Airbnb cleaning checklist: the full turnover list for every stay

The Airbnb cleaning checklist, room by room

Here is the full turnover list, in the order a cleaner walks through the home. It is the same list our free checklist maker prints for an Airbnb turnover and the same one BroomBook’s crew app loads for that type of clean.

How to use it

• Repeat the bedroom and bathroom lists for each room in the home. A three-bedroom, two-bath listing is three bedroom lists and two bathroom lists.
• Add the host’s own items. Hot tubs, grills, game rooms, balconies and welcome baskets vary by listing. Write them in once and keep them on that property’s list.
• Keep a copy per property, not per cleaner. Two cleaners turning the same home should follow the same list, so the next guest finds the same home.

This works as a vacation rental cleaning checklist or a short term rental cleaning checklist on any platform, not only Airbnb. VRBO and direct-booking homes need the same turnover. Hosts who clean their own place can use it as is.

What does a turnover include that a house clean doesn’t?

A turnover is a house clean plus four jobs: laundry, restocking, staging the home to match the listing, and reporting damage or left items to the host. And it all has to fit between one guest’s check-out and the next guest’s check-in.

When you clean a lived-in home, the client is coming back to their own things. When you turn a rental, a stranger is arriving who has only seen the listing photos.

The hard finish is what changes the work most. A late house clean is an apology. A late turnover is a guest standing at the door with a suitcase, and a bad review for the host. If you are building a whole service around this, the guide to running an Airbnb cleaning company covers finding hosts and setting terms.

In what order should you clean an Airbnb?

Start the laundry, then clean top to bottom and back to front, and finish with the floors, staging and photos on your way out. That order keeps the longest job running while you do everything else.

1. Walk through first. Before you touch anything, look in every room for damage, stains, missing items and things the guest left. Take photos now, while the home is exactly as the guest left it.
2. Strip the beds and start the first load. Pull sheets, pillowcases and used towels from every room at once.
3. Kitchen. Clear the fridge of guest food, deal with the dishes, then wipe counters, appliances and the sink.
4. Bathrooms. Toilets, showers, sinks and mirrors, then hair from the drains and a check for leaks and mold.
5. Bedrooms and living areas. Dust, wipe switches and handles, check under beds and in drawers, then make the beds with the clean set.
6. Restock and stage. Refill supplies and set each room to match the listing photos.
7. Floors last, working toward the door, so you don’t walk across what you just mopped.
8. Final walk-through and photos. One photo per finished room, the keys or lockbox as agreed, lights and fans off, door locked.

An Airbnb cleaning checklist for cleaners on a team

With two cleaners, split by job, not by room: one person on beds, laundry and bathrooms, the other on the kitchen, living areas and floors. Agree on who does the final walk-through, because a second pair of eyes is what catches the missed towel or the remote under the couch. Wipe the things every guest touches, such as remotes, door handles and light switches: the CDC advises cleaning high-touch surfaces like these regularly and after you have visitors.

What should you restock between guests?

Restock everything a guest uses up: toilet paper, soaps, paper towels, coffee, trash bags and spare linens. The exact list belongs to the host, so agree on it per property and keep it with that home’s checklist.

The “Supplies for guests” group comes from Airbnb’s own Resource Center, which suggests hosts leave supplies so guests can clean during their stay: paper towels, multi-surface cleaner, disinfectant wipes or spray, hand sanitizer and extra hand soap.

Who pays for the restock?

Settle this before the first turnover. The two usual setups are: the host keeps a locked owner’s closet stocked and you refill from it, or you bring the supplies and add them to your invoice. Either works. What doesn’t work is a cleaner quietly buying toilet paper out of pocket and never getting paid back. Write it into your agreement; the free cleaning contract template has room for it.

For the cleaning products and tools you bring yourself, the professional supplies list covers the kit.

How to handle linens and laundry on a turnover

Strip every used bed and towel first and get the first load going, or swap in a clean spare set so the beds don’t wait on the dryer. Then wash on the warmest setting the fabric allows and dry everything completely.

That washing advice is the CDC’s: wash soft items with detergent on the warmest appropriate water setting, dry items completely, and wash your hands after handling dirty laundry. The same CDC page says not to mix cleaning products or chemicals with each other, which matters when you are juggling stain remover, bleach and bathroom cleaner in a small laundry room.

Three ways to run linens

• Wash on site. Simple when the home has a washer and dryer and the gap between guests is long enough. Laundry time often sets how long you stay.
• Spare sets on site. Make the beds from a clean spare set, then wash the used set and leave it folded for next time. This is the most common fix for tight same-day turnovers.
• Take it away. You or a laundry service wash off site and bring clean sets back. It frees up time in the home but adds pickups, drop-offs and a cost to price in.

Linen checks

• Hold sheets and towels up to the light for stains, hair and holes before they go on a bed or a rack.
• Pull stained or torn pieces out of rotation and tell the host, with a photo.
• Check mattress protectors and pillow protectors, not just the sheets on top.
• Lint-roll dark throws and duvet covers after making the bed.

