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Registering a Holiday Let (Alojamento Local) in Portugal

Researched and written with AI tools from official sources. How we make our guides

How to register a holiday let in Portugal: the four types, the checks before you apply, the council's objection period, your duties once open, and tax.

The Portugal Brief 12 min read

Registering a Holiday Let (Alojamento Local) in Portugal

Last verified: October 2026.

Who this is for

  • You own a flat, house, or spare rooms in Portugal and want to let them for short stays.
  • You rent a property and your landlord has agreed, in writing, that you can let it to tourists.
  • You already list on a booking platform and want to check your number and duties are in order.

Not for you if: you let a home to someone who lives there for months or years. Read Declaring Rental Income as a Landlord in Portugal instead.

Updated October 2026. Since 20 May 2026, EU rules require booking platforms to show and check your registration number. Until 31 December 2026, some councils may extend or repeat a pause on new registrations while they prepare their rules.

Alojamento Local (AL, local accommodation) is Portugal's legal category for paid short stays, such as a flat on a booking platform, a guest house, or rooms in your own home. If you let to tourists, you need an AL registration number before you advertise. You apply online, or at your council's front desk. National law sets no registration fee.

The council has 60 days to object, or 90 days in a containment area. If it does not object, you get your number when that period ends. The real costs are insurance, safety equipment, and tax.

Do you need a registration?

The law presumes you are running a holiday let if either of these is true:

  • You advertise a property, anywhere, as accommodation for tourists or as temporary accommodation.
  • You offer a furnished property with extras such as cleaning, for stays shorter than 30 days.

You can rebut that, for example by showing a proper lease registered with the tax office (Finanças). Otherwise you need a number.

Offering or advertising a holiday let without a valid registration is a serious offence. The fines are set by the economic offences law. The council or the economic inspection authority (ASAE) can also close the let for up to two years.

The four types of holiday let

You register under one of four types. Pick the one that matches the property.

  • House (moradia). A whole detached, single-family building.
  • Flat (apartamento). A whole flat, or part of a building that can be used on its own.
  • Guest house (estabelecimento de hospedagem). Rooms let inside a flat or building. If most guests sleep in dormitories, it can call itself a hostel.
  • Rooms (quartos). Rooms in the home where you live and have your tax address. You can let up to three rooms.

The size limits are:

  • Houses, flats, and guest houses: up to nine bedrooms and 27 guests. Rooms and hostels follow their own limits.
  • Guests: two per bedroom. Houses and flats can add two more in the living room.
  • Extra or convertible beds: no more than half the number of fixed beds.
  • The same operator cannot run more than nine flats in one building if that is more than 75% of its fractions. Flats held by a spouse, parents, or children count towards that limit.

Check these before you apply

Most objections come from problems you could have spotted first. Work through this list in order.

  1. Check the use licence. The property needs a valid use licence (autorização de utilização) for a use your council accepts for holiday lets. For the rooms type, it must be a home. See Checking a Property's Habitation Licence (Licença de Utilização).
  2. Check your council's rules. Councils can create containment areas (áreas de contenção), where new lets are capped or banned. They can also create sustainable growth areas, with extra conditions. These can include an energy rating of D or better, or a ban on homes that had a long-term tenant in the previous two years. Look up your council's AL regulation, or ask its urban planning office.
  3. Check the building rules. If you are in a flat, read the building's founding deed (título constitutivo) and building rules. If either bans holiday lets, you cannot open. A ban voted by two-thirds of the building's value before you apply also applies to you.
  4. If you want a hostel in a building with homes, you need the owners' meeting to authorise it first. You must attach the minutes to your application.
  5. If you rent the property, get your landlord's written consent to tourist letting. If the lease does not already say so, attach a separate signed authorisation.
  6. Register the activity with Finanças. Open a self-employed activity (início de atividade), or update an existing one, with the activity code for short-stay accommodation (CAE 55201 or 55204). You can do this on the Portal das Finanças. See Registering as Self-Employed (Recibos Verdes) in Portugal.
  7. Buy the insurance. You need liability insurance for damage to guests and third parties, with at least €75,000 of cover per claim. If the let is in a building with several owners, you also need fire insurance for the unit.

