Pet Sitting Invoice Template: Overnight and House Sitting

Quick answer: A pet sitting invoice template shows your details, the client and home address, each pet, the booking dates, and every service as its own line: drop-in visits, overnight stays or house sitting nights, extra-pet and holiday surcharges, medication care and reimbursed supplies. Then show any discount, the total, the deposit already paid and the balance due with a clear due date.

Pet sitting is built on trust. Clients hand you their keys, their home and an animal they treat as family. The invoice is part of that trust: it should show exactly what you did on which days, with no surprises. This pet sitting invoice template guide focuses on multi-day bookings, overnight stays and house sitting. If most of your work is daily walks, our dog walking invoice template covers per-walk and package billing in depth. You can build any of these invoices in our free invoice generator.

Below you will find what to include, how to structure overnight and house sitting invoice lines, typical 2026 rates, a full worked example, deposits and cancellations, tax, and the mistakes that cost sitters money.

What to include on a pet sitting invoice template

• Your details: name or business name, phone, email and logo. Add insurance or bonding details if you advertise them.
• Client and service address: the billing name and the home where the pets live, if different.
• Pets: each pet's name and type, for example Luna, dog, and Pepper, cat. This explains extra-pet charges.
• Invoice number and date: a sequential number such as PS-2026-0098, created with the invoice number generator if you need a format.
• Booking dates: start and end date, plus the number of nights or visits.
• Service lines: overnight stays, drop-in visits, walks, house sitting nights, cat visits.
• Surcharges: holiday dates, extra pets, medication or injections, puppy or senior care, late-booking fees.
• Reimbursed expenses: food, litter, medication or vet transport you paid for, at cost.
• Discount, total, deposit paid and balance due.
• Payment terms: due date, accepted methods and any cancellation rule.

Keep care logs, feeding notes and photos in your app or messages rather than on the invoice. One summary line in the notes, such as "Daily updates sent each evening", is enough.

Pet sitting services and how to bill each one

Pet sitters sell several distinct services, and each needs its own invoice line with its own unit. Mixing them into one total is the most common cause of client questions.

Service	Billing unit	Invoice line example
Drop-in visit	Per visit, priced by length (for example 30 or 60 minutes)	Drop-in visit, 30 min, 3 to 7 March, 2 per day
Overnight stay	Per night, usually evening to morning	Overnight stay, 7 nights, 22 to 29 December
House sitting	Per night or per day, with home duties included	House sitting, 10 nights, mail, plants, bins
Extra pet	Per pet, per night or per visit	Additional pet, Pepper, 7 nights
Holiday surcharge	Per night or percentage on peak dates	Holiday surcharge, 24 and 25 December
Medication or special care	Per day or per dose	Insulin injection, twice daily, 7 days
Reimbursed supplies	At cost, with receipt	Cat litter purchased, receipt attached

Overnight stays vs house sitting

The two often overlap, but clients see them differently. An overnight stay is about the pets having company through the night. House sitting adds care of the home: bringing in mail, watering plants, putting out bins, running taps in winter, and keeping the house looking occupied. If you offer both, price house duties as a small add-on or a higher nightly rate and name it on the house sitting invoice line, so a client with no pets, or one who only wants a house sitter, still gets a clear bill.

Pet sitting rates in 2026

Rates vary more by city than by service. Marketplace data reported in 2026 by Wag! puts a typical overnight dog sitting booking around $51 a night, with most stays roughly $39 to $73, while published 2026 cost guides put in-home overnight care from independent professionals at roughly $50 to $100 a night and full live-in care higher. Common add-ons in those guides are about $10 to $20 per night for each extra pet and a similar flat amount, or a percentage uplift, for major holidays. For the full rate breakdown and how to calculate your own price, see our guide to pet sitting rates, and for walking prices see dog walking rates.

If you book through an app, remember that the platform takes a service fee from your earnings, so the price the client sees is not what you receive. Clients you bring to your own business can be invoiced directly at the full rate. The BLS overview of animal care and service workers notes that about a quarter of animal caretakers are self-employed and that many states require self-employed animal care workers to hold a business licence, so check local rules before you start invoicing in your own name.

Pricing drop-in visits and cat visits

Drop-in visits are usually priced by length, with a 30-minute visit as the standard and 15-minute cat visits or 60-minute visits on either side. Price each length as its own line rather than adjusting one rate, so clients can see that a longer visit costs more for a reason. Cats are often cheaper to care for than dogs because they do not need walking, but sitters still visit at least once a day, and twice for kittens, seniors or cats on medication. If you visit a home more than once a day, show the visit count clearly, for example "Drop-in visit, 30 min, 2 per day, 5 days, 10 visits", so the client can multiply it out without asking. Travel time is part of the cost of a drop-in, so sitters who cover a wide area often set a minimum charge or a small trip fee for homes outside their core zone.

Worked example: a holiday overnight pet sitting invoice

A client travels from 22 to 29 December, seven nights. You stay overnight with their dog, Luna, and also care for their cat, Pepper. You add three midday drop-ins on long work days, buy a bag of cat litter when it runs out, and give a $25 returning-client credit. The client paid a $200 deposit when booking. Rates are illustrative.

