Under the new policy, "house rules" is no longer a free-text box where you can write whatever you want. Airbnb has defined exactly seven standard fields, and your job before November 20 is to migrate what you legally can into those fields, relocate the allowed checkout requests to their own section, and delete everything the policy now bans. This guide walks through each field and shows before/after rewrite examples.
The 7 standard fields
Airbnb's official list of standard house rule fields (official Help Center):
- Overnight guest limits — who may sleep at the property and how many
- Quiet hours — when noise must be kept down
- Pets — whether pets are allowed, and under what conditions
- Events — whether parties and gatherings are allowed
- Smoking and vaping — policy on smoking and vaping on the property
- Commercial photography — rules for photo/film shoots
- Lock up at checkout — requiring guests to lock doors and windows when leaving
Everything that fits these topics stays. Everything else — especially chore instructions — must move or be deleted. The four tasks Airbnb now bans you from asking of guests are: stripping beds, washing and putting away dishes, starting laundry, and taking trash offsite (official Help Center). The four you may still request are narrower: place dishes in the sink, gather used towels, separate trash and recycling into indoor bins, and lock up at checkout (official Help Center).
Field-by-field migration guide
1. Overnight guest limits
Old rule that migrates cleanly: "Maximum 6 overnight guests, no exceptions." → Keep verbatim. This field is exactly for this. Old rule that must go: "Extra guests must strip their own bedding on checkout." → Delete the chore half; the guest-limit half stays.
2. Quiet hours
Migrates cleanly: "Quiet hours 10pm–8am" → Keep. Many hosts pair this with a note that the building has thin walls — that's fine, it's still about quiet hours. Must go: "No laundry or dishwasher after 10pm so you must run them before checkout." → That's a banned laundry request wearing a quiet-hours costume. Delete it.
3. Pets
Migrates cleanly: "One dog under 25 lbs allowed with prior approval; $X pet fee applies" → Keep. (Pet fees are standard disclosed fees, not chore fines.) Must go: "Pet owners must vacuum all pet hair before checkout." → Banned — vacuuming is turnover work that now falls on you, and "must" language makes it a chore demand.
4. Events
Migrates cleanly: "No parties or events; gatherings over 8 people need approval." → Keep. Must go: "After any approved gathering, guests must bag all trash and take it to the curb." → "Take trash offsite" is explicitly banned (official Help Center). Replace with the allowed version: separating trash and recycling into indoor bins.
5. Smoking and vaping
Migrates cleanly: "No smoking or vaping inside; designated outdoor area only." → Keep. Must go: "Smoke odor cleanup will be charged as a penalty fee." → Penalty fees are banned outright (official Help Center). Genuine smoke damage can go through AirCover; ordinary cleaning goes in your turnover cost.
6. Commercial photography
Migrates cleanly: "Commercial shoots require written permission and a location fee." → Keep. Must go: Anything tying shoot permissions to chore duties — rare, but check.
7. Lock up at checkout
Migrates cleanly: "Please lock all doors and windows when you leave." → Keep — this is one of the four still-allowed checkout requests (official Help Center). Watch for: Burying chore lists inside this field. "Lock up, strip the beds, and start a load of towels" is not a lock-up rule. Split it: lock-up stays here; the other two get deleted.
Where checkout requests live now
Requests are separate from house rules. On desktop: Listings → Listing editor → House rules and requests → Add/Save, where requests are organized under "During the stay" and "Before checkout" (official Help Center). The "Before checkout" section is where the four allowed requests go — and only those four. Treat this section like a form with four checkboxes, not a text area. If a request isn't one of the four, it doesn't belong there.
Disclosure is at booking time or it doesn't count. All house rules and requests must appear in the designated listing area when the guest books. Adding rules later through messages, signs inside the property, or verbal instructions at check-in is a separate violation — and guests can point to the booking-time rules as the complete agreement (third-party: inc.com quoting an official spokesperson).
Common old-rule patterns and what to do with them
| Old rule text (typical) | Verdict | New home |
|---|---|---|
| "Please strip the beds before checkout" | Banned | Delete |
| "Start a load of laundry with the towels" | Banned | Delete |
| "Wash, dry, and put away all dishes" | Banned — but note: asking guests to put dishes in the sink is allowed | Rewrite to "Please place used dishes in the sink" |
| "Take all trash to the outdoor bins/curb" | Banned (offsite) | Rewrite to "Please separate trash and recycling into the indoor bins" |
| "Checkout is 11am sharp; late checkout = $50 fee" | Penalty fee banned | Delete the fee; checkout time itself can stay as a house rule |
| "Guests must sign the rental agreement on arrival" | Remove | Delete (third-party single source: Haven) |
| "Leave the place as you found it" | Vague chore demand | Delete or replace with specific allowed requests |
Step-by-step rewrite workflow
- Open your current listing and copy all house rules and checkout instructions into a scratch document.
- Label each line: keep (fits a standard field), relocate (one of the four allowed requests), or delete (banned or out of scope).
- Delete the banned lines first — strip beds, wash/put away dishes, start laundry, trash offsite — and remove any fines or contract language (see Remove These From Your Listing Before November 20).
- Rewrite the "relocate" lines in the allowed wording: dishes in the sink (not washed), towels gathered (not laundered), trash separated into indoor bins (not taken offsite), lock up.
- Enter the kept rules into the seven standard fields and the four requests into the "Before checkout" request section: desktop path Listings → Listing editor → House rules and requests → Add/Save (official Help Center).
- Re-read the finished listing as a guest would. If any line reads like a chore or a threat, it still needs work.
After the rewrite: the money question
Once the chore list is gone, your turnover cost is yours again. Most hosts will need to adjust pricing — the cleaning fee can cover routine turnover like laundry and vacuuming (third-party), and some costs move better into the nightly rate. The full logic is in Reprice Your Turnover: Bake Cleaning Into the Fee or Rate.
And if you manage several listings through a PMS, don't do this work in Airbnb's editor at all — fix the templates at the source or the next sync will undo you. See the PMS Sync Warning and the full prioritized Host Compliance Checklist.