Free Reservation System for Vietnam Guesthouses
One calendar for every booking: Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb, Zalo messages, WhatsApp, phone calls and walk-ins. No double bookings. No missed reservations. Check-in, room status, a bill in ₫ with VAT where it applies, and daily reports. Free. No subscription, no trial period.
OnlineHotelier PMS is a free hotel booking system for Vietnam guesthouses, homestays, mini-hotels, beach bungalows and mountain homestays. It puts every booking in one calendar: Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb, Zalo, WhatsApp, phone and walk-in. Check-in, room status, housekeeping, bills in ₫ (VND) and daily reports are all included at no cost. The optional paid add-on is the channel manager, which syncs availability across OTAs automatically.
OnlineHotelier PMS at a glance
| Product | OnlineHotelier PMS, a free cloud hotel reservation and management system |
|---|---|
| Price | Free. No subscription, no trial period |
| Who it is for | Nha nghi (budget guesthouses), homestays, mini-hotels, Hoi An and Da Lat villas, Phu Quoc and Mui Ne beach bungalows, Sapa and Ha Giang homestays, and hostels in Vietnam with limited inventory |
| Local tax handling | Configurable for Vietnam: set your VAT rate and service charge once. Standard VAT is 10%; a temporary reduction to 8% runs through 31 December 2026. Household businesses with annual revenue at or below VND 1 billion are exempt from VAT. The system calculates the bill correctly either way |
| Paid add-on | Channel manager that syncs availability and rates to Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb and other OTAs. Pricing on WhatsApp |
| Runs on | Any web browser on a phone, tablet or laptop. Nothing to install |
| How to start | Sign up online, or message us on WhatsApp for guided setup |
One calendar for every booking source
You run a four-room nha nghi in Hoi An's Old Town. A Booking.com reservation comes in for Room 3 on Friday night. A few minutes later, a Zalo message arrives from a Vietnamese traveller who saw your place on a local travel group. They want the same room on the same night. You check your notebook. You check your phone. You are not sure which is current.
That is the problem the OnlineHotelier calendar solves. Every booking lives in one place, whatever its source:
- Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb and other OTAs (via the channel manager add-on, or entered manually)
- Zalo and WhatsApp messages (entered at the front desk)
- Phone calls and walk-ins (entered directly)
- Any other channel you use to take reservations
When a room is taken, the calendar shows it as blocked. No double booking. Nothing missed. If you add the channel manager add-on, a Booking.com reservation closes the room on Agoda and Airbnb automatically.
Zalo and WhatsApp in Vietnam: In Vietnam, Zalo is the messaging app most domestic travellers use to contact small accommodation directly. A guest from Hanoi looking for a homestay in Sapa or a bungalow in Mui Ne will often message you on Zalo first. International guests use WhatsApp. Neither channel is a formal OTA, so these bookings never appear in your Booking.com or Agoda calendar. Entering them into the same calendar as your OTA reservations is how you see your true availability at a glance, without switching between apps.
Check-in, room status, housekeeping and check-out
The calendar is one piece. The rest of the day-to-day runs here too.
Guest check-in
Record the guest's name, passport or CCCD number, nationality, and room on arrival. The system creates a guest folio (a running bill) from the moment they check in. Read our guide on the hotel check-in process for what to collect and why.
Room status
Mark rooms as occupied, vacant, dirty or clean after housekeeping. Front desk sees the update live so they know which rooms are ready for the next guest.
Housekeeping
Your housekeeper updates room status from their phone as they clean. No calling reception. The room shows as clean the moment it is ready.
Guest check-out and bill
Post room charges, any extras, and the guest's payments to their folio. Review the bill, apply service charge and VAT where relevant, and share it at check-out. Done in one step.
Daily reports give you occupancy, average room rate and total revenue for the day. You get the numbers you need each morning without building them by hand.
Vietnam taxes, billing and guest registration
The PMS can be configured for Vietnam. You set your property's rates and charges once, and the bill calculates correctly every time.
VAT
VAT (Value Added Tax) in Vietnam has a standard rate of 10%. A temporary 2-point reduction brings the rate to 8% through 31 December 2026, under Resolution 204/2025/QH15 and Decree 174/2025/ND-CP. This temporary cut applies to goods and services that are otherwise taxed at the 10% rate. Accommodation services are not on the exclusion list found in research, so your guesthouse most likely qualifies for the 8% rate until the end of 2026, after which the standard 10% rate is expected to return. Confirm the rate for your specific situation with a local accountant or the General Department of Taxation (gdt.gov.vn).
