Host Check-Out: How To

Check-out mirrors check-in: your guest documents the car one more time before they leave it, you confirm the return, and a 24-hour window opens for either side to flag a problem.

Step 1: Guest runs the photo wizard again

Before leaving the vehicle, your guest opens the trip and completes the same photo wizard from pickup: four exterior angles, interior front and back seats, the odometer, and the fuel or charge gauge. Same rules as check-in — timestamped, geotagged, locked the moment it uploads.

Step 2: You inspect and confirm

In-person return: walk the car with your guest, compare it against your check-in photos, and confirm the return in-app once you're satisfied. Look at the same things your check-in photos captured — exterior panels, interior, odometer, fuel/charge level — so anything new stands out immediately.

Lockbox or remote return: you don't need to be there. You have 24 hours from when the guest checks out to review their checkout photos remotely and confirm the return in-app.

Either way, confirming the return is what closes out the trip on your end — don't skip it or let it sit, even if everything looks fine. It's also your first checkpoint for catching anything worth reporting.

Step 3: Trip goes Completed

Once the return is confirmed, the trip status flips to Completed. The odometer and fuel/charge readings from checkout get compared automatically against your check-in baseline, so any mileage overage or refueling charge is calculated and billed to the guest without you having to do the math.

The 24-hour damage-report window

The moment the trip hits Completed, a 24-hour window opens for either you or the guest to file a damage report. This is your window — if something's wrong with the car that wasn't there at check-in, this is when to say so.

• If neither side files a report, the guest's card-authorization hold releases automatically and your trip earnings become payable on the same 24-hour mark. See Getting Paid: Payout Schedule.
• If you spot damage, don't wait — file within the window. Late reports (without a documented reason you couldn't report sooner) generally aren't covered. Walk through the steps in Filing a Damage Claim (Host).
• If you do file, the earnings tied to that specific trip hold until the claim resolves, but the rest of your balance from other trips keeps moving on schedule.

Why the 24-hour window matters

Compressing this to 24 hours — instead of leaving it open-ended — is deliberate. It gives you a real, unambiguous deadline to catch and report anything wrong, and it gives your guest certainty about when their hold releases. Compare your checkout photos against check-in as soon as you're notified they're in; don't wait until you're close to the deadline to look.

What's next

If everything checks out clean, that's it — the trip is done and your payout follows the standard schedule. If you need to report something, see Filing a Damage Claim (Host) for how to file, and Claims SLA: What to Expect for exactly what happens after you do.