Write checkout down, then write the turnaround

Checkout fails in a predictable way. The guest wants to be fair and is also trying to catch a train. You want a clean handoff and do not want to sound like a hotel manual. A short list on the fridge, the same list in the welcome book, and a separate list for whoever resets the house will do more than a long message the night before.

By Halivs · Updated October 23, 2026

The fridge sheet is for the stay, not the goodbye

A single page at eye level should answer the four questions that otherwise become texts: WiFi, door code, checkout time, and quiet hours. That page is not the checkout checklist. It is what people look at while they are still staying, which is why checkout time belongs on it. If checkout time only appears in an app notification, someone will miss it.

Keep the sheet magnet-friendly and sparse. A paragraph will not be read from across the kitchen. Four lines, large type, the property name at the top so it does not migrate to the wrong unit in a building with several listings. The WiFi card can repeat the network. The fridge sheet is where the clock time lives.

What should an Airbnb checkout list say?

Keep the guest list under ten lines, and keep it to things a guest can do in a minute on the way out. Checkout time. Used dishes in the sink. Used towels gathered in one place you name. Trash and recycling in the indoor bins, and where those bins are. Lights off, and the thermostat back to the setting you already named. Keys or fob on the counter, not “somewhere obvious.” Then the door.

Say what you do not need. Many guests strip beds because they think it is polite. Write “please leave the beds as they are” and they will. One line saves your cleaner a hunt for the duvet cover and saves the guest a worried message at ten in the morning.

What can’t go on the checkout list now?

From November 20, 2026, a checkout list on Airbnb can’t require cleaning. Leave off loading or running the dishwasher, washing up, stripping beds, starting laundry, and taking trash to the curb, the shed or the chute down the hall. Those jobs now belong on the turnaround list, and the time they take belongs in your cleaning plan.

Leave off fines and “you will be charged” lines too. And do not add anything after someone books. The list a guest finds on the counter should match what your listing already said.

One list, two places

Print the same checkout list in the welcome book and as a sheet on the counter, or leave it in a sleeve on the fridge for every stay. Do not invent a third version in the checkout message. When the book, the sheet, and the message disagree, the guest follows none of them and writes to ask which is real. Pick the words once. Paste them.

Plain sentences are enough. “Please put used dishes in the sink” is clearer than a polite paragraph, and it does not sound cold.

The turnaround is a different document

The guest list is polite and short. The turnaround list is for you or your cleaner, and it should be room by room: linen, towels, surfaces, restock, damage, and the photo you take if something is wrong. Include the dull inventory — coffee, soap, paper towels, bags — with a number, not “check supplies.” A second pair of hands can run a list. They cannot run your memory of how you like it.

Time the reset against checkout, not against hope. If checkout is 10:00 and the next check-in is 16:00, the list should fit that window with room for a late departure. Mark what can wait until after the next guest is in, and what cannot: towels, beds, and the code if you rotate it.

Hand the reset off in writing

If someone else cleans, the list should travel with the job: a printed page in the supply closet, or a shared sheet you both open. Put the non-negotiables at the top — door locked, thermostat, bins — and leave a line for notes back to you. Three weeks of those notes will teach you more than another rewrite of the guest list. When a step is always skipped, either it does not matter or it was unclear. Fix that line. Do not add a paragraph.