Household business tax
Many small guesthouses and homestays in Vietnam operate as ho kinh doanh (household businesses). From 1 January 2026, under Decree 141/2026/ND-CP, household businesses with annual revenue at or below VND 1 billion (about USD 38,000) are exempt from both personal income tax and VAT. If your revenue is at or below this threshold, you do not charge VAT on your bills and are not required to issue e-invoices, though you may opt in voluntarily.
If your revenue exceeds VND 1 billion in a year, you must file the applicable taxes and issue e-invoices (hoa don dien tu) through a separate service connected to the General Department of Taxation's system. The PMS records your transactions but does not submit e-invoices to the authority. A local accountant will tell you exactly where you stand and which service to use.
Service charge
Service charge is your own discretionary charge, not a government tax. Larger hotels and resorts in Vietnam typically add 5% to 10%. Most small guesthouses and nhà nghỉ charge none at all. You set your own rate in the PMS, or leave it at zero.
Here are two sample bills.
VAT-registered property (8% VAT, applicable through 31 Dec 2026):
| Room rate (1 night) | ₫800,000 |
| Service charge (5%) | ₫40,000 |
| Subtotal | ₫840,000 |
| VAT (8% on ₫840,000) | ₫67,200 |
| Total payable | ₫907,200 |
Household business below VND 1 billion threshold (no VAT):
| Room rate (1 night) | ₫350,000 |
| Service charge | ₫0 |
| Total payable | ₫350,000 |
Foreign guest temporary residence declaration
If you host foreign guests, you are required to submit a khai bao tam tru (temporary residence declaration) to the police. Under Circular 87/2026/TT-BCA (Ministry of Public Security, June 2026), this must be done immediately on the guest's arrival. You submit the declaration as the accommodation provider, not the guest. The current online portal for declarations is at tbltkbtt.bocongan.gov.vn.
The PMS records each foreign guest's name, nationality and passport number at check-in. A guest-list export is available on request: message us on WhatsApp to have it set up. You use that information to complete the declaration yourself through the MPS portal.
Payments recorded
The PMS records how each guest paid: cash, bank transfer, QR payment or card. The folio keeps a full payment history. Your daily report shows total collections by payment type. The PMS records payment; it does not process transactions.
Property types across Vietnam
The system is built for very small properties. Wherever you are in Vietnam, if your main job is keeping track of who is in which room on which night, this covers it.
Hanoi Old Quarter nhà nghỉ and mini-hotels
Budget guesthouses in Hanoi's Old Quarter handle a fast turnover of short stays from both domestic and international travellers. A single calendar that catches Booking.com, Agoda and Zalo bookings at the same time stops the double-booking problem that comes with high occupancy.
Hoi An and Hue town houses and villas
Heritage-town properties attract guests from multiple OTAs alongside repeat visitors who book directly on WhatsApp or Zalo. Keeping both streams in one calendar is the most common need here.
Phu Quoc and Mui Ne beach bungalows
Beach properties face peak-season double-booking pressure when OTA demand is high and guests also message directly. The calendar closes rooms across all channels the moment a booking is confirmed.
Sapa and Ha Giang mountain homestays
Mountain homestays often have only two or three rooms and one person running everything. A free tool that runs on a phone and takes a few minutes to set up is a practical step up from a notebook and a WhatsApp thread.
Da Lat villas and eco-stays
Da Lat's growing short-stay market sees guests book across Airbnb, Booking.com and Vietnamese platforms. One calendar removes the need to check each platform separately each morning.
Hostels and backpacker guesthouses
A small hostel with a few private rooms and dorms juggling multiple OTAs benefits from the same calendar approach. Track room-level availability and check-ins without a dedicated front desk system.
Channel manager: for when you outgrow updating each OTA by hand
If you are on one or two OTAs and you update availability yourself after each booking, the free PMS is enough. Most small properties start here.
The channel manager add-on becomes useful when you are on three or more OTAs and a booking on one platform means you need to close the room on all the others. Doing that by hand is slow, and a missed update causes a double booking.
The add-on connects your PMS calendar directly to Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb and other OTAs. When a booking arrives, all connected channels update automatically. Read our guide on what a channel manager does before deciding whether you need one.
The channel manager add-on is paid. Message us on WhatsApp and we will give you the current price for your property.