Airbnb rules in Portugal 2026: the alojamento local licence, Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve

The Airbnb rules in Portugal start with one national requirement: a short-term let to tourists must be registered as alojamento local (AL, “local accommodation”) with the municipality, and the AL registration number must appear in every advert.¹ The 2023 Mais Habitação law froze new registrations for flats across most of the country, but Decreto-Lei 76/2024 reversed that from 1 November 2024 and handed the power to limit AL to municipalities.² Lisbon and Porto use that power through containment areas where new registrations are only possible by exception.⁷¹⁰ In the Algarve the national rules apply, and more municipal rules may follow before 31 December 2026.⁴

In this guide

1. Airbnb rules in Portugal: who decides what
2. The alojamento local licence and the RNAL number
3. Mais Habitação: what changed in 2023 and what was reversed
4. Municipal powers and containment areas
5. The Algarve
6. The condominium’s role
7. Tourist taxes
8. Taxes for a non-resident owner from Belgium or the Netherlands
9. The rules by level
10. A checklist for a co-host
11. Questions people ask
12. Sources

Airbnb rules in Portugal: who decides what

Portugal has one national AL law, Decreto-Lei 128/2014. It sets who must register, the standards, insurance and fines. Municipalities register and inspect units and, since November 2024, may adopt their own AL regulation with containment areas (áreas de contenção) and sustainable growth areas (áreas de crescimento sustentável).¹² Turismo de Portugal keeps the national register, the Registo Nacional de Alojamento Local (RNAL), where anyone can look up a unit.⁵

The EU layer, Regulation (EU) 2024/1028, is explained in EU short-term rental regulation 2024/1028; we could not confirm at an official Portuguese source how Portugal shares platform data under it. For your home market, see Airbnb rules in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The alojamento local licence and the RNAL number

Strictly, there is no licence. You file a comunicação prévia com prazo with the mayor, online through the Balcão Único Eletrónico. If the council does not object within 60 days, or 90 in a containment area, the filing number becomes the AL registration number, and the document showing it is the only valid title to open to the public.¹⁵ Airbnb says the process is free.⁶

The filing names the titular da exploração (the operator) and the unit’s type: moradia (house), apartamento (flat), estabelecimento de hospedagem (rooms in a building) or quartos (rooms in the operator’s home). It must include the property’s autorização de utilização (use permit), a signed statement that the unit meets the rules, the caderneta predial (property tax record) or the lease that lets the operator run it, and proof that the operator registered the activity with the tax authority under code 55201 or 55204.¹

Changes and closure must be filed within 10 days. Capacity is at most nine bedrooms and 27 guests.¹

The number in every advert

All advertising must show the unit’s name or logo and its registration number, and offering an unregistered unit is a serious offