Airbnb’s New House Rules: What You Can Still Ask Guests at Checkout

Short version: Airbnb has a new policy on house rules, and it applies to every reservation booked on or after November 20, 2026. You can still ask guests to put dishes in the sink, gather used towels, sort trash into the indoor bins and turn off the air conditioning when they leave. You can no longer ask them to wash dishes, strip beds, start laundry or take garbage off-site. Every rule and request now has to live in the listing itself, not in a message or on a sign. Here is what changed and a checklist to get your listing ready in time.

What changed?

On October 20, 2026, Airbnb published “Important changes to house rules” in its Resource Center and changed the house rules tools in the listing editor the same day. Your listing now has seven standard house rules: maximum overnight guests, quiet hours, events, pets, smoking (including vaping), commercial photography, and lock up at checkout, with an optional note on where to return keys. Maximum overnight guests and lock up at checkout are new. Checkout instructions no longer have their own tab. Anything else you want guests to do goes under Requests.

The new policy, “Reasonable house rules and requests,” applies to all reservations booked on or after November 20, 2026. A reservation booked before that date is not covered, even if the stay is in December. In practice you want one set of rules for every guest, so the simplest plan is to update your listing before November 20.

What can you still ask guests to do at checkout?

Airbnb gives four examples. Each one has a version you can no longer ask for and a version that is still fine.

Locking up is now a standard rule, so you can still require it. The trash line is the one hosts ask about most. Airbnb’s examples stop at the indoor bins. Asking guests to wheel a cart to the curb is not named either way, so the safe version is to ask for the indoor bins and leave the outdoor part to your cleaner.

What counts as an unreasonable request?

The policy says hosts generally may not require tasks that take significant effort or time, or that a cleaner would normally do. It also rules out three other things that show up in a lot of listings:

• Restricting a feature you advertise. If the listing shows a pool, a hot tub or air conditioning, guests get to use it. A fee for an advertised feature has to be included in the price shown at booking. Fees for optional extras, such as breakfast, can still be described in your requests.
• Fines and penalties. Lines like “a fee applies if the trash is not taken out” are out. If your HOA or city could fine you for something a guest does, such as noise or street parking, say so in the house rules section instead.
• Extra paperwork. Hosts may not require guests to sign a separate contract or hand over personal information such as a government ID, except where the law requires it or in the limited cases Airbnb lists.

Airbnb says it will look at each listing in context and may allow exceptions for local conditions. Its own examples are animal-proof trash containers in bear country and shorter showers during local drought restrictions.

Can you still put rules in messages or on signs?

Not new ones. Every house rule and request has to be in the “House rules and requests” section of the listing at the time of booking, so a guest can decide before booking whether the home suits them. You may not add rules in other parts of the listing, after booking, by message, on signs in the home or in person, and the rules have to match the rest of the listing page.

You can still remind guests of the rules that are already there. Airbnb shows house rules more prominently before booking, in the guest’s Trips tab and in reservation reminders, and hosts can send them during a stay as a quick reply. What you cannot do is use the checkout message to add a chore the listing never mentioned. A scheduled message that says “before you leave, please start the dishwasher and take the trash to the curb” now breaks the policy twice: the request itself, and where it appears. The policy does not mention guidebooks, but the same logic points one way: a guidebook or a checkout card on the counter should repeat the listing’s rules and add nothing new.

What happens if your listing does not comply?

Requests that break the policy are highlighted in the listing editor with a tip for fixing them, and Airbnb emails the host with resolution tips and a chance to appeal. If the issue is not resolved, guests may see an alert on the listing that it “includes cleaning requests.” Under the policy itself, Airbnb may also issue warnings, and for a violation that continues it may post a notice on the listing or reduce its visibility in search. For a host, an alert like that next to the booking button is the real cost.

What about contracts and rental agreements?

A separate contract is allowed only for a few reasons: legal requirements, homeowners association rules, rental agreements for monthly stays, Airbnb Luxe listings, and coverage for optional amenities such as golf carts. You upload it under Contracts in your listing settings. Airbnb does not enforce these contracts or require guests to sign them.

If you take 30-night stays, keep your rental agreement and upload it there. Our guide to mid-term vs short-term rentals in Texas covers why a written agreement matters for a month-long guest, and how we manage mid-term stays explains how we run them.

Will your cleaning cost change?

It might. If your turnover price assumed guests had already stripped the beds, started the dishwasher and taken the trash out, your cleaner now does that work. Ask your cleaner before November 20 whether the scope or the price changes, and update the turnover checklist so nothing gets missed. If the price goes up, remember that Airbnb’s host fee now comes out of the cleaning fee too, so check the numbers with our host-only fee repricing calculator before you change it.

A checklist to finish before November 20

1. Open House rules and requests in the listing editor for each listing and look for highlighted requests.
2. Remove washing dishes, stripping beds, starting laundry and taking garbage off-site. Replace them with the allowed versions: dishes in the sink, towels gathered, trash sorted into the indoor bins, AC off.
3. Set the two new standard rules: maximum overnight guests, and lock up at checkout with where to leave the keys.
4. Move any rule that only lives in a message, a guidebook or a sign into the listing, or drop it.
5. Rewrite your scheduled check-in and checkout messages so they remind guests of the listing’s rules and add nothing new.
6. Remove any fines. If your HOA or city can fine you, say so in the house rules section instead.
7. Tell your cleaner what guests will no longer do, and agree the new turnover scope.
8. If you take monthly stays, upload your rental agreement under Contracts.

Does your manager handle this?

Ask. A manager should be able to show you your listing’s house rules, the checkout message guests receive and the cleaner’s turnover list, and tell you all three match Airbnb’s new policy. At HostStarter, house rules, guest messages and turnover checklists are part of the listing work we do for the homes we manage in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and Nevada, included in our full-service fee of 12.5% of revenue plus $99/month. If you are thinking about handing your listing over, ask us for a free revenue projection.