Hotel Contract Template: Free Word Agreement, Sample PDF and Rate Sheet

Free Hotel Contract Template Download: Word, Sample PDF and Excel

No sign-up needed. The sample figures in the PDF and the spreadsheet match, so you can follow one booking from the contract to the calculator.

What a Hotel Contract Covers, and Which Type You Need

A hotel contract, also called an accommodation contract or hotel agreement, is the written deal under which a hotel sells rooms to a tour operator, wholesaler or DMC at trade rates for a fixed period. The clauses set the rules. The schedules hold the numbers.

Not every deal needs the same contract. The template covers the most common shape, a seasonal agreement with an allotment, and handles the others by deleting clauses:

One thing this isn't. If you searched for a hotel management contract between an owner and an operating company, or an employment contract for hotel staff, those are different documents with different law behind them.

Hotel Contract Format: the Clauses, One by One

Each heading below matches a clause in the Word template. The first line says what the clause has to settle; the rest is what we'd watch for.

Parties and validity

Name the legal entity that owns or operates the hotel, not just the hotel's trading name, and state the contract period as stay dates. The company name matters because that's who invoices you and who you'd claim against. Stay dates matter because a rate "valid for 2027" can mean bookings made in 2027 or nights spent in 2027, and those are very different things in December.

Watch automatic renewal. The template defaults to no renewal, so nobody is bound by last year's rates by accident.

Rate basis: net or commissionable

The contract must say whether rates are net (you pay the hotel that price and add your own markup) or commissionable (the hotel sets the selling price and you keep a percentage). It should also say whether rates are static, fixed per season, or dynamic, a discount off the hotel's daily rate. Our net rate vs commissionable rate guide explains the difference properly; for the contract, the point is that it must be written down, per rate.

Add the source markets too. Many wholesale rates are valid only for guests resident in certain countries, and selling outside them can get a booking refused at check-in.

Currency, taxes and service charges

State the contract currency, whether rates include taxes and service charge, every tax by name, and what happens if a tax changes during the contract. That last point isn't theoretical. Singapore's GST went from 8% to 9% on 1 January 2024, and the tax authority's guidance applies the new rate to the part of a service performed after the change (IRAS, checked November 2026). A contract that says nothing leaves you arguing about who absorbs the difference.

List the charges guests pay at the hotel separately. Dubai's Tourism Dirham fee, for example, runs from AED 7 to 20 per room per night depending on the hotel's category, for up to 30 consecutive nights (UAE government portal, checked November 2026). Your client needs to hear about it before they travel, not at the desk.

Room types, occupancy and extra beds

For each room type, the contract should give the bed set-up, maximum adults, maximum children and maximum total occupancy, and say whether an extra bed fits. Bed type, view and connecting rooms are requests unless the rate says guaranteed. Write that in, because a honeymoon couple in twin beds will quote your contract back to you.

Meal plans and room basis

The meal plan parameters in a hotel contract are the base plan included in the rate, the supplement or reduction for each other plan, the child meal charges and any compulsory dinners. Define the codes too, since "all inclusive" means different things at different resorts.

Compulsory gala dinners on Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve belong in the schedule with a price, and the template bars any compulsory meal that isn't listed there. Our meal plans guide covers the codes in more depth.

Child policy

A child policy sets age bands, measured on the check-in date, and what each band pays for the room, an extra bed and meals. In our sample, infants of 0-1 are free, children of 2-11 share their parents' beds free but pay for meals and any extra bed, and anyone 12 or over is charged as an adult. Hotels draw these lines differently, so check them on every contract rather than copying last year's.

Allotment and release period

The allotment clause sets how many rooms per night the hotel holds for you, by room type and season, and the release period, the number of days before arrival by which you must book them. After that, unsold rooms go back to the hotel. Our posts on allotment, release period, free sale and on request and on negotiating hotel allotment contracts explain how this works in practice.

Two contract points those posts don't dwell on. First, say whether the allotment is guaranteed (you pay for rooms whether you sell them or not) or non-guaranteed. Second, bar the hotel from cutting the allotment for nights you've already sold.

