Welcome book template for holiday rentals

The essentials. A holiday rental welcome book comes down to seven sections: the welcome note, check-in, wifi and appliances, house rules, your local recommendations, the required legal notices and departure. The full template is further down this page, section by section, with the fields to fill in and a worked example for each one. Allow an hour.

Nothing to download and nothing to hand over in exchange: the template is written out here, so copy it or take your inspiration from it. It is also more honest than a fixed file, for a reason that becomes obvious in the last section.

What goes into a holiday rental welcome book?

A welcome book brings together everything a guest needs to know to get into the property, live in it for a few days and leave again without ringing you. It is not a presentation brochure, it is a working document.

The difference shows immediately in use. A welcome book that opens with the history of the house and the view from the terrace is no use to anyone at 10 pm, when the guest is hunting for the gate code in the rain. A welcome book that opens with the exact address, the code and the location of the key safe saves you the call.

That is why the order of the sections is not decorative. It follows the stay: you arrive, you settle in, you live there, you go out, you leave. Here are the seven sections, and the call each one saves you.

Section	What it contains	The call it saves
1. Welcome	Your first name, how to reach you, who to call otherwise	“I can’t get hold of you”
2. Getting in	Address, parking, codes, key safe, floor	“I’m outside, what’s the code?”
3. Wifi and appliances	Network, password, heating, hot water	“The wifi isn’t working”
4. Living here	Bins, recycling, noise, pets, capacity	“When do the bins go out?”
5. Around you	Your local recommendations, with times and the useful detail	“What do you suggest for tonight?”
6. Required legal notices	Registration number, emergency numbers, shut-off points	The dispute, not the call
7. Leaving	Time, keys, what not to do	“Where do we leave the keys?”

The right-hand column is the right way to judge a welcome book. A section that saves no call is useless, and a question you are asked twice flags a section that needs rewriting.

The template, section by section

Use the headings as they stand and replace whatever is in square brackets. Delete the lines that do not apply to you: a short, accurate welcome book beats a complete one that is half wrong.

1. Welcome

Three lines are enough. This section puts a face to the property and says how to reach you; it does not tell the story of the renovation.

• Your first name
• How to reach you, and at what times
• Who to contact if you cannot be reached, with their number

Camille would like to welcome you to la Maison des Glycines. We live ten minutes away: message us if anything is wrong, we would much rather know during your stay than afterwards. In an emergency, if we don’t answer, call Marc on 06 12 34 56 78.

The third line is the one everybody forgets, and it is the one that counts on a Sunday evening.

2. Getting in

By far the most-read section. It has to let people in without ringing you, even at midnight, even with no signal.

• The exact address
• Where to park
• Where to collect the keys
• The codes: gate, door, key safe
• The floor and the flat number
• The earliest possible check-in time
• What to do in the event of a late arrival

The blue gate at 14 rue des Lilas. Code 4512A, then the door at the far left of the courtyard. The key safe is fixed under the letterbox, code 3080. Check-in from 4 pm and up to midnight without letting us know. Free on-street parking, easier after 7 pm.

Write the codes out in full, never “the usual code”. And check them before every season: a code that has changed and not been updated is the number one cause of calls on arrival.

3. Wifi and appliances

• The network name, exactly as it appears
• The password, capital letters included
• The heating: where the thermostat is, how to set it
• Hot water
• The washing machine and dishwasher: where the products are, which programme
• The television
• Anything that does not work well or needs a knack

Network: Glycines_5G. Password: Bienvenue2026 (with a capital B). The thermostat is in the hallway, set to 19°. The hot water takes two minutes to come through in the bathroom, that’s normal. The window in the small bedroom closes if you lift the handle.

That last line is the one that saves you the most calls, and almost nobody writes it. A guest who has been warned adapts; a guest taken by surprise puts it in their review.

4. Living in the property

• The bins: where they are, and which day they go out
• Recycling
• Pets
• Smoking
• Noise, and from what time
• The maximum number of people
• What isn’t done here

The bins go out on Tuesday evening, the yellow bin every other Tuesday. The bin store is at the far end of the courtyard, on the right. The neighbours upstairs start work early: please avoid music after 10 pm. Pets are welcome, just not on the sofas.

Word these rules as sentences rather than blunt prohibitions. “The bins go out on Tuesday evening, the bin store is at the far end of the courtyard” sticks better than “put the bins out on Tuesday”.

5. Around you

• The bakery: name, distance, what to get there
• Where to do the shopping
• A restaurant
• Somewhere for a drink
• The walk you recommend
• What to do if it rains
• What not to miss, and what time to go

Boulangerie Fournier, 200 metres to the right: their walnut bread is gone before 9 am. The market is on Saturday morning on place Carnot. For dinner, chez Antoine, book the day before, there are twelve covers. And if you only have time for one walk, the sentier des Douaniers at sunset.

Two or three places you actually go to are worth more than fifteen copied out of a guidebook. The guest already has the internet; what they don’t have is your opinion. It is also the section that gets quoted in reviews.

6. The required legal notices

These are covered in the next section, because they are a matter of law rather than comfort.

7. Leaving

• The check-out time
• Where to leave the keys
• What to switch off, close, empty
• What the guest does not need to do
• How to leave a review

Check-out before 10 am. The keys go back in the safe, code 3080. Close the windows and leave the heating on 15°. No need to wash the sheets or vacuum, we take care of that. If you enjoyed your stay, a word on the platform helps us a great deal.

