CLEANPAD GUIDE · AIRBNB

Airbnb damage policyMost damage claims are won or lost
in the first ten minutes of the clean.

Airbnb’s damage process runs on a deadline and on evidence. The deadline starts at the guest’s checkout. The evidence is usually gathered by the cleaner, who is the first person in the property and the one most likely to tidy it away by accident.

The process and its deadlines

From Airbnb’s Host damage protection article (Airbnb Help Center):

1. Within 14 days of the responsible guest’s checkout, file a reimbursement request in the Resolution Center.
2. Include evidence: photos or videos of the damage, estimates for repairs or cleaning, and/or receipts.
3. The guest has 24 hours to respond.
4. If the guest does not respond, pays only part, or declines, you can submit the request under host damage protection for review by Airbnb Support (in Washington state, by the insurer). Some requests are reviewed automatically; if you do not accept the result you can ask for a human review and add evidence.

Fourteen days sounds generous. In practice the property has usually been cleaned and re-let well before then, so the evidence has to be captured at the turnover, not reconstructed later.

What happens if a guest doesn’t pay for damages?

Under Airbnb’s process the request moves to step 4: you submit it under host damage protection and Airbnb Support (or, in Washington, the insurer) reviews it. Whether it is paid depends on the evidence and the terms, which is why the first three steps matter more than the fourth. Airbnb also separates damage from the cleaning fee: unexpected cleaning such as removing smoke odours is not what the cleaning fee covers (Airbnb Help Center).

The ten minutes before anything is moved

The first task in the Cleanpad checklist is Walk through and note damage or lost items, before Start laundry and strip used beds. The order is deliberate. Once a bed is stripped, a stain on the mattress protector has no context; once a broken glass is in the bin, it is a missing glass.

• Walk the whole unit first, the way the guest left it. Photograph or film anything unusual with your own phone before touching it. Cleanpad shows a camera reminder on some lines but does not take, upload or store photos.
• Log each finding as an issue on the line where it was found: what it is, whether it blocks the next check-in, and who is responsible for the next step.
• Keep the damage separate from the cleaning. “Bathroom cleaned” and “towel rail pulled off the wall” are different records; one is done, the other is open.
• Write measurable notes. “Wine stain, about 10 cm, left cushion of the sofa” is evidence. “Sofa dirty” is not.

From turnover note to claim file

Each issue keeps its own trail: the note, the owner, what was done about it and who checked the fix. The handoff tab lists every open one, and a blocking issue stops the host confirmation. For the claim itself, export the turnover:

• Print turnover log gives a dated page with every task, issue, restock count and the review details.
• Export handoff CSV has a row per task with the issue note, severity, owner, state, resolution, who verified it and when, plus the checkout and check-in times.
• Save JSON backup keeps the whole record so it can be restored later in any browser.

Put those files with the photos, the repair estimate and any receipts in one folder named after the reservation. That is the bundle Airbnb’s step 2 asks for.

What a cleaning record can and cannot prove

A self-recorded log is not an independent inspection or a signed statement. It cannot prove who caused the damage or that a photograph was taken at a given time. What it does show is that the problem was recorded at the turnover, by whom, and what happened next. That is usually the gap in a weak claim: the host knows the damage was there, but nothing written at the time says so.

For the walk-through that ends a turnover, see the final inspection guide. For why the arrival check comes first in the cleaning order, see how to clean an Airbnb.

Start a turnover log →

Updated 29 October 2026