Registering an Alojamento Local in Portugal in 2026 — A Practical Guide to the RNAL Prior Communication, the Modalities, What Decreto-Lei 76/2024 Reversed From Mais Habitação, the Containment Zones and the IRS, IVA and Guest-Reporting Duties

Renting out a flat or a room to holidaymakers in Portugal means entering the Alojamento Local (AL) regime — the country's legal framework for short-term tourist accommodation. It is easier to join than most Portuguese bureaucracy, because registration is a single free online notification rather than a licence you wait for. But the rules around it have swung sharply in the past three years, first tightened by the 2023 Mais Habitação (More Housing) package and then largely loosened again by the current government in 2024. This guide sets out where the regime stands in 2026: how to register, what has changed, where you still cannot open, and the tax and reporting duties that come with the number.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. The governing law is amended often and much of the detail — containment maps, tourist-tax rates, tax coefficients — is set locally and changes year to year. Confirm the specifics with your câmara municipal (town council), the Portal das Finanças and a contabilista certificado (certified accountant) before you commit.

The law, and the 2023–2024 see-saw

The regime lives in Decreto-Lei n.º 128/2014, repeatedly amended. The swings you need to understand came in two waves.

In 2023 the Mais Habitação law (Lei n.º 56/2023) clamped down hard on AL. It suspended new registrations for apartments in most of the country, made registrations expire and require renewal every five years with a general review set for 2030, made them personal and non-transferable so they lapsed on a sale, created an extraordinary contribution on AL income called the CEAL, aggravated the IMI (municipal property tax) on AL properties, and handed condominiums new power to block or cancel them.

The current government reversed most of that in two separate decree-laws — a distinction worth getting right:

• Decreto-Lei n.º 57/2024 abolished the CEAL and the AL IMI surcharge. The CEAL repeal was made retroactive to the end of 2023 (the decree first said end-2024, an error the Finance Ministry later corrected). In short, the CEAL no longer exists.
• Decreto-Lei n.º 76/2024, in force since 1 November 2024, undid the rest of the Mais Habitação AL rules. It scrapped the suspension of new registrations, the five-year validity and renewal, the lapse of inactive registrations, the 2030 review and the non-transferability rule — so a registration once again lasts indefinitely and passes with the property. It also removed the requirement to get the condominium's prior authorisation to operate, and created a new AL ombudsman (provedor do alojamento local).

The modalities, and how big you can go

AL comes in three legal forms: moradia (a house), apartamento (an apartment) and estabelecimento de hospedagem (a guest establishment). Within that last category, a property where shared dormitories are the predominant unit is a hostel; and a small operation run inside your own home is registered as quartos (rooms), capped at a maximum of three rooms. For the standard house and apartment forms, the general ceiling is nine rooms and 30 guests per unit.

How to register: the mera comunicação prévia

Registration is a mera comunicação prévia com prazo — a prior notification — filed electronically and free of charge through the Balcão Único Eletrónico (the single online counter) on the ePortugal platform. On submission the system automatically issues your RNAL number (the registration number in the Registo Nacional de Alojamento Local). You must hold that number before you advertise or let the property; listing an AL without a valid number is an infraction, and platforms are increasingly required to check.

Once you file, the câmara municipal has 60 days to oppose the registration — 90 days inside a containment area. If it does not object within that window, the registration is tacitly approved. In practice you can begin operating once you hold a valid number, subject to that possibility of opposition.

You will need to have on file, among other things: your identification and NIF; proof of a legitimate title to use the property (ownership, a lease or similar), backed by the caderneta predial; a título de responsabilidade declaring the property is fit and legal for the use; and a current civil-liability and multi-risk insurance policy covering fire and third-party damage. The property must also meet fire-safety rules appropriate to its size.

Can the neighbours stop you?

Since Decreto-Lei n.º 76/2024, you no longer need the condominium's consent to register an AL in an apartment building. Condominiums also lost the blanket power to cancel a registration. They may now only oppose one through a documented assembly resolution passed by owners holding more than half of the building's permilagem (the ownership shares), and only on the basis of proven, repeated disturbance to the building's normal use. One thing that still binds absolutely: if the building's constitutive title expressly forbids tourist or AL use, that prohibition stands.

