In some situations, you may want to refund a guest without cancelling their reservation. This most often happens when:

A guest decides to cancel their stay after checking in. Guests cannot cancel their own reservation after check‑in, and cancelling the reservation on their behalf may negatively affect your performance metrics.
You want to compensate a guest for an issue during their stay. For example, you can compensate a guest for broken air conditioning or a natural disaster.

Important: When you refund without cancelling, the reservation remains active. As a result, the guest can still leave a review.

Issue a guest refund without cancelling the reservation

Sign in to your Vrbo Owner Dashboard.
If you manage multiple properties, select the listing you want to manage.
From the menu, select Inbox.
Find the reservation. You can:
- Use Filters to narrow your conversations.
- Enter the guest’s name or reservation ID (Res ID) in the search bar.
Select the guest’s name to open the conversation.
In Payment schedule, select Send a refund.
In Custom amount, enter the refund amount. You can issue a refund for any amount, as long as it does not exceed the amount the guest has already paid (excluding taxes and fees).
Select Continue.
Select Send refund.

What to do if you do not see the refund option

If you do not see the option to send a refund to your account, select Contact Us at the end of this page for help.

What to do if the guest’s original payment account is closed

If the guest no longer has the original form of payment, you should still issue the refund through your Owner Dashboard. The guest's financial institution may be able to credit the guest or send a check through their own reconciliation process.

What happens after you issue a refund

You and the guest will receive an email with refund details.
The payment schedule will show the payment status as refunded or partially refunded.
Refunds can take 5 to 7 business days to appear in the guest’s account.

Processing fees

While there are processing fees to collect payments, there are no fees to refund a payment.

Example: You issue a refund of $500. Of the $500 your guest paid, you received $485 due to a 3% processing fee. Vrbo will only take $485 from your account and will return the 3% processing fee directly to the guest, so they receive the full $500.

Integrated property managers

Refund your guest through your own software or payment processor.
Contact your software provider or payment processor for any questions about refunding or modifying guest payments.

About transferring a listing to a new owner