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How far in advance should you open your Airbnb calendar for bookings? For most established Airbnb listings, I think opening your calendar about 12 months in advance is perfectly reasonable.
That gives guests planning future vacations plenty of opportunity to find your Airbnb, save your listing, and book early, often at your premium advance rates. It also makes it easier for repeat guests to re-book your property for the following year.
But there is one big catch! I don’t want someone booking a random one, two or even three night stay ten months from now blocking the more desirable weeklong reservations.
And when you have a bunch of those short stays scattered across your Airbnb calendar, it truly does prevent other potential Airbnb guests from booking weeklong stays, which for me are gems!
And if your scattered bookings leave you without enough consecutive available nights, you won’t even show up for guests searching those dates.
After seven years of self-managing our vacation rentals, I have found that how I actually open my Airbnb calendar matters just as much as how far in advance I open it. So, this Airbnb hosting guide will share my first-hand approach to both!
If you are new here, you will want to browse all of my first-hand Airbnb hosting guides. My goal is to help you work smarter, not harder, while providing a 5-star Airbnb guest experience!
And if you’re setting up a new property, don’t miss my complete Airbnb Setup Checklist, where I go room by room through everything you need before your first guest arrives.
QUICK LINK: Are you ready to create your new Airbnb listing? Click here to get started on Airbnb!
How Far Out Should You Open Your Airbnb Calendar?
For most Airbnb hosts, I think having around 12 months of Airbnb calendar availability is a good starting point or goal.
Personally, I usually open up my Airbnb calendar about 8-10 months in advance, but every rental property has different needs.
Our properties are smaller beach rentals in Seacrest Beach, Florida, that tend to attract couples and small families, so I don’t necessarily need the extremely long Airbnb booking window that a large vacation home accommodating several families might need.
A larger vacation rental in a popular travel destination where families plan annual trips a year ahead may benefit from opening dates even earlier. For those, I would definitely consider opening your calendar 15-18 months in advance.
The same applies to rentals near wedding venues that frequently host wedding guests. In those situations, a bride and groom may want to secure accommodations for their close family, friends, and wedding party shortly after signing a contract.
What About a Brand-New Airbnb Listing?
The exception would be a brand-new Airbnb listing!
When first going live with your new short-term rental property, I wouldn’t necessarily open an entire year immediately. I would start with a shorter Airbnb booking window while you make sure your pricing, cleaning, communication, and overall hosting systems are running smoothly.
Honestly, when you first publish your listing, I would only open the next 2-3 months. And don’t jump the gun!
I think it’s incredibly important to start on the right foot, which means having everything 100% ready to go and professional Airbnb photos done. You want those first several stays to earn 5 stars and your listing to be completely accurate for future guests.
I talk much more about those first few weeks in:
- Do This Before Launching Your Airbnb
- My New Airbnb is Listed, Now What?
- Communicating Through the Airbnb App
- 8 Honest Truths About Airbnb Hosting
Why I Manually Open My Airbnb Calendar
As I mentioned above, how I open my calendar is even more important than when I do it!
I prefer to open my Airbnb calendar manually instead of letting dates open automatically with a rolling window. This gives me full control over any potential Airbnb bookings.
Manually opening up my Airbnb calendar gives me a chance to:
- Review my Airbnb nightly rates
- Identify holidays/high-demand dates
- Adjust minimum stay requirements
- Apply my Airbnb rule sets
- Look at school break/event calendars
- Consider my personal travel schedule
- Compare upcoming dates to last year
Yes, it requires a little more hands-on Airbnb management. But that’s also how I approach almost every part of hosting. I would rather actively manage my pricing and availability than set everything once and hope for the best.
That hands-on approach has also taught me a lot about filling slower periods, including when I feel comfortable dropping rates and lowering my Airbnb length-of-stay requirements.
That said, when I first open my calendar, I like to have a longer length of stay. You can do this two ways, which I will share here in just a bit. But first, let me tell you the logic behind that Airbnb hosting strategy.
RELATED POST: How to Get More Airbnb Bookings in the Off-Season
Tip #1 Don’t Let Short Stays Block Better Airbnb Bookings
This is probably the most important part of my Airbnb calendar strategy!
My goal is to run close to 100% occupancy most of the year, and I prefer those 5+ day bookings over the shorter ones. I manage my Airbnbs while traveling quite a bit, which makes it much easier.
As you can see in the screenshot below (from my own listings), a full summer calendar is possible and earns me maximum profits. The 5+ night stays are my bread and butter, both in terms of effort and finances.
A single Airbnb booking realistically takes the same amount of work and proactive communication regardless of its length of stay.
Just because I’m willing to take a two or three night stay next month doesn’t mean I want to accept that same short stay nine months from now.
I prefer to leave those last-minute bookings about a month or two out. As I have those gaps in my calendar between longer bookings, I adjust the minimum stay requirement to find the perfect fit!
Look at it this way…
Imagine someone books a Thursday and Friday two night stay during a popular summer week almost a year in advance. This one reservation prevents people from booking a full summer week, or even a nice long weekend Thursday-through-Monday stay. Then another person books a single Saturday night a couple of weeks later, and so on.
You’ve most likely been better off waiting for a guest who wants a 4+ night vacation.
Use Airbnb Minimum Stay Rules for Far-Out Dates
To manage this, I use Airbnb rule sets and minimum length-of-stay requirements when I first open dates far into the future.
Depending on the Airbnb listing, I usually set my calendar to a base four night minimum. Then I use Airbnb rule sets to override that. When I open my calendar far in advance, I usually apply a five or six night minimum far out.
Then, as those dates get closer, I can shorten the minimum stay if necessary. I also don’t like single empty nights, because they add up and really impact your cash flow and profits.
