QR Codes for Airbnb and Rental Hosts: What to Print and Where

A guest walks into your property with luggage in one hand and a phone in the other. In the next ten minutes they will want the WiFi password, the bin day, how the shower works and whether they can park on the street.

You can answer all of that in a laminated binder nobody opens, in a message thread you retype every week, or in four QR codes on the wall.

This is the practical version: which codes are worth printing, which type each one has to be, where they go, and how big to print them.

The decision that comes before everything

Every code you print is either static or dynamic, and in a rental the difference is expensive to get wrong.

A static code carries its content inside the pattern. Nothing is stored anywhere, nothing resolves at scan time, and the code works with no internet connection at all. It also cannot be changed. Ever. The only way to change what a static code does is to print a new one.

A dynamic code carries a short link. The pattern encodes a URL belonging to the service, which redirects to wherever you have pointed it. That indirection is the whole feature: you can change the destination after printing as often as you like, and every sign already on the wall follows.

For a rental the rule comes out simple:

WiFi is static. Everything else is dynamic.

The five codes worth printing

1. WiFi, by the door and again by the router

The most-scanned code in any property, and the only static one.

It encodes your network name, security type and password, so a phone joins in one tap with no typing and no connection needed. That last part matters more than it sounds: a guest who has just landed has no roaming, and cannot look anything up until they are on your network. This is the code that gets them online so the others work.

The tradeoff is permanent. Change the password and the sign is wrong, because the password is physically part of the pattern. Two things help:

• Repeat the WiFi details inside the house manual, which is dynamic. A password change becomes one upload rather than a trip to the printer.
• If you rotate the password between stays, skip the printed WiFi code entirely and use the manual alone.

Static codes are unlimited on every plan, including free, so printing one for each floor costs nothing.

2. The house manual

Everything that used to be in the binder: appliances, bins, heating, quirks, the thing about the second bathroom door.

Upload it as a PDF and point a dynamic code at it. When something changes you replace the file and the link stays identical, so every code you have printed serves the new version. See PDF QR codes for how the hosting side works.

Worth knowing: on the free plan we host one image rather than a PDF, so a photographed manual works but a document needs Plus.

3. Check-in and check-out

Keep this separate from the manual rather than buried in it. A guest standing outside at midnight with a key safe they cannot find should reach the answer in one scan, not after scrolling a twelve-page document.

Put the same code in your confirmation message as an image. A code is not only for walls, and this is the one guests need before they are inside.

Because the door code changes, this must be dynamic. Change it once and everyone arriving that week has the right instructions with nothing to resend.

4. Local recommendations

The restaurants, the walk, where to park, which beach is worth the drive.

This is the one you will actually enjoy maintaining, and the one guests screenshot and keep. It dates fastest of anything in the property, which is precisely the argument for a code you can repoint.

5. Feedback, and separately, reviews

These are two different things and it is worth being careful about the difference.

Private feedback is a form of your own, so a broken shower head reaches you while the guest is still in the property rather than afterwards in public. Useful, and entirely within your control.

A public review is governed by whoever hosts it. On Airbnb and similar platforms the review happens inside the platform's own flow, which is where a printed code is least useful. If you take direct bookings and have a Google Business Profile, a review code makes more sense, but read the rules on how you ask first, because routing people by how happy you expect them to be is prohibited and the penalties are severe.

Where they physically go

Placement decides scans far more than design does.

• WiFi: by the door at eye level, and a second one near the router. Not on the fridge, where it is behind whatever is on the fridge.
• House manual: kitchen, where people stand around, and one in the living room.
• Check-in: in the confirmation message first, on or beside the door second.
• Recommendations: by the door on the way out, which is when it is actionable.
• Feedback: somewhere quiet. It should not be the first thing they see.

Two placement mistakes worth avoiding. Do not put any code where it is visible from outside the property, particularly the WiFi one. And do not put a code behind glass in direct sun, which produces glare that defeats the camera at exactly the angle people hold a phone.

How big to print

Rough rule: the code should be about a tenth of the distance it is scanned from. Scanned at arm's length, around 20 cm, a 2 cm code is fine. On a wall read from across the room at 3 m, you want 25 cm or more.

Err larger. A code that is slightly too big looks unremarkable; a code slightly too small fails silently and the guest messages you instead. There is more detail in the printing guide.

Print from the SVG, not the PNG, if the printer will take it. It is resolution-independent, so the same file works on a business card and on a poster.

Two things to check before you print fifty

Does the provider show ads? Some free generators fund themselves by serving a full-screen advertisement between the scan and your destination. In a rental that advertisement is the first thing a guest sees after walking in, it is not yours, and you cannot see what it is. It takes ten seconds to test, and here is how.

Do the codes expire? Some providers stop resolving codes when a subscription lapses or a trial ends, which quietly turns every laminated sign in your property into a dead end. What actually makes a code stop working covers the ways this happens.

Both are worth five minutes now rather than a guest message later, because the printing is the expensive part and it is the part you cannot take back.

If you have more than one property

The arithmetic changes and mostly in your favour. The five codes above are per property, but static WiFi codes never count against any allowance, so a second property costs you four dynamic codes rather than a second subscription.

Keep each property's codes in their own folder, name them after the room rather than the platform, and the list stays readable at thirty codes across six units. More on that in vacation rental QR codes.