Airbnb Smoking Policy
and Fees.

A policy that can be enforced is specific. State that the property is strictly non-smoking, that the rule covers cigarettes, vaping, and cannabis, and that a violation will incur the documented cost of returning the space to a no-smoke condition. Put this in the house rules the guest agrees to at booking, not only in the manual they read after arrival.

Specificity matters because Airbnb enforces what the guest agreed to, not what you intended. A clause that names the prohibited activities and ties the fee to remediation cost is enforceable. A vague no smoking with an undefined penalty is not.

Smoke is the most perishable evidence in hosting. Odour is invisible in a photo, it fades within hours, and the natural first reaction, opening windows and starting the clean, destroys the proof before it is captured. The host ends up with a real grievance and nothing a reviewer can verify.

The guest, meanwhile, only has to say they did not smoke. With odour gone and no documented residue, the dispute becomes one word against another, and the reviewer refunds the charge. The fee was lost not because the violation was fake but because it was never recorded.

The window to capture smoke evidence is the first few minutes of the turnover, before anything is aired out. Record the condition in place: photograph ash, burns, stained surfaces, and any cigarette debris, and log the odour in a timestamped note describing where it is strongest. Capture the soft furnishings that hold smell, like curtains, bedding, and upholstery.

Pair this with a clean check-in baseline from the same booking. If the space was documented odour-free when the guest arrived and smoke-affected when they left, the reviewer can see the change happened on this guest stay, which is exactly what they need to uphold the charge.

See the deep cleaning fee definition and the checkout inspection guide for the exact workflow.

To recover smoke remediation, open a request in the Resolution Center within the filing window, attach the timestamped condition photos and odour notes, and include the itemised cost of cleaning or treatment. If the guest disputes it, the matter escalates to Airbnb, and your documented before-and-after is what decides it.

File vague and you lose. A request that says the guest smoked and the place stank gives the reviewer nothing. A request with a clean baseline, dated photos of the residue, and a remediation invoice gives them a verifiable case to approve.

Put a number on what undocumented violations cost you over a year with the risk calculator.