How to write a no-show and cancellation policy (with a template you can copy)

Most cancellation policies fail for the same three reasons: nobody reads them, nobody enforces them, and they were written to sound firm rather than to be understood. Here are the four decisions behind a policy that holds up — and a template you can copy in three lengths.

Almost every restaurant has a cancellation policy. Far fewer have one that does anything.

The usual failure isn't the wording. It's that the policy lives on a page nobody visits, staff have never been told what to do when it's breached, and it was written to sound firm rather than to be understood. A policy like that costs you the goodwill of publishing it without buying you any of the protection.

So before writing a word, four decisions.

The four decisions behind a cancellation policy. One: how much notice do you need, set in hours, based on how long it realistically takes to resell the table. Two: what happens without that notice — nothing, a retained deposit, or a fee. Three: who is exempt, decided in advance so staff never have to judge it on the night. Four: where the policy appears — the booking page before payment, the confirmation, the reminder, and your own website.

1. How much notice do you actually need?

Not how much you'd like. How long it realistically takes you to resell that table.

For a two-top on a busy Friday, that might be two hours — you'll fill it from walk-ins or the waitlist. For a party of twelve on a Saturday in December, 48 hours might not be enough. Your notice period should reflect the second case for large bookings and the first case for small ones, which is why a single blanket number is usually wrong.

State it in hours, not vibes. "24 hours before your booking" is checkable. "Reasonable notice" is an argument waiting to happen.

2. What happens if they don't give it?

Three honest answers, and "nothing" is a legitimate one:

• Nothing. You record it on the guest's profile and you watch for a pattern. For a lot of venues

this is the right answer for small bookings — the admin of chasing £15 costs more than £15.

• You keep the deposit (or part of it), if you took one.
• You charge a fee against a card saved at booking.

Pick per booking type, not per venue. Plenty of places quite reasonably charge nothing on a two-top and hold a deposit on a party of ten.

3. Who's exempt?

Decide this now, in daylight, rather than at 7pm with a guest on the phone.

Most venues land somewhere near: parties under a certain size aren't charged; a genuine emergency isn't charged; a guest who has never let you down before gets one free pass. Write it down, tell your team, and let them apply it without having to ring you. A policy your staff are afraid to enforce isn't a policy — and a policy applied differently depending on who's on the floor is worse than none, because it looks arbitrary to the guest who did get charged.

4. Where does it appear?

If a guest can complete a booking without seeing the policy, you don't have one that will survive being challenged. It needs to be in four places:

• On the booking page, before they confirm — not behind a link they won't open
• In the confirmation email, so it exists in writing
• In the reminder, because people book weeks ahead and forget
• On your own website, in full, for anyone who wants the detail

The template

Adapt the bracketed bits. Keep it as plain as this — every clause you add makes it less likely to be read, and being read is the entire job.

One line for the booking page:

Free to cancel up to [24] hours before your booking. After that we [keep your deposit / charge a [£15] per-table fee], as we're unlikely to be able to resell the table.

The full policy for your website:

Cancellations and no-shows We hold your table for the whole of your booking, and a table that stays empty can't be given to anyone else. So that we can plan and buy accordingly, we ask for [24] hours' notice if your plans change. Cancelling with [24] hours' notice or more — no charge, and any deposit is refunded in full. You can cancel using the link in your confirmation email, or call us on [phone number]. Cancelling with less than [24] hours' notice — [we keep your deposit / we charge a [£15] fee per table to the card saved with your booking]. Not arriving at all — we charge [£15] per table to the card saved with your booking. We'll hold your table for [15] minutes past your booking time, and we'd always rather hear from you than not. Parties of [6] or more — [a deposit of [£10] per person is required at booking, refundable under the terms above]. If something has genuinely gone wrong, talk to us. We'd rather sort it out than charge you.

One line for the confirmation and reminder:

Plans changed? Cancel free until [10:00 on Friday] using the link above. After that, [a £15 per-table fee applies].

Note what that last line does: it gives a real time and date rather than "24 hours before", so the guest doesn't have to do the arithmetic. Fewer people miss a deadline they can read.

Wording that works, and wording that doesn't

• "We reserve the right to charge…" — everyone knows this means "we probably won't". If you're

going to charge, say you'll charge.

• Explain the why in one clause. "A table that stays empty can't be given to anyone else" does

more work than a paragraph of terms, because it's obviously true.

• Name the amount. A guest who knows it's £15 accepts it. A guest who discovers it's £15 after

the fact disputes it.

• Give them an exit. "We'd rather hear from you" costs you nothing and turns a chunk of silent

no-shows into cancellations you can resell.

• Don't threaten. Nobody has ever been charmed into turning up by capital letters.

Enforcing it without a row

Three rules, and they matter more than the wording:

• Say it at the time, not later. A fee raised the next morning feels like a penalty. A fee

mentioned when the guest cancels feels like the policy they agreed to.

• Be consistent. The moment you charge one table and wave another off for the same thing, you're

negotiating rather than enforcing.

• If you won't enforce it, don't publish it. An unenforced policy trains your regulars to ignore

it and gives new guests the impression you're stricter than you are. Both are worse than a shorter, honest policy you'll actually stand behind.

And keep the discretion. The goal was never fee income — it's fewer empty tables. A guest who cancels late because something awful happened, waved off graciously, is a guest for years.

The legal bit

This isn't legal advice, and if you're in any doubt take some. But the same three principles apply here as to deposits: a charge should be a genuine reflection of your loss rather than a penalty, your terms need to be clear, prominent and agreed before booking, and under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 a term that's unfair to the consumer may simply be unenforceable. There's more on that in should your restaurant take booking deposits?

How this works in ResoFlow

Your cancellation deadline is a single setting in hours, and it does more than display: it drives whether guests can cancel online, what your deposit policy refunds, and whether a late-cancellation fee applies. Saving it also updates the customer cancellation policy your guests see.

No-show protection saves a card at booking without charging it, and the fee is a flat amount per table rather than per guest, applied only to parties at or above a size you choose. A guest cancelling inside your window sees the exact fee named on screen and has to confirm it — nothing is taken quietly. Only a member of your team marking the booking as a no-show and choosing to charge ever arms the fee, and you set a delay before it's taken, so re-seating the guest cancels it. The saved card is released automatically once the booking finishes.

Both are available on our Bistro plan and above, and both need Stripe connected. More detail: booking deposits and no-show protection, or the step-by-step in how do I charge no-show fees?

If you'd rather have it set up for you

Setup is £199 and currently free. We'll go through which features suit your venue, configure the plan you choose — including your cancellation deadline, deposit rules and no-show settings — and import your existing bookings and customer list. It's done remotely: you get in touch, we arrange a transition day, and most venues are live within a day of it, subject to availability and how quickly a few decisions get made.

Plans start at £39 a month with no per-cover fees. Free setup has the detail, or email [email protected] and tell us what your no-show problem looks like at the moment.