What Is a Bed and Breakfast?

A bed and breakfast (B&B) is a lodging business that offers short-term stays in a private home or in a small building converted for the purpose. The US industry code for B&B inns adds two defining traits: highly personalized service and a full breakfast included in the room rate (NAICS Code 721191 Bed-and-Breakfast Inns).

Last updated: November 2026

How a bed and breakfast works

B&Bs are typically located in private properties with live-in owners (What is a bed and breakfast? (Booking.com)).

State law can also define a B&B, and Wisconsin's statute shows what such a definition can include. A Wisconsin B&B rents 8 or fewer rooms to no more than 20 guests in total (Wisconsin Statutes s. 97.01 (1g)). It serves no meal other than breakfast, and serves breakfast only to the people renting rooms (Wisconsin Statutes s. 97.01 (1g)). Those limits apply in Wisconsin only, so an owner elsewhere checks the state and local rules where the property sits.

Federal accessibility rules draw a separate line. The ADA rules on public accommodations leave out lodging in a building with no more than five rooms for rent that the proprietor actually lives in (28 CFR 36.104 Definitions). That exclusion covers small owner-occupied lodging in general, B&Bs included, and whether a given property qualifies is a question for a lawyer.

Why it matters for hotel distribution

B&Bs are usually much smaller than hotels and have only a few rooms (What is a bed and breakfast? (Booking.com)).

That size changes the stakes of every booking. Even at Wisconsin's cap of 8 rooms, one room is an eighth of what the property can sell on a given night, so an unsold room or a double booking moves the night's results far more than it would at a 200-room hotel.

The segment is also hard to measure. It has long been overshadowed by the hotel industry and has lacked definitive market research to size it (The State of B&Bs in the U.S. (Phocuswright, Feb 2018)). For an owner, the property's own booking data is the most reliable guide to which channels earn their place.

Booking.com and Airbnb file B&Bs under their own property types, apart from hotels, as the comparison below shows. An owner selling on more than one channel describes the same property in each channel's categories, then keeps rooms, rates and availability matched across all of them.

Bed and breakfast compared with hotels, inns, vacation rentals and B&B rates

Compared withHow it differs from a B&B
HotelBooking.com's connectivity codes list Hotel (code 20) as a hotel type and Bed and Breakfast (code 4) under Home properties (Property Class Type Codes, Booking.com Connectivity docs).
InnInn (code 21) is also a hotel type in Booking.com's codes Property Class Type Codes, Booking.com Connectivity docs, even though the US industry code for B&Bs is titled "Bed-and-Breakfast Inns" (NAICS Code 721191 Bed-and-Breakfast Inns).
Guest house or homestayBooking.com lists Guest House (code 40, OTA name "Pension") and Homestay (code 5004) as Home types of their own, separate from Bed and Breakfast (Property Class Type Codes, Booking.com Connectivity docs).
Vacation rental or Airbnb listingAirbnb's listing types define a bed and breakfast as a hospitality business offering guests breakfast with a Host on-site, and keep it separate from the "Boutique hotel" type (How to define what kind of space you're hosting (Airbnb Resource Center)).
Bed-and-breakfast rateA meal plan: OTA meal plan code 3, "Bed & breakfast", which Booking.com maps to its Breakfast plan (code 19) (Meal Plan Types, Booking.com Connectivity docs).

Frequently asked questions

What is a bed and breakfast hotel?
The phrase mixes two property classes. B&Bs generally offer fewer facilities and services than hotels. In England the line is formal: under VisitEngland's scheme, B&Bs can earn a quality rating of 3 to 5 stars, and a property that puts the word "hotel" in its name must be assessed as a hotel instead.
What is bed and breakfast in a hotel?
In a hotel, "bed and breakfast" names a rate whose price covers the room and breakfast. Distribution code lists treat it as its own meal plan, separate from room only, which includes no meals, and from half board, which adds another meal to breakfast. When comparing prices, check which meal plan each rate carries before treating two rates as the same.
What is a bed and breakfast house?
State law can require a B&B to be a house in the literal sense. In Wisconsin, the property must be the owner's personal residence and be occupied by the owner at the time of rental. The building must also have been built, or converted and occupied, as a single-family residence. These rules apply in Wisconsin only, so owners elsewhere check their own state statute.
What is an air bed and breakfast?
The phrase goes back to Airbnb's original name. The company started as Airbed & Breakfast, when its founders hosted its first guests in 2007. Airbnb says it has since grown to over 5.5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2.5 billion guest arrivals. On Airbnb today, the bed and breakfast is one listing type among several.

Related terms

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Where Jetstream fits

A small property with a few rooms has little room for a calendar that is out of date on one channel. 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.

See Jetstream's AI channel manager Book a demo