Setting Rental Cancellation and Refund Policies

Rentals typically involve more money and more advance planning than a quick appointment, which makes a clear cancellation and refund policy more important — and more likely to get tested — than on most other calendar types.

What to define

A workable rental cancellation policy usually covers three things: how much advance notice a customer needs to give to cancel penalty-free, what percentage (if any) is refunded on a late cancellation, and how a no-show is treated compared to a cancellation.

Setting the policy

1. Open your rental calendar's global settings or the individual listing's policy section, depending on whether you want one policy across all listings or different policies per listing.
2. Set your notice window (for example, "full refund if canceled 7+ days before check-in").
3. Set the refund percentage or fee that applies to cancellations made after that window.
4. Decide how the security deposit factors in — whether it's always refunded regardless of cancellation timing, or forfeited under certain conditions.

Showing the policy to customers

Display the cancellation policy clearly during the booking flow — ideally right where the customer confirms their reservation — and repeat it in the confirmation message. A policy the customer never saw before booking is much harder to enforce, both practically and in a card dispute.

Good to know: Tiered policies (full refund further out, partial refund closer in, no refund inside 24-48 hours) tend to reduce disputes better than a single hard cutoff, since customers feel the policy scaled fairly with their timing.