Line	Qty	Rate	Amount
Overnight stay, Luna, 22 to 29 December	7	$70.00	$490.00
Holiday surcharge, 24 and 25 December	2	$20.00	$40.00
Additional pet, Pepper (cat), per night	7	$10.00	$70.00
Midday drop-in visit, 30 minutes	3	$25.00	$75.00
Cat litter purchased, at cost, receipt attached	1	$18.50	$18.50
Subtotal			$693.50
Returning client credit (fixed)			-$25.00
Total			$668.50
Deposit paid 1 December			-$200.00
Balance due 29 December			$468.50

The arithmetic: $490 + $40 + $70 + $75 + $18.50 = $693.50. The $25 fixed credit brings the total to $668.50. With the $200 deposit already received, the balance due is $468.50. No tax is applied in this example. In the generator, enter the five lines, add a fixed discount of $25, leave the tax rate at zero and enter $200 as amount paid. The balance updates automatically.

How to send a pet sitting invoice, step by step

1. Confirm the booking in writing. Dates, number of visits or nights, pets, rates, holiday surcharges and cancellation terms. A short service agreement or the clauses in our freelance contract template work well.
2. Send a deposit invoice. For long or peak bookings, invoice the deposit straight away. Our deposit invoice guide shows the wording.
3. Do the meet and greet. Collect keys, alarm codes, vet details and a signed vet authorisation. Note any extra tasks the client adds.
4. Track every visit and purchase. Log dates, times and receipts as you go so the final invoice matches reality.
5. Build the final invoice. One line per service, surcharges separately, reimbursements at cost, deposit entered as amount paid.
6. Send it on time. Many sitters send it before the trip ends so the client can pay on their return. State the due date clearly.
7. Issue a receipt. When payment arrives, mark it paid and send the updated PDF as a receipt. See the payment receipt template for what to include.

Deposits, cancellations and payment terms

Holiday bookings are where sitters lose most money: you turn down other clients to hold the dates, and a cancellation a few days out leaves you with nothing. Protect peak dates with:

• Non-refundable or partly refundable deposits for holiday periods, stated in the booking confirmation.
• A cancellation scale, for example full refund more than 14 days out, 50% within 14 days, no refund within 72 hours.
• Payment before or on the last day, rather than net 30. Pet sitting is a consumer service, and due upon receipt or a fixed date such as the end of the stay is normal.
• Extension rules: if a client's flight is delayed, extra nights are charged at the same nightly rate, with holiday rates if they fall on peak dates.

Billing regular weekday clients

Not every pet sitting client is a holiday booking. Many households need a midday visit while they work, or cat care every weekend. For these clients, invoice on a fixed cycle, weekly or monthly, and list each date you visited. A monthly invoice that reads "Weekday drop-ins, 3 to 28 November, 20 visits" is easy to check against the client's own calendar. Agree how you treat visits the client cancels at short notice, such as charging in full for cancellations on the same day, and show any credit for visits you missed. Regular clients are the steady base of a pet sitting business, so make their bills predictable and send them on the same day each cycle.

For regular weekday clients, monthly invoicing in arrears works well. Our recurring invoices guide explains how to keep monthly bills consistent.

Reimbursable expenses and keys

Agree a small spending limit for emergencies, such as running out of food or needing a taxi to the vet. Anything you buy goes on the invoice at cost, with receipts, as a separate line. If you charge for your own mileage to reach a rural home, quote it upfront; the reimbursable expenses guide explains how to show these costs without confusing them with your fees.

Some sitters charge a key holding or key pickup fee for clients who are hard to reach. If you do, add it as its own line and mention it in your price list. Never put alarm codes or key locations on the invoice, because invoices are often forwarded or left in shared inboxes.

Tax and recordkeeping for pet sitters

Pet sitting is rarely taxed like a retail sale, but rules differ by state and country, so check with your state revenue department before adding tax. Our guide to sales tax on invoices in the US explains how to show tax if you need to. Self-employed sitters pay income tax on their profit, and records of mileage, insurance, supplies and app fees reduce that bill. See self-employed tax deductions for common write-offs. This is general information, not tax advice.

Common pet sitting invoice mistakes

• Charging per day when you agreed per night: a seven-night trip spans eight calendar days. Agree the unit and stick to it.
• Burying the holiday surcharge: a higher nightly rate with no explanation looks like a price rise.
• Forgetting extra pets: a second cat adds time every visit; bill it as agreed.
• Mixing reimbursements with fees: clients want to match supply costs to receipts.
• Not showing the deposit: clients may pay the full amount again and expect a refund.
• Waiting weeks to invoice: clients come home, unpack and forget. Send the invoice at the end of the stay.

A friendly, clean layout suits pet care. The emerald template and other designs in our invoice templates gallery look professional without feeling corporate.

Create your pet sitting invoice

A clear pet sitting invoice template lists every night and visit, explains holiday and extra-pet charges, keeps reimbursed supplies separate and shows the deposit already paid, so clients settle quickly and book you again. Create yours now in the free invoice generator, download the PDF and send it before your client gets home. Thinking of growing your pet care work into a full business? Read how to start a dog walking business, or see how groomers bill in our pet grooming invoice guide.