Cancellation policies define how refunds are calculated when a Direct booking is cancelled.

Each booking is assigned a cancellation policy at the time it is created, and that policy determines what portion of the booking is refundable.

How Cancellation Policies Work

When a Direct booking is created:

A cancellation policy is assigned to the booking
That policy determines:
- If the booking is refundable
- How much is refunded
- When refunds are allowed

This policy is applied automatically based on your booking settings.

The cancellation policy is fixed at the time of booking and cannot be changed afterward.

When the Cancellation Policy Is Applied

The cancellation policy is applied:

When the booking is created (for both guest bookings and custom quotes)
Based on the policy assigned to the property at that time

Even if you update your policies later:

Existing bookings keep their original policy

Where Cancellation Policies Are Set

Cancellation policies are configured within your booking policies.

Go to Direct → Booking Policies
Open the booking policy you want to edit
Update the cancellation policy rules
Click Save

Booking policy settings in Hospitable showing cancellation policy configuration

Common Cancellation Policies and What They Mean

Hospitable ships a set of preset policies, and you can also create custom policies. Every policy has the same building blocks:

A free-cancellation window (for example, within 48 hours of booking)
One or more refundable tiers tied to time before check-in (for example, 50% refund if canceled 30+ days before check-in)
A non-refundable period (typically inside the cutoff before check-in)

Example — 50% Down Payment Policy:

Full refund if canceled within 48 hours of booking
50% refund if canceled at least 30 days before check-in
No refund if canceled less than 30 days before check-in

The percentage in the policy is applied to the accommodation total for the booking. Cleaning fees and taxes are then refunded proportionally to that percentage. The guest service fee follows the rules in the Premium vs Basic table here.

Where Guests Can View the Cancellation Policy

Guests can review the cancellation policy:

During the booking process before checkout
In their booking confirmation email
In the Guest Portal

This ensures guests can review the cancellation terms before and after booking.

How Cancellation Policies Affect Bookings

Cancellation policies apply when a booking is cancelled by the guest or due to certain system events (such as missed payments).

They determine:

Whether a refund is issued
How much is refunded

Refunds are calculated based on:

The cancellation policy
The timing of the cancellation
The amount already collected
Your Direct plan (Premium or Basic), which affects how the guest service fee is treated on partial refunds

If a host cancels a booking, the guest is always refunded in full, regardless of the cancellation policy.

Premium vs Basic — How Your Plan Affects Cancellations and Refunds

The cancellation policy rules (free-cancellation windows, refundable percentages, non-refundable periods) are identical on Direct Premium and Direct Basic. What differs is who handles the money when a refund is issued — and that affects what the guest receives back on a partial refund.

Behavior	Direct Premium	Direct Basic
Merchant of record	Hospitable (via Adyen)	Host (via Stripe)
Guest service fee on full refund	Refunded to guest	Refunded to guest; host is responsible for Stripe processing fees on the original charge, which Stripe does not return
Guest service fee on partial refund	Retained — not refunded	Retained by Hospitable; host is responsible for Stripe processing fees on the original charge, which Stripe does not return
How the refund reaches the guest	Drawn from your Hospitable payout balance; if insufficient, future payouts are reduced or your bank account is debited	Processed directly through your Stripe account
Future scheduled payments	Automatically cancelled	Automatically cancelled

Not sure which plan a reservation is on? Open the reservation in your Inbox — the Direct plan label on the reservation details shows Direct Premium or Direct Basic. The cancellation policy applied to the booking is shown in the same panel.

See also: Direct Booking Refunds for the full refund-calculation breakdown.

Legacy Plans — How They Affect Direct Refunds

If you are on a current Hospitable plan — Professional or Mogul — the Premium vs Basic rules above apply as written.

If you are not on Pro or Mogul and are using Direct, you are on a legacy plan. Legacy plans pay a monthly add-on for Direct Basic, which replaces the per-booking service fee. That changes how refunds work in one specific case:

Legacy + Direct Basic: No guest or host service fee is charged on the booking (neither the guest nor the host is charged a service fee per reservation). Because no service fee was collected, there is no service fee to retain on a partial refund and no service fee to refund on a full refund. All other refund math is the same as Direct Basic above.
Legacy + Direct Premium: Standard Direct Premium rules apply. The guest service fee is charged on the booking and follows the same Premium retain/refund behavior as current plans.
Current plans (Pro & Mogul) + Direct Basic or Premium: Standard rules apply as documented above.

Not sure which plan you are on? Open Settings → Plan & billing in Hospitable. If your plan name is not Essentials, Host, Pro, or Mogul, you are on a legacy plan.