Become a Host

Become a host on LakeBooking

If you own or manage a fishing lake (a commercial day-ticket water, a small private pond, a hotel-attached lake, or a river beat), you can list it on LakeBooking, take bookings online, and skip the endless phone calls.

Most hosts finish the setup in 30 to 60 minutes, plus a quick verification step we usually clear in a day or two.

Free setup for our first 100 lakes

If your lake is among the first 100 on LakeBooking, setup, help and support are free, so you don't have to build the listing yourself. On the Set up your lake checklist in your dashboard, hit Start questionnaire on the We can set up your lake for you, free banner and answer a short questionnaire (about 10 minutes on your lake, fish, swims, prices and rules). Our team then builds your profile, swims, packages and rules for you. If anything is unclear we ask in Messages. You review and approve the result, and bookings stay off until you turn them on yourself.

Prefer doing it yourself? Follow the dashboard checklist and ask us anything along the way. Help and support are free for you either way.

Who can list a lake

You're a good fit if you're:

• The owner of the lake, or
• The manager / lessee with permission to take bookings, or
• A fishing club, association, or hotel that controls the water.

During setup we ask for your tax details under Account → Tax & compliance, where you can also upload an ID document or a registration certificate if you like (see Step 2).

What it costs

Listing is free. There's no monthly fee, no listing fee, no premium tier.

Here's how the money works in plain terms:

• The angler pays a booking fee of 10% of the total online when they book. At checkout they see it as a fee that secures the booking and counts toward their total, not a charge on top.
• The remaining 90% is paid by the angler directly to you at the lake on arrival, in cash or on your own POS, exactly the way it's always worked.
• Behind the scenes, LakeBooking retains the booking fee as its commission, our compensation for booking facilitation, payment processing, customer acquisition, and platform operations. Our Host Agreement spells this out so there's no ambiguity.

In settlement terms, nothing flows from us to your bank account in the current model. You collect the remaining balance directly, and we retain the booking fee paid online by the angler.

The commission is a flat 10% of each booking, spelled out in the Host Agreement, which sits alongside our Terms & Conditions on our legal pages. The agreement covers what we provide, how the commission works, and what you can expect from us. It applies to every listing you publish with us. No separate contract to sign, no paperwork by post.

What you'll need before you start

Just a few things:

• A way to invoice for the remaining balance you collect at the lake. In Romania most hosts use a PFA, II, SRL or ONG; elsewhere, the equivalent in your country. We prefer a registered entity because of how Romanian fiscal rules work for receipts, but if you're a small private operator, write to us before signing up and we'll find the right path.
• Your tax details for Account → Tax & compliance (as an individual, your legal name, date of birth, CNP and tax residence; for a business, its CUI, registration number, VAT number and address). They feed EU DAC7 reporting and are one of the setup checklist steps.
• Optionally, an ID document (individual) or a registration certificate (business) to upload with your tax details.
• A bank account, but only later. When full online payments arrive in 2027, payouts will need one. We don't ask for it now.
• A few photos of the lake (phone snaps are perfectly fine, we'll help you arrange them).

That's it. No business plan, no inspector visit, no minimum revenue threshold.

The 5 steps

1. Create your host account

Sign up as a host → The form asks for your name, email and password and a tick for our Terms, with I own or manage a lake already switched on. Your lake is created straight away. We'll email you a confirmation link. Click it and you land on the Set up your lake checklist.

2. Complete your details: once, lightly

Fill in your tax details under Account → Tax & compliance. As an individual, that's your legal name, date of birth, CNP and tax residence; for a business, its CUI, registration number, VAT number and address. They feed the EU DAC7 reporting we're required to do. Uploading an ID document (individual) or a Registration certificate (business) is optional. The tax details are a setup checklist step, but they don't hold up Accept bookings, and you can keep building the listing in parallel.

3. Build your listing

This is the fun part:

• Your lake. Name, address with its pin on the map, description, profile picture, Water type, Surface area (ha) and Max depth, plus your contact details in Lake settings.
• Your swims. Each spot anglers can book, with a name or number, a pin on the map, photos and a description. Capacity, rod limits, fishing type and amenities live on the package, so one swim can serve several session types.
• House rules. Free text on the lake, or on a package where it differs. Barbless vs barbed, no-kill or take, group caps, quiet hours, dogs, drones, and whatever else you'd want anglers to know before they arrive.
• Photos. Drag to reorder in the Gallery; the first one is marked Cover. Phone photos are fine to start.

4. Build your packages

This is the bit anglers actually book. A package bundles one or more swims with everything that comes with them, such as how many anglers and rods each swim includes, the fishing type, amenities (toilets, electricity, parking and the like), accommodation (if any), equipment rental and other extras, fees for additional anglers, guests and rods, billing units (day-ticket, overnighter, weekend, carp week), and any seasonal pricing, discounts or promotions you want to run. You can have a single simple package per swim, or set up several side-by-side, such as "Weekend Carp", "Day Ticket" or "Family Stay with Cabin".

The dashboard walks you through it; no spreadsheet required.

5. Open for bookings

When your packages are ready, turn on Accept bookings in Lake settings. It only needs your lake to be published (it is, by default), and it's one of the checklist steps itself. Your lake appears in search within a few minutes. Once every required checklist step is done, you can also hit Request verification on the dashboard. After our team's review, your listing shows the public Verified badge anglers look for.

You'll get an email when the first booking arrives.

What happens next

The first week. Your dashboard tracks revenue, occupancy, bookings and reviews as they come in; first bookings usually arrive within the first week for lakes in well-populated regions.

The first month. We'll check in with you once during week two (a real human, not an automated survey) to ask what's working and what isn't. The answer shapes what we ship next.

Ongoing. Anglers leave reviews after their session, and they appear on your lake page. The dashboard handles your calendar, bookings, messages and the Anglers list, where you can start a conversation with anyone who has booked with you.

What we ask of you

Three small things:

• Answer booking requests and messages within a day. Faster is better, because an angler left waiting may simply book elsewhere.
• Honour the bookings the platform confirms. Anglers count on it.
• Comply with the fisheries rules in your area. Authorisations from ANPA (or ANADSPA), environmental permits and anything specific to your water stay your responsibility, as they always have been.

A note about online payments

For our first season, we're keeping things simple. Anglers pay the 10% booking fee online (which we retain as our commission), and the remaining balance is settled with you in person at the lake. This works well for everyone and keeps the paperwork minimal.

In 2027, we'll roll out full online payments through Stripe Connect, so anglers can also pay the remaining balance up front by card if they prefer. The simple version will keep working alongside it, and you'll be able to choose what fits each package.

A few common questions

Can I list multiple lakes under one account? Yes. One account can run as many lakes as you want, and you add team members per lake, as an Administrator or an Editor.

Do I have to accept every booking? No. Out of the box every booking is a request you confirm or decline from your dashboard (declining refunds the angler's booking fee automatically). When you're comfortable, set Approval to Automatic (accept on payment) in Lake settings → Booking preferences. Anglers strongly prefer it.

What if something goes wrong with a booking? We help mediate. See the Refund Policy for how it works.

Can I list a private syndicate lake? Not yet as an unlisted/invite-only listing, because every lake that accepts bookings appears in public search today. If you run a syndicate or members-only water, write to us and we'll figure out what fits.

Talk to us

If your situation doesn't quite fit the standard flow (a federation-managed water, a hotel-attached lake, a river beat), write to contact@lakebooking.com and we'll set up a short call before you sign up. Real people, no scripted reply.