim was ever won on it. 'No smoking inside; an interior smoke smell costs a $250 deep-clean fee' names the behavior, the boundary, and the consequence, which is exactly what a resolution-center claim needs. Numbers make rules real: 25 feet, 10 PM, two cars, 50 pounds.
Ten rules, not thirty
Every host who has been burned adds a rule, and after a few years the list reads like a settlement agreement. Guests stop reading somewhere around rule twelve, which means your genuinely important rules are now hidden behind your least important ones. Cap the list at roughly ten. If a rule has never been broken and would cost you nothing if it were, it is a preference, not a rule; put preferences in the guidebook as friendly notes instead.
The party rule and the occupancy rule are different rules
Most templates conflate them. Occupancy is about who sleeps there: registered guests only, because your insurance, your septic system, and your neighbors all care about headcount. The party rule is about events: even a registered-guests-only stay can invite forty people at 9 PM. You want both rules stated separately, because you enforce them differently: extra overnight guests are a fee conversation, a party is a cancellation conversation.
Cameras: the rule most templates get wrong
Since March 2024, Airbnb bans indoor security cameras entirely, no matter where they point or what they record, and requires exterior cameras and noise monitors to be disclosed in the listing. Vrbo has similar disclosure requirements. So your camera rule has one job: state plainly where the exterior cameras are and that there are none inside. Hosts who skip this face the single fastest route to a removed listing and a refunded stay; hosts who state it clearly turn a liability into a trust signal.
Write the consequences you will actually enforce
A fee you never charge trains guests that your rules are decorative, and a threat you cannot execute (eviction at midnight over a candle) reads as hostile. The breakage rule in the template shows the alternative posture: invite honesty, make it cheap to confess, and reserve consequences for concealment. Hosts consistently report that guests who are invited to report damage do, and the ones who feel policed hide it.
Where the rules should live
Three places. Your listing's house rules field, because that is what guests legally agree to at booking. Your digital guidebook, because that is what guests actually open during the stay, ideally as its own section with the same friendly wording. And anywhere the rule is enforced physically: the quiet-hours reminder near the hot tub, the parking note by the door. A printed page in a binder counts only if you accept that most guests will never open the binder.
Revisit once a year, not after every incident
Rules written the morning after a bad stay come out angry, and angry rules cost bookings for years. When something goes wrong, note it, wait a month, then decide whether it was a pattern or a one-off. One broken wine glass is not a no-red-wine rule; it is a line item and a better glass.
Build a guide guests actually open
Tabellara turns this advice into a working guidebook: app-style guides, area maps, and page-level analytics.
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