Câmaras Municipais Cull 10,324 Alojamento Local Licences for Missing Civil-Liability Insurance — Lisboa Carries 6,765 of the Cancellations

Portuguese municipalities have cancelled 10,324 alojamento local (AL — short-term rental) registrations since late 2025, in a coordinated review targeting operators that cannot prove mandatory civil-liability insurance. The numbers were compiled by the Associação do Alojamento Local em Portugal (ALEP — Portuguese Short-Term Rental Association) and published on 11 June 2026, with Lisboa carrying the largest share of cancellations at 6,765 units, equivalent to roughly 40% of the city's registered AL stock.

The Headline Numbers

• 10,324 AL units cancelled nationwide since late 2025
• Lisboa: 6,765 cancellations — about 40% of the city's roughly 19,000 active registrations
• Porto: 1,413 cancellations — about 12% of the city's AL inventory
• Lagoa and Lagos in the Algarve have already completed their first cancellation waves (specific figures not yet disclosed)
• 119,147 AL units remain active nationwide
• ~30,000 additional cancellations projected by ALEP in the next stage
• 37,000+ units still lack documentary proof of mandatory insurance

The Legal Mechanism

The cancellations are not driven by new legislation. They use existing powers granted to câmaras municipais (municipal councils) under the Regime Jurídico do Alojamento Local, which obliges every AL operator to hold a current civil-liability insurance policy. Operators who fail to produce a valid policy within the deadline set by their câmara have their registration revoked. The procedure runs by city, not by a national agency, which is why the numbers vary so sharply across municipalities.

The Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (Lisbon City Council), under mayor Carlos Moedas, initiated the first major sweep at the end of last year and has moved faster than any other municipality. Porto, Lagoa, and Lagos have followed; most other câmaras have either not yet started or are in the early stages of issuing notifications.

Why the Insurance Rule Bites Hard

Mandatory civil-liability insurance for AL has existed in law for several years, but enforcement was patchy until municipalities began linking renewal of the registration number to documentary proof. Many operators registered an AL during the 2018–2022 tourism boom, never bought insurance, and continued listing on Booking.com, Airbnb, or Vrbo. The cancellation campaign is effectively a registry cleanup: ALEP calls these inactive listings "licenças fantasma" (ghost licences), and estimates roughly a quarter of the national registry is in that category.

The cleanup has a secondary effect that mayors have welcomed: it reduces the headline AL count in cities where short-term rentals are politically contentious. In Lisboa, the 6,765 cancellations alone bring the city's registered AL stock down to a level last seen in 2019, even though no new restrictions were imposed.

What This Means for Expats

• If you operate an AL: Check that your civil-liability policy is current and that your câmara has it on file — operators in Lisboa, Porto, Lagoa and Lagos have been the first targets, but other municipalities are preparing their own waves.
• If you are house-hunting: The short-term-rental cancellations release some apartments back into the long-term lease market, especially in Lisboa neighbourhoods like Alfama, Bairro Alto, and Mouraria. The supply boost is modest at the city scale but visible in specific freguesias (parishes).
• If you book a stay: A registration number on a listing is no longer a guarantee the licence is still valid; ALEP recommends asking the host to confirm the AL number is currently active on the Registo Nacional do Alojamento Local (National Short-Term Rental Registry).
• For property prices: The cancellations do not directly affect property valuations, but a sustained reduction in AL supply could weaken the AL-yield argument that has supported premium pricing in central neighbourhoods.

ALEP says the next phase, expected through Q3 2026, will likely focus on operators that fail to file the annual stay-statistics return — a separate compliance trigger that the câmaras have not yet enforced systematically. The association is calling on the Governo to standardise the cancellation procedure across municipalities so operators outside Lisboa and Porto receive the same notification deadlines and appeal rights.