Where you still cannot open: containment zones

The nationwide freeze is gone, but municipalities keep the power to declare áreas de contenção (containment areas) and cap or suspend new AL locally. A 2026 measure widened that latitude: Decreto-Lei n.º 151/2026, published on 31 July 2026, lets any municipality that had passed 1,000 AL registrations by the end of 2025 vote to suspend new registrations and gives it until 31 December 2026 to decide whether to adopt its own AL regulation.

The big-city picture, as of 2026: in Lisbon, new AL is effectively barred across the central parishes — Santa Maria Maior (Alfama, Baixa, Castelo, Chiado, Mouraria), Misericórdia (Bairro Alto, Cais do Sodré, Príncipe Real), and others — with quota-limited "relative" containment in areas such as Arroios and Campo de Ourique. In Porto, new AL is suspended across the historic-centre parishes and Bonfim, save narrow exceptions for long-vacant or rehabilitated buildings. Sintra, Funchal and Viana do Castelo have their own selective suspensions. These maps change frequently, so check the current regulation of the specific câmara before you buy or file.

Your duties once you are open

Guest reporting. AL operators must register with SIBA (the accommodation-bulletin information system) and report the stay of foreign guests via a boletim de alojamento, generally within three business days of check-in. The role that once belonged to the immigration service SEF now sits with AIMA, though the SIBA portal and forms are unchanged. Keep proof of each submission. (The exact reporting window and whether Portuguese guests also fall within scope are worth confirming against current AIMA guidance.)

Safety kit. Every AL must keep, accessible to guests, a fire extinguisher and fire blanket, a first-aid kit, the emergency number 112 displayed visibly, and systems to black out external light while keeping ventilation. These are set by the AL law and the civil-protection authority.

The plaque and the complaints book. The homologated AL identifying plaque must be fixed at the main entrance for every modality except the moradia. You must also hold the physical livro de reclamações (complaints book) on site and subscribe to its electronic version.

The taxes

AL income is business income, taxed under IRS Categoria B. In the simplified regime (for turnover up to €200,000), you are taxed on a fraction of gross receipts set by a coefficient: 0.35 for houses and apartments, and 0.15 for guest establishments such as hostels. Crucially, a heavier 0.50 coefficient applies to houses and apartments located in urban-pressure or containment zones — a surcharge that survived the 2024 reforms, so do not assume the flat 0.35 always applies. The alternative is contabilidade organizada (organised accounts), taxed on actual profit.

On IVA (VAT), AL room-nights carry the reduced 6% rate on the mainland (5% in Madeira, 4% in the Azores). There is an exemption for small operators below an annual turnover threshold — raised to €15,000 in 2025 — below which you neither charge nor reclaim VAT; confirm the current figure before you rely on it. Separately billed extras such as parking or spa access can attract the standard 23% rate.

Other levies: IMT (property-transfer tax) is a one-off due when you buy the property; ordinary IMI still applies each year, but the Mais Habitação AL surcharge on it was repealed. Where a municipality charges a taxa turística (tourist tax) — Lisbon and Porto do, and the list is growing — the operator must collect it per guest per night and pass it to the town council, at rates the municipality sets. And the CEAL, remember, is gone. If you later sell up, the property's gain falls under the ordinary capital-gains rules.

The bottom line

Getting an RNAL number is quick, free and largely a formality outside the containment zones — the online notification issues the number on the spot. The real work is everything around it: checking that your building and your neighbourhood actually allow AL, keeping the insurance, plaque, safety kit and complaints book in order, reporting foreign guests to AIMA, and getting the tax coefficients right, especially the containment-zone surcharge. The regime is far friendlier to owners than it was under Mais Habitação, but it is also unusually fluid, and it collides directly with the housing debate that has driven the fight over long-term rents. If you would rather let to residents than tourists, our guide to the long-term rental contract covers the other side of the market. Whichever way you go, check the current rules with the official sources before you file.