Booking rules
Control which dates guests can book, and how long a pending request holds them.
Booking rules decide which dates a guest can pick and how long a request holds them. All of them except the pending hold are set in one place: open the rental, then Dates & prices. With no dates selected, the panel shows Your usual settings. The rules are under Length of stay and When guests can book. The pending hold is in the Booking flow section. Two other things live elsewhere: guest counts are in the Guests & policies section, and the email a guest gets when they submit is in the Emails section.
The calendar shows every rule. Closed, Notice, Prep and Too far mark nights guests cannot book. No arrivals marks days nobody can arrive. Gap marks nights between two stays that nobody can book because of the minimum stay.
Advance notice
Set a minimum number of days between today and check-in. Those days show as closed on your calendar, so guests never pick a day they can't book. Set it under When guests can book in the rental's Dates & prices.
Prep time
Block a buffer of days between one booking and the next, so you have time to clean or prepare the rental. Like advance notice, those days show on your calendar as unavailable. Set it as the free days around each stay under When guests can book in the rental's Dates & prices.
Allowed check-in / check-out days
Restrict arrivals and departures to specific days of the week, for example, only allowing check-in on Fridays and Saturdays. Set Days guests can arrive and Days guests can leave under Length of stay in Dates & prices. To change them for one stretch of dates, select those dates and use the Arrivals and departures box.
Minimum stay
Set the fewest nights a guest can book under Length of stay in Dates & prices. Choose how it counts: Arrivals on that night, which is how Airbnb counts it, or Any stay that includes it. To give some dates their own minimum, select them and use the Minimum stay box. The calendar shows a small "4+" on those nights.
Cutoff time
Set a same-day booking cutoff. Once the cutoff time passes, that day is no longer offered for a same-day booking. Set it under When guests can book in Dates & prices.
Maximum stay
Cap how long a single stay can be, in nights. The booking form greys out check-out dates past the cap while the guest picks, and a request over the limit is rejected with a clear message. Leave the field empty for no limit. That is the default, so nothing changes until you set one. It is under Length of stay in Dates & prices.
Booking window
The booking window limits how far into the future guests can book: any future date, a rolling number of days from today, or a fixed end date. It is a rental-level setting (it also shapes your availability calendar and your iCal export), so it is set under How far ahead in When guests can book on Dates & prices. Nights can be set up to three years ahead.
Pending request timing
When a guest submits a booking request that needs your confirmation, choose how long the dates stay held for them:
| Hold option | What happens |
|---|---|
| Off | Dates are not held. Another guest can book the same dates before you respond. |
| Expire automatically | Dates are held for a set window of time, then released automatically if you have not responded. |
| Never expire | Dates stay held until you confirm or decline the request, however long that takes. |
A pending reminder can also nudge you to respond before too much time passes. When a held request does expire (or you release its dates yourself), the guest is emailed that the dates are open again, so nobody is left waiting on a request that already closed.
Request received
An optional email that tells a guest their request came through, sent the moment they submit and ahead of your own reply. The switch is in the Emails section, not Booking flow, with every other email for the rental. See Notifications & the review link.
Guest counts
Guest limits are configured in the rental's Guests & policies section, not Dates & prices. Set a max total guests cap for the whole booking. If you want the party size broken down instead of one combined number, turn on separate adults and children counters: each can have its own optional limit, narrowing the total. A pets counter is available the same way, also with an optional limit.
With the adults/children split on, children count toward max total guests just like adults do. A rental that sleeps four is booked out at four guests of any age. If some children do not take a bed, set children under this age don't count toward your maximum in this same section. A baby in a cot stops using up capacity. It is one age for the whole rental, and it has nothing to do with what you charge: see Pricing, fees & discounts for child rates, which are set separately.
What your guest sees
Your guest never reads these rules as a list. They see the result on the calendar in the booking form. Dates held back by your advance notice, your prep time, or your booking window are simply not selectable, and a stay shorter than your minimum is refused with a short line saying why. Nothing here adds a step for them.