Free sale, on request and stop sale

Outside the allotment, the contract should say whether you may confirm rooms yourself (free sale) or must ask first (on request), and how much notice a stop sale needs. The template's default is that a stop sale takes effect 24 hours after it's sent and never cancels bookings already confirmed. If you can, get the allotment protected from stop sales until its release date.

Minimum stay and blackout dates

Minimum stays and blackout dates should be listed in the schedules, with a rule for whether a minimum stay applies by arrival date or to any night in the period. Without it, a four-night stay from 18 December is open to argument: it arrives in high season, but two of its nights fall in a peak period with a five-night minimum. The template also stops the hotel adding new restrictions mid-contract.

Cancellation, no-show and amendments

The cancellation clause sets charges by days before arrival, the no-show charge, and whether shortening a stay counts as cancelling the nights removed (it should). The individual-booking tiers in our sample:

Fictional sample terms, not a market standard. Agree your own with each hotel.

Ask for one more line: if the hotel resells a cancelled room for the same nights, it credits the charge. Our hotel cancellation policies guide shows how to read charge steps once they reach a booking.

Payment terms and deposits

Payment terms say when you pay (in advance per booking, or by monthly invoice), any deposit or guarantee, late-payment consequences and the bank details. The clause we'd never drop is the bank-detail check: a change of account is valid only after a phone call to a known contact. Emails announcing "new bank details" are a well-known fraud, and they target exactly this kind of invoice. For the cash-flow side, see our guide to B2B travel payment terms.

Group terms and attrition: using it as a hotel group contract template

Clause 14 turns the template into a hotel group contract template. It defines a group (10 rooms or more in the sample), then sets the rooming list date, the attrition allowance (how far numbers can fall without charge), free rooms for the tour leader and the deposit schedule. The group scale in Schedule 4 is stricter than the individual one, which is normal. Our group hotel booking guide works through attrition with numbers, and the free hotel rooming list template covers the names side.

Overbooking and relocation

If the hotel can't provide a confirmed room, the contract should make it move the guest to an equal or better hotel nearby, pay the transport and any price difference, and tell you at once. Agree the compensation in advance. At 11pm it's too late. Our note on handling hotel overbooking covers what to do on the night.

Rate parity and confidentiality

The confidentiality clause stops net rates being published as stand-alone room prices and says who you may resell to, for example whether other wholesalers or bedbanks are allowed. Be careful with parity clauses that run the other way. Competition law limits them in places: in the European Economic Area, the Digital Markets Act bars Booking.com from imposing parity requirements on hotels, with compliance required since 14 November 2024 (European Commission). That rule targets one platform, but it's a sign to have a lawyer look at any most-favoured-rate wording. Background on how hotels police their rates is in our rate parity explainer.

Liability, insurance and force majeure

The liability clause decides who pays when a guest is hurt or a service fails. Tour operators selling packages in Europe have a particular reason to care: under the EU Package Travel Directive (EU) 2015/2302, Article 13, the organiser is responsible to the traveller for every service in the package, whoever performs it (EUR-Lex). That's why the template has a two-way compensation clause and asks for the hotel's insurance certificate.

For force majeure, the International Chamber of Commerce publishes model clauses (ICC Force Majeure and Hardship Clauses, March 2020) whose list of presumed events includes epidemics, government orders and long transport failures. The gap travel contracts hit is different: the hotel is open, but your guests can't get there. Clause 19.3 lets you cancel free of charge when a government bans travel or advises against all travel, or scheduled transport to the destination is suspended.

Governing law, disputes and guest data

Pick one country's law, and either its courts or an arbitration body, and write it down. Without it, a cross-border dispute starts with an argument about where to argue. Add a short data clause too, because the hotel receives your guests' names and sometimes passport details; in Europe that's covered by the GDPR, and most other markets have their own law.