So, often, even a few months out, if I get a booking, I manually apply additional rule sets to the days just before and after to ensure I get bookings that fit perfectly. It’s a bit like Tetris!
My post about How to Price Your Airbnb for Maximum Profits goes much deeper into exactly how I use Airbnb rule sets, minimum stays, pricing adjustments, and Airbnb calendar gaps.
To avoid rehashing all of that, refer to that post for exactly how to use Airbnb rule sets!
Tip #2 Check Your Airbnb Prices Before Opening Your Calendar
This is the other big mistake Airbnb hosts need to avoid!
If your goal is to maximize profits, think of your Airbnb pricing like hotel pricing. A hotel operator doesn’t set just one price and leave it. Hotels use dynamic pricing to ensure that rooms get booked up at the best rates, and you should, too!
Don’t open a year or more of Airbnb availability at a base rate without looking carefully at your pricing first. You know that crushing feeling when you realize that someone booked the best weekend of the year at well below market value.
Great win for them, which is why they scoop those up! But a major loss for you as an Airbnb host!
You need to know your market and have a rough idea of which peak dates you’re watching for. This knowledge should start long before you even purchase a vacation rental, when you are deciding where to buy your first investment property!
If you own a vacation rental in a college town or a seasonal destination such as a popular vacation town or ski resort with a limited season, next year’s calendar may include:
- Major holidays
- Spring break
- Fall break
- Long weekends
- Festivals / special events
- College football weekends
- School vacation windows
- Peak summer weeks
You don’t want someone snagging President’s Day ski weekend, Fourth of July, Spring Break, or a huge event weekend at your base nightly rate simply because you opened the calendar before adjusting your prices.
For example, if you own a short-term rental in SEC football country, football weekends are a perfect example of dates a host needs to identify before blindly opening a calendar. They vary year to year, and I personally would not open up Fall dates until I had that year’s football calendar in hand!
The area where we own our vacation rentals on 30A in the Florida Panhandle is very popular for Spring and Fall Breaks. Specific feeder markets, including the Atlanta metro area, greater Nashville, and Dallas/Fort Worth, drive a large share of tourism to this area.
So, I don’t open any dates that could overlap Spring and Fall Break until Walton County releases its annual feeder market calendar!
I Don’t Use Airbnb Smart Pricing
I also manually manage my Airbnb pricing rather than using the Airbnb Smart Pricing feature. In my experience, Airbnb Smart Pricing doesn’t always account for these special high-demand dates early enough. That means it often doesn’t notice high demand until most listings are booked for a specific window, which may be too late for you.
I know my 30A market, our historical booking patterns, school-break schedules, and which dates typically command higher rates. Therefore, I would rather make those Airbnb pricing decisions myself.
But if you don’t, or if you don’t feel comfortable setting these seasonal prices, at least use software like PriceLabs so you aren’t doing this totally blind!
Are Far-Out Airbnb Bookings Riskier?
Some Airbnb hosts worry about allowing guests to book too far in advance because plans can change. No host wants a bunch of cancellations, especially on a booking that has been blocking your calendar for several months.
That can happen, but personally, I don’t worry about it much. It can happen with any booking made 30+ days out. And my cancellations are few and far between!
As you know, I exclusively host through Airbnb, and I use Airbnb’s Firm cancellation policy at all four of our vacation rentals. Under that policy, guests can cancel 30+ days before their stay regardless, so an early reservation is not much different from one made three months out.
And if you’re curious why I don’t list my properties across multiple booking platforms, I explain that in my post about Why We Exclusively Host on Airbnb.
For a new host, I think it’s really important to start in one place. I see so many trying to get onto multiple platforms and even launch a direct booking site before they are really ready. Start with one platform. I obviously prefer Airbnb!
Then, once you’ve worked out the kinks, your identity, and your additional needs, you can expand to other platforms if you want to!
So, How Far in Advance Should You Open Your Airbnb Calendar?
For most established Airbnb listings, I think around 12 months is a safe booking window.
For my smaller vacation rentals, I typically stay closer to 8-10 months.
But the bigger takeaway isn’t whether you choose eight months, ten months, or a full year.
Don’t just automatically open your Airbnb calendar and forget about it.
Protect valuable future dates with longer minimum stays, make sure peak dates are priced correctly, and gradually loosen those restrictions as the dates get closer.
The goal isn’t simply to get your Airbnb booked as early as possible.
It’s to get the right bookings at the right prices.
And if you’re working on setting up your own Airbnb listing, you can also browse all of my free Airbnb Hosting Blog Posts for more first-hand Airbnb hosting tips.
Make Sure Your New Airbnb Is 100% Ready to Go
If you’re opening up your Airbnb calendar because you’re getting ready to launch a new short-term rental, make sure the property itself is completely guest-ready before those first reservations start rolling in.
There are so many little things that are easy to overlook when setting up an Airbnb for the first time. After seven years of hosting four vacation rentals, I have learned that the right supplies and plenty of backups make everything run much more smoothly.
If you’re still getting your Airbnb ready for guests, these guides are a great place to start:
- Airbnb Setup Checklist
- Must-Haves New Airbnb Hosts Forget
- Things You Should Buy in Multiples
- Airbnb Kitchen Essentials
- Airbnb Bedding Essentials
- Airbnb Bathroom Essentials
- Top Airbnb Extras Guests Love
- 3-Layer Mattress Protection System
- Best Pillow for Airbnb Rentals
- Best Blackout Curtains for Airbnbs
- Shopping for Airbnb Couches
- My Favorite Airbnb Smart Locks
- Setting Your Airbnb Cleaning Fee
- My Airbnb Coffee Setup
- Buying Airbnb Furniture Tips
PIN This Airbnb Calendar Guide for Later
