Troubleshooting
Airbnb calendar not syncing with Booking.com?
Listing Watchdog · Updated July 4, 2026
Booking.com’s iCal is the flakiest of the big three. It is not real time, Booking.com won’t even tell you how often it pulls (its own help text says “a few minutes to several hours”), and like every iCal link it runs one direction only. So the usual cause is a missing reverse link or a pull that hasn’t run yet, and the real risk is the hours-long window where one side still shows nights the other already sold.
The 60-second answer
- 1Confirm you built two links. In the Booking.com extranet under Rates & Availability, Calendar, you both export Booking.com into Airbnb and import Airbnb into Booking.com. One link only covers one direction.
- 2If a link exists but nothing updates, remove it and re-import a fresh, complete export URL. A truncated paste or a link the other platform regenerated is the second most common cause.
- 3Hit each platform’s manual refresh (Booking.com’s Import button), give it a few hours, then compare the calendars to confirm the same nights are blocked on both.
Why Airbnb and Booking.com drift apart
Both platforms exchange availability through iCal, a plain calendar feed each one can export and import. It works, with three catches that cause exactly this problem:
- It is one-directional. Importing Airbnb’s feed into Booking.com tells Booking.com about Airbnb bookings and nothing more. A Booking.com reservation still leaves those nights open on Airbnb unless you also import Booking.com’s feed into Airbnb. Two calendars, two links.
- It is slow and undisclosed. Booking.com does not publish a refresh interval and describes updates as taking “a few minutes to several hours,” while Airbnb only re-imports connected calendars about every 3 hours. A same-day booking can double-book you well inside that window.
- It only carries blocked dates, and fails quietly. The feed moves availability, not pricing or guest details, and when a URL changes or a link is dropped nothing warns you. Booking.com can also temporarily block dates after big rate or availability changes, which hosts often misread as a broken sync.
The fix, step by step
You are creating two one-way links so bookings flow in both directions. This works when the property has 20 room types or fewer with a single unit each; larger properties have to use a connectivity provider instead.
- In the Booking.com extranet, open Rates & Availability, then Calendar, and copy the export link (the Export Calendar button gives you an address ending in .ics).
- On Airbnb, open the listing calendar, go to Availability settings, choose to connect a calendar, paste the Booking.com export link, and save.
- Now the reverse: copy Airbnb’s export link and use Booking.com’s Import Calendar button to bring it in. This is the direction most hosts forget.
- Use the manual Import and Refresh buttons, wait a few hours, then confirm both calendars show the same booked nights. If a link ever stops working, delete it and re-add a fresh export URL.
Free check
Do your Airbnb and Booking.com calendars actually match?
Paste the export URL from each channel for one property. This lines them up and flags every night booked on one but still open on another, the gaps that turn into double bookings. No signup, and it never touches guest details.
Why the fix does not stay fixed
Re-linking solves today’s gap. It does nothing about the next silent break, and Booking.com’s iCal has a long history of breaking quietly. The only way to stay ahead of it is to keep comparing the calendars on a schedule, which is what continuous monitoring does: it re-checks every channel around the clock and messages you the minute a gap opens or a feed goes dark, in the window the channels are still blind.
Questions hosts ask
How often does Booking.com sync its calendar?
Booking.com does not publish a fixed interval. Its own help text says imported changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. There is a manual Import button in the extranet calendar, but between automatic pulls a booking on another channel leaves those nights open on Booking.com.
Does Booking.com iCal sync work both ways?
No. Each iCal link is one direction only. To keep Airbnb and Booking.com in step you need two links: export Airbnb into Booking.com, and export Booking.com into Airbnb. Setting up only one is the most common reason bookings appear on one platform but not the other.
Why does Booking.com show dates open that are already booked on Airbnb?
Either the Booking.com import of your Airbnb feed has not run yet (it is not real time), or that reverse link was never set up or quietly broke. Until Booking.com re-imports, it treats those nights as available and can take a second booking for them.
Can I use iCal if my property has multiple units on Booking.com?
Booking.com only offers iCal import and export for properties with 20 room types or fewer and a single unit per room type, and it does not sync between units of the same property. Larger or multi-unit properties are pushed to a connectivity provider instead, so iCal is not an option there.
Syncing Airbnb and Vrbo too? Read the Airbnb and Vrbo version, or run the full cross-channel check across all three at once.