Having a short-term rental agreement in place is a smart and valuable move for your vacation rental business. 

Given that a short-term vacation rental agreement helps define hosts’ and guests’ rights and responsibilities for a particular lease term, it is a good idea to use it every time you rent your property to new guests. The length of the stay should not determine when you use the agreement. Use it even if the guests are only staying one night, and even when renting to friends.

The only time that you shouldn’t use a short-term lease agreement is when renting with the intention of having a guest stay longer than 30 days. In this case, you should draw up a formal month-to-month or fixed-term lease agreement.

You can ask a guest to sign a short-term rental agreement as long as you disclose the terms prior to booking.

As every property is different, the terms you should cover in an agreement will depend on the specificity of the situation. However, there are certain key things that should be present in each short-term rental agreement.