Hotel Contract Parameters Checklist for Tour Operators and Wholesalers

These are the hotel B2B contract parameters a tour operator or wholesaler should have in writing before signing. The Excel file has the same list on its Checklist tab, with a status column.

Loading the Contract: How the Excel Rate Sheet Works

The rate sheet is where the contract becomes something your reservations team can price from. Fill the tabs in this order:

1. Contract: dates, currency, net or commissionable, taxes and service charge.
2. Seasons: codes, dates and minimum stays. A check flags gaps or overlaps between seasons.
3. Rooms: occupancy limits and the rate grid by season, plus adult and child extra beds.
4. Meals and Children: supplements, child meal charges, age bands and gala dinners.
5. Allotment and Cancellation: rooms per night and release days by room and season, blackout dates and the cancellation tiers.
6. Calculator: enter a booking and read the price and the warnings.

The example in the file is the sample contract. Two adults, a child of 7 and an infant take a Deluxe Room at the fictional Hotel Exemplar Bay from 18 to 26 December 2027, half board, with a child extra bed. The stay crosses from the high season into the peak season and includes the Christmas Eve dinner. The sheet prices it at USD 2,400.00 before taxes and USD 2,824.80 after a 10% service charge and 7% tax. Cancelled eight days before arrival, the 50% tier applies: USD 1,412.40. It also confirms the booking was made 64 days before arrival, well ahead of the 21-day release, so the room can come from the allotment.

A caveat: the calculator applies one occupancy to all rooms and checks minimum stay against the arrival season only. Mixed-occupancy groups need a line per room type.

How Do Agencies Negotiate Hotel Contracts?

Agencies negotiate hotel contracts by showing the hotel volume it can believe in, and then trading that volume for better terms as well as a lower rate. The usual order:

1. Pull a year of your bookings at that hotel: room nights, months, average stay and cancellations.
2. Ask for a contract in the months before the hotel sets next year's rates, not in its busy season.
3. Start with a non-guaranteed allotment on the room types you actually sell.
4. Negotiate the release period, cancellation tiers and meal supplements alongside the rate. A release date closer to arrival is often worth more than a few dollars off.
5. Send the template back with your changes marked, so the discussion is about specific clauses.
6. Agree a review date after three or six months and bring your figures to it.

Be realistic about step 1. A hotel offering an allotment to an agency with a handful of bookings a year is unusual. More tactics for rates themselves are in our guide to negotiating hotel rates, and the bedbanks list shows who already holds contracts you can buy through.

Before You Sign: Have a Local Lawyer Review It

Have a lawyer qualified in the hotel's country review the final version, and one in your own country if you sell packages there. It's a modest cost next to a dispute over a peak-season allotment.

No Hotel Contract Yet? Book at Net Rates on DMC Quote

Most agencies don't have the volume for direct hotel contracts at first. Until you do, DMC Quote gives registered travel agents net rates on 1.5M+ hotels in 190+ countries, free to join, with no allotment to sell and no minimum volume. Where we hold a direct contract with a hotel, those rates are listed first in your results. Supplier names aren't shown.

• Cancellation deadlines are shown in Singapore time and set earlier than the supplier's own, so you have a margin.
• Mandatory fees payable at the hotel, such as tourism fees, are shown before you pay.
• Some contracted rooms are sold on request, so read the booking status before you invoice your client.

What the portal doesn't do: it doesn't give agents their own allotment or release dates, it has no group-block or rooming-list tools, and a booking can be cancelled but not amended. For a group of 30, you still want a group contract with the hotel.

If you're a hotel or local supplier, it works the other way round: you can register as a supplier for a one-time USD 100 setup fee, with no monthly fee, then pay only on confirmed bookings, with payouts on a 30-day cycle.

How to Register for B2B Hotel Rates

1. Fill in the free agent registration form with your company details. An IATA number is optional.
2. Upload your business registration when asked. Our team reviews the application.
3. Once approved, search hotels at net rates, top up your wallet by bank transfer and book.

The registration guide lists the documents by country, and the travel industry glossary decodes the contract terms on this page. Register free →