Documents you need

Have these ready as scans before you start:

  • Your ID document (or, for a company, the access code to its commercial registry certificate).
  • Your NIF and your address.
  • A signed statement of responsibility (termo de responsabilidade). It confirms the property is fit for guests and meets the rules. The form is part of the online application.
  • The property's tax record (caderneta predial urbana), if you own it.
  • Your lease or other right to use the property, plus the landlord's authorisation if the lease does not include it.
  • Proof that you registered the activity with Finanças.
  • For a hostel in a building with homes: the minutes of the owners' meeting that authorised it.

You will also give the use licence details, the name of the let, its capacity (rooms, beds, and guests), the opening date, and an emergency contact with a phone number. After you register, you must also send proof of the liability insurance.

If you consent, the council can fetch documents that another public office already holds, so you may not need to upload them.

How to apply, step by step

  1. Go to the AL registration service. It runs through the government's single electronic counter (Balcão Único Eletrónico), reached from gov.pt. You can also apply at the front desk of the council where the property is.
  2. Choose the council where the property is.
  3. Fill in the form and upload the documents. Choose your type of let. Sign the statement of responsibility.
  4. Submit. The application goes to the mayor (presidente da câmara). This is a prior notice with a deadline (comunicação prévia com prazo), not a licence you wait for someone to grant.
  5. Wait out the objection period. The council has 60 days to object, or 90 days if the property is in a containment area.
  6. Get your number. If the council does not object, the system issues your registration number. The document showing it is your only valid permit to open to the public.
  7. Put the number on every listing. Your listings, website, and advertising must show your name or logo and the number.

The council must also inspect the property within the same 60 or 90 days.

If the council objects

The council can only object for one of these reasons:

  • Your application was incomplete or wrong.
  • A previous registration for the property was cancelled and the ban period has not ended.
  • The let breaks the council's containment or growth-area rules, or the use licence does not fit.
  • The let breaks another legal rule.

An objection means you get no number. You can ask, once, for the council to inspect the property to review its decision. You pay for that inspection.

Where new holiday lets are restricted

National law does not freeze new lets across the country. Each council decides for its own area through its AL regulation. Many councils, including Lisbon, have containment areas where new registrations are suspended or capped. The picture changes often, so check the current regulation before you buy or apply.

Councils that reach 1,000 registered lets must decide within 12 months whether to adopt an AL regulation. While they prepare one, they can pause new registrations in defined areas for up to a year.

A temporary rule applies until 31 December 2026:

  • A council that passed 1,000 lets by 31 December 2025 and has not yet decided must decide by 31 December 2026.
  • A council can extend a pause that is still running, once, or order one more pause if an earlier one has ended.
  • No extended or new pause can run beyond 31 December 2026.
  • A pause never affects a registration validly made before it.

Can the neighbours stop you?

If you have a flat in a shared building, you do not need the other owners' consent to register. The exceptions are hostels, and buildings whose deed or rules already ban holiday lets.

Once you are open, the owners can still act, but only in two ways:

  • A ban for the future. The owners' meeting can change the building rules to ban holiday lets, by two-thirds of the building's value. It applies only to applications made after the vote.
  • A complaint about disturbance. If guests repeatedly disturb the building, owners holding more than half of its value can vote a reasoned request to the mayor. The council then runs a procedure and can cancel your registration. It can instead close the case if you accept conditions. A cancellation can bar the property from holiday letting for up to five years.

The building can charge you an extra contribution of up to 30% of your yearly condominium fee, for the extra use of shared areas. You pay for any work to the shared areas needed for your let. You are also jointly liable with your guests for damage they cause to the building. See How a Condominium (Condomínio) Works in Portugal.

What you must do once you are open

Keep your insurance valid. Your insurance expiry date is published on Turismo de Portugal's public register. If the council asks for proof, you have three days to send it. A lapsed policy, or failing to send proof, is grounds for cancelling your registration.