How to report damage and left items with photos

Photograph damage before you clean or move anything, then send the host the photos and a short note the same day. Airbnb asks hosts to file a damage reimbursement request within 14 days of the guest’s checkout, so your photos are often the host’s evidence.

Airbnb’s help article on host damage protection tells hosts to document the problem with photos or videos, get repair or cleaning estimates, and keep receipts. A host can only do that if the cleaner caught it first. A stain that you scrub away before photographing it is a stain nobody can claim for.

What a good damage photo shows

• One wide shot so the host knows which room and which piece of furniture.
• One close-up of the damage itself, in good light.
• The time of the photo, which most phones record automatically.

What to report

• Broken or missing items: glasses, plates, remotes, towels, decor.
• Stains on carpets, sofas or mattresses you could not remove.
• Smoke smell, pet hair in a no-pets home, or more guests than the beds suggest.
• Maintenance problems: leaks, slow drains, mold, a light or appliance that doesn’t work.
• Left items: chargers, clothes, jewelry. Photograph them, bag them, and ask the host where to leave them.

Keep it factual. Say what you saw, not what you think the guest did. The host decides what to claim.

What does Airbnb tell hosts about cleaning?

Airbnb’s Resource Center tells hosts to clean the space thoroughly between every guest, and lists what a clean listing looks like. Guests also rate Cleanliness as its own category after every stay, so the checklist shows up directly in the host’s reviews.

Airbnb’s article Ensuring your place is sparkling clean gives hosts this cleaning advice, which lines up with the checklist above:

• Strip the beds and start the laundry first, so there is time for several loads.
• Dust and clean every surface, with extra attention to things guests touch often, like remotes and doorknobs.
• Make the beds, change the towels, reset decorative pillows and blankets, and lint-roll where needed.
• Check for bugs, pests, cobwebs, mold and stains.
• Clean and disinfect toilets, sinks, showers and tubs, and refill shampoo, body wash, hand soap and dish soap.
• Make sure dishes are clean and put away, clean the kitchen appliances, and remove leftover food from the fridge.
• Take out the trash, sweep and mop the floors last, and make sure the space smells fresh.

The same article tells hosts who hire a cleaner to go through the process themselves first, leave enough time between bookings, and line up a backup cleaner. If you clean for hosts, offering to be that backup for another cleaner is a good way in.

On ratings, Airbnb’s help page on ratings for homes lists Cleanliness alongside accuracy, check-in, communication, location and value. It describes a clean home as free of health hazards like mold and pests, and free of extensive dust, pet dander and dirty dishes.

On products, Airbnb’s cleaning supplies article tells hosts to use disinfectants registered with agencies such as the US EPA, to let them stay wet for the contact time on the label, and never to mix cleaners, bleach and ammonia in particular.

How should you price a turnover clean?

Most cleaners charge hosts a flat price per turnover, set by the size of the home, with laundry, restocking and same-day or heavy turnovers priced in. Hosts like a fixed number because they usually pass it on to guests as a cleaning fee.

Build the price from what the checklist actually takes, not from a standard clean of the same size:

• Time on site, including the walk-through, staging and photos. Time a few turnovers of each home with this list before you settle on a number.
• Laundry, whether you wait for it on site, swap in spare sets, or take it away.
• Restocking, either the time to refill from the host’s stock or the supplies themselves.
• Same-day and heavy turnovers, as set extras agreed in advance, so you aren’t negotiating on the doorstep.
• Periodic deep cleans, priced separately. A deep clean usually takes about 1.6 to 2 times as long as a standard clean, according to our house cleaning pricing guide.

For a starting number, run the home through the house cleaning price calculator, then add your laundry and restock time. Our guide to cleaning for Airbnb hosts walks through turnover pricing in more detail.

How BroomBook runs the checklist on every turnover

We make BroomBook, scheduling and booking software for residential cleaning businesses. It puts this checklist on each cleaner’s phone for every turnover and sends you the photos.

• A private crew link for each cleaner, with nothing to download.
• Room-by-room checklists with photos. Photos are checked against their checklist item, and the ones that need a look are flagged to you, so a missed bathroom or an unmade bed shows up before the guest does.
• The checklist matches the clean booked. Book an Airbnb turnover and the crew gets the turnover list; book a deep or move-out clean and they get that one.
• Clock in and out from the phone, so you know who was in the home and when.
• Job notes translated into Spanish, French or Portuguese for each cleaner, so the host’s lockbox code and staging notes are understood.

Pick something else if you run commercial janitorial work, need a QuickBooks sync, or want an app from the app store: BroomBook is built for residential cleaning and has none of those. If you are a host looking for cleaners rather than a cleaning company, our Turno comparison explains the difference. Otherwise, see the features, the turnover software page, or try the demo.