No-Show
A no-show is a guest who books a room and then neither cancels nor arrives. In hotel reporting, it is a guest who guaranteed payment to reserve a room but did not cancel before arrival or occupy the room (No show (AltexSoft glossary)) (Historical Benchmarking Data Reporting Guidelines (CoStar STR Benchmark)).
Last updated: October 2026
How a no-show works
On Booking.com, a no-show is a guest who has not arrived by midnight on the planned check-in date, and the property can choose to charge a no-show fee (Marking guest no-shows at your property (Booking.com Partner Hub)). On an Expedia Pay Later booking, a guest who neither shows up nor cancels is charged the property's no-show or cancellation charge from the booking's Rules and Restrictions. Expedia asks a guest who will miss only the first night to confirm before the original check-in date (Terms of Service (Expedia)). On Airbnb, when a guest does not show up, Airbnb upholds the host's cancellation policy and releases any payout due (When a guest doesn't show up for a reservation (Airbnb Help Center)). Vacation rental guests usually prepay in full, so most OTA and rental terms treat a no-show like a last-minute cancellation and the host keeps the payment (What is No-Show? (Hostaway glossary)).
Almost all hotels now require a guaranteed reservation, held with a credit card, a 2004 study of US hotels reported (Non-performance penalties in the hotel industry (DeKay, Yates and Toh, International Journal of Hospitality Management, 2004)).
The charge can also be automated in the property management system. In Oracle OPERA Cloud, with the Post Revenue To No Shows control active, rules can transfer deposit payments and post a no-show charge during End of Day on the arrival date (Managing No Show and Cancellation Deposits and Charges (Oracle OPERA Cloud User Guide, Release 24.1)).
Why a no-show matters for hotel distribution
When a guest does not show up, the hotel might not be able to resell the room. No-shows and late cancellations also weaken forecasting and controls, the two basic elements of revenue management (Consumers vs. Revenue Managers? The Case of Cancellations and No Shows (Zvi Schwartz, Boston Hospitality Review, 2021)).
No-show rooms are not counted as rooms sold in the data hotels send for an STR report, and no room nights are recorded for them (Historical Benchmarking Data Reporting Guidelines (CoStar STR Benchmark)).
The size of the problem has shifted over time. A 2004 study put the US hotel no-show rate at around 5% of expected arrivals in its 2002 to 2003 survey of 20 hotels, down from 5% to 15% in most commercial markets in 1980. The same study gives about 8% for airlines, 20 to 25% for car rental and under 1% for cruises (Non-performance penalties in the hotel industry (DeKay, Yates and Toh, International Journal of Hospitality Management, 2004)).
No-show compared with late cancellation, overbooking and attrition
| Term | What happens | How it relates to a no-show |
|---|---|---|
| No-show | The guest neither cancels nor arrives | The property's no-show charge from the booking terms can apply |
| Late cancellation | The guest cancels close to the arrival date | Expedia Pay Later terms name one "no-show or cancellation charge" for both |
| Overbooking | The hotel sells more rooms than it has | Higher no-show and last-minute cancellation rates call for more overbooking, which raises the cost of walking guests when the hotel oversells |
| Prepaid, non-refundable booking | The guest pays in full at booking | Visa's sample wording treats failure to arrive as a no-show charged at 100% of the booking value |
| Attrition clause | A group contract term, covered on its own page | A group guest who guaranteed a room individually can still be counted as a no-show |
Late cancellation and overbooking: Consumers vs. Revenue Managers? The Case of Cancellations and No Shows (Zvi Schwartz, Boston Hospitality Review, 2021), Terms of Service (Expedia). Prepaid bookings: Visa Dispute Management Guide for Merchants (Visa). Group guests: Historical Benchmarking Data Reporting Guidelines (CoStar STR Benchmark).
Frequently asked questions
What is a no-show fee?
How much is a no-show fee?
Is it legal to charge a no-show fee?
How do you calculate a no-show rate?
How should a hotel handle a no-show?
How does a no-show affect the hotel?
Related terms
See all termsWhere Jetstream fits
A no-show touches several systems at once: the channel that sold the booking, with its own rules and deadlines, and the property system that posts the charge. Jetstream builds an AI channel manager that connects a property's systems to the channels where guests book, and keeps rooms, rates and availability accurate on each one, managed from one place.