How do I get started with longer stays?

Encouraging guests to book longer stays could help you achieve higher occupancy with lower guest turnover and a more predictable income.

Enabling longer stays

Many guests at Airbnb book stays longer than one month. Review your availability settings to make sure guests can book longer stays:

1. Go to Listings and select a listing
2. Click or tap Availability
3. Go to Trip details and remove your maximum trip setting, or adjust it up and choose to manually review longer stays (if you don’t see this option, follow these instructions to turn on Instant Book)
4. Click or tap Save

Setting up weekly and monthly discounts

Most guests who are booking longer stays actively look for listings with weekly or monthly discounts. Weekly and monthly discounts are highlighted to guests in search results as well as on the price breakdown on your listing page.

To set a weekly or monthly discount for longer reservations:

1. Go to Listings and select a listing
2. Click or tap Pricing
3. Go to Discounts and enter your weekly or monthly discount
4.  Click or tap Save

Your weekly discount will apply to any reservation for 7-27 nights. Your monthly discount will apply to any reservation for 28 nights or longer. Find out more about custom weekly and monthly pricing.

Setting your discount amount 

When you set a weekly or monthly discount you’ll be able to get the average price for weekly and monthly stays, and find out if that matches the income you expect, with a single, longer booking.

You can also set your monthly discount to the same percentage as your expected vacancy. For instance:

• If on average you book 24 days per month, you have an average 20% vacancy.
• In that case, a 20% discount for monthly stays helps you earn a similar amount, with a single stay.

Optimizing your listing for longer stays

Besides enabling longer stays and setting up weekly and monthly discounts, here are some other ways you can make sure you are optimized to accept more stays.

Additional reservation preferences

Review the additional settings in Calendar Availability, including:

• Advance notice: how soon can guests book
• Preparation time: minimum time between bookings
• Availability window: how far into the future can guests book.

Add a guidebook geared towards longer stays

Have a favorite spot to buy groceries in your neighborhood? Is there a great local gym or a dog park in your neighborhood? You can add those tips to your guidebook.

Add some improvements to your listing

Make sure you have the essential amenities for longer stays. Guests looking for longer stays typically look for listings that provide a well-equipped kitchen, laundry, stable and strong wifi, as well as the essentials required for any Airbnb listing.

Additionally, you should make sure that your House Manual includes the instructions for day-to-day living (such as how trash disposal works, any particular instructions for taking care of the space and plants, etc).

Be available and support your guests during a longer stay

During a longer stay the guest may require your assistance and reach out to you via the Airbnb app. You can provide detailed instructions for longer stays as a separate section of your House Rules

If you're sharing the space with your guest, you should also set expectations about your interactions. You can define this in the Guest interaction section of the Title & description settings of your listing.

Additional guidelines

• Payments for stays longer than 28 days work in a different way. Airbnb automatically collects from guests 1 month upfront and at the beginning of each 30 day period. This page provides more information about payouts for longer stays.
• Stays longer than 28 days are subject to our Long-Term Cancellation Policy. The first month of the stay is non-refundable. If a guest cancels before check in, they are due the first month of their stay. During a stay, if a guest wishes to cancel the remainder of their stay, the guest is required to pay the host for the 30 days following the cancellation date, or up to the end date of the guest’s original reservation (whichever comes first).
• Know your local laws and regulations.