The second-to-last line is reassuring and, incidentally, stops a well-meaning guest from dismantling your bed.

What the law requires you to display

Up to date as of 31 August 2026. Two things not to confuse: what the law requires of you as a landlord, and what it is useful to put in the welcome book.

The legal obligation applies to the listing, not to the welcome book. And it works on two levels, depending on your local authority.

Everywhere, the declaration to the town hall. It is compulsory for any furnished tourist accommodation, classified or not, unless it is your main residence. It is made using form cerfa no. 14004, under article L. 324-1-1 of the French tourism code, and failing to do so carries a fine of up to 450 €.

In local authorities that have voted on change of use, a registration number as well. This is a 13-character identifier, issued by the local authority’s online service, which must appear in your listings. Here, all furnished lets are concerned, main residences included, and failure to register carries a civil fine of up to 5,000 € (article D. 324-1-1 of the French tourism code).

The distinction matters: many hosts assume registration applies everywhere, when in fact it depends on a municipal vote. Check with your town hall. Sources: Direction générale des Entreprises and service-public.gouv.fr, consulted on 31 August 2026.

The welcome book, for its part, is where the guest finds what they need on site. The registration number belongs there in the interests of transparency, along with the furnished tourist accommodation classification if you have one, the emergency numbers, the location of the smoke alarm and the fire extinguisher, and where to shut off the water, the electricity and the gas. None of this should have to be hunted down at the moment it is needed.

One point deserves to be spelled out, and it is almost always missing: 112, reachable from any mobile in Europe. A foreign guest knows neither 15 nor 18. Forty per cent of StyQR welcome books are viewed in a language other than French.

Short-term rental regulation has changed a great deal since the Le Meur act (law no. 2024-1039 of 19 November 2024), in particular on the declaration to the town hall and the general roll-out of registration. The rules vary from one local authority to another: check yours before you set your welcome book in stone, as this is the information that dates fastest. We keep French short-term rental regulation up to date, along with the detail of the compulsory declaration for furnished tourist accommodation.

The mistakes that come up most often

Four failings turn up in most of the welcome books we are shown, and none of them comes from a lack of care.

Starting with your own introduction. The guest opening the welcome book is looking for one precise piece of information, often in a hurry. An introductory page before the gate code is a page they scroll past in irritation. Access first, introductions afterwards.

Writing headings instead of answers. “Practical information” says nothing. “The bins go out on Tuesday evening, the bin store is at the far end of the courtyard on the right” answers. A welcome book is judged on the number of questions it closes, not the number of headings it opens.

Copying out a tourist guide. Fifteen museums listed without comment are worth less than two places you actually go to.

Never updating it. This is the costliest, and the most common. A printed welcome book is out of date at the first change of code, price or opening time, and correcting it means redoing it. Many hosts end up leaving it alone altogether, and the welcome book becomes a source of errors rather than a service.

If you let on Airbnb, these four points come with expectations specific to the platform, set out in our Airbnb welcome book example.

How long does it take to fill in?

Allow an hour for the first version, assuming you have the codes and the information to hand. What takes time is not the layout, it is tracking down the bin collection day and the exact wifi password.

One method that works: fill in sections 2, 3 and 4 first, in the property, phone in hand. Those are the three that head off most of the calls. The welcome note and the local recommendations can be written up at leisure afterwards.

Don’t aim to be exhaustive first time round. A welcome book fills out stay after stay, as guests ask you questions: every question asked twice is a line to add.

Word, PDF or digital: what the format changes

The template above works in any format. The choice is decided elsewhere, on three practical questions.

	Printed or PDF	Digital welcome book
The gate code changes	You have to redo it and reprint it	Corrected in a minute, everyone sees the current version
A guest doesn’t read French	They photograph it and translate it, or they message you	Displayed in the language of their phone
You want to know what’s missing	No idea	You can see which sections are being read

These limits come from the format, not from the quality of what you write. It is also why this article does not offer you a file to download: a fixed document would reproduce precisely the problem it claims to solve.

At StyQR, the welcome book is shared through a permanent QR code, displayed in the property or included in your check-in message. It is translated into 14 languages and appears in the language of the guest’s phone. The trial runs for 14 days, no card required.

Frequently asked questions

Is a welcome book compulsory?
The document itself is not. Several pieces of information it contains, however, must be made known to the guest, and the welcome book is the simplest way of doing that.

Should it be printed or sent before arrival?
Both, if possible. The “Getting in” section is useful before arrival, while the guest is still in the car. The rest is useful on site. That is the main argument for a welcome book that can be read on a phone.

How does a welcome book differ for a gîte rather than a flat?
The structure doesn’t change, only the weight of each section. For a gîte, access and outdoor equipment take up more room; for a flat, it’s the communal areas, the lift and the building rules.

How many pages should a welcome book run to?
As many as it takes to answer the questions, and not one more. Six to ten pages cover most properties. Beyond fifteen, nobody reads it.

Can you make your welcome book on Canva?
Yes, and the result is often good-looking. You will simply run into the three limits in the table above, since the file it produces is still a PDF.

Should you translate your welcome book?
As soon as you host guests from abroad, yes, at least the “Getting in” and “Required legal notices” sections. Those are the ones where a misunderstanding is expensive.