Report foreign guests. You must report every guest who is not a Portuguese citizen, including EU citizens. You send an accommodation bulletin (boletim de alojamento) online, through the accommodation bulletin system (SIBA), within three working days of check-in. You report the departure within the same period. One spouse can fill in the bulletin for the other and for children travelling with them. Keep the bulletins for one year.

Have the safety kit. If your let takes 10 guests or fewer, you need:

  • a fire extinguisher and a fire blanket that guests can reach;
  • a first aid kit that guests can reach;
  • the emergency number 112 displayed where guests can see it.

Larger lets must meet the full fire safety rules for their size.

Meet the basic standards. Each bedroom needs a window to the outside, a way to block out light, and a door that locks. Bathrooms need a lock. You need hot and cold running water, and the property must be clean and in good repair.

Provide a house information book. It covers how the let works, rubbish and recycling, appliances, noise, and your phone number. It must be in Portuguese, English, and at least two other languages. In a shared building, include the building rules that affect guests, and post the legal quiet hours inside the unit. Give the building management your phone number and email address.

Put up the plaque. Flats, guest houses, and rooms must show the official AL plaque by the entrance. Hostels show it outside the building. Houses do not need one.

Keep a complaints book. You must have the official complaints book (livro de reclamações).

Keep your details up to date. If anything in your registration changes, update it on the portal within 10 days. If you stop letting, tell the portal within 10 days. If your registration is cancelled or suspended, tell the booking platforms within 10 days.

Collect the tourist tax where it applies. Some councils charge a tourist tax (taxa turística) per guest per night. If yours does, you collect it and pay it to the council at the rate and on the schedule the council sets.

The EU rules for booking platforms

An EU regulation on short-term rental data has applied since 20 May 2026. Portugal already had a national register, so your AL number is the number platforms ask for. Under the regulation:

  • Hosts have a unique registration number for each property.
  • Platforms must display and verify registration numbers, and carry out random checks.
  • Platforms share monthly data on nights booked and guests with public authorities.
  • Authorities can order the removal of listings that do not comply.

If you are registered, check that the number, name, and NIF on each listing match your registration exactly.

How holiday let income is taxed

Holiday let income is self-employment income (IRS category B), not rental income. You declare it in your yearly IRS return. If you run a house or a flat, you can instead choose each year to be taxed as rental income (category F).

You are in the simplified regime if your income in the previous year was €200,000 or less. Finanças then taxes a fixed share of what you earn:

  • Houses and flats: 35% of the income is taxed.
  • Houses and flats in a containment area: 50% is taxed.
  • Guest houses, hostels, and rooms: 15% is taxed.

The taxed share is added to your other income and taxed at the normal IRS rates. You can opt instead for organised accounts, where you pay tax on actual profit. A certified accountant (contabilista certificado) can tell you which works out cheaper.

VAT (IVA). If your yearly turnover is €15,000 or less, you can use the small business exemption. You then do not charge VAT and cannot reclaim it. Above that, accommodation is taxed at the reduced rate, 6% on the mainland. Madeira and the Azores set their own lower rates. Extras billed separately may carry a higher rate.

The extraordinary contribution (CEAL). The special levy on holiday lets brought in by the 2023 housing package has been abolished. You do not pay it.

IMI and selling. You still pay the yearly property tax (IMI). When you sell, any gain is taxed under the normal rules. See Property Taxes in Portugal for Residents and Foreign Owners.

What it costs

  • Registration: no fee in national law. Ask your council whether it charges for anything.
  • Liability insurance: required, with at least €75,000 of cover per claim. Prices vary by insurer and property.
  • Fire insurance: required for a unit in a building with several owners.
  • Safety kit, plaque, and complaints book: one-off costs.
  • Tourist tax: paid by guests where it applies, but you must collect it.
  • Accountant: optional in the simplified regime.

This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change often; check the official source, or ask a certified accountant, before you act.

Sources

This guide is written from official sources and, where relevant, organisations' own websites.

Last verified October 2026. Rules and fees change; check the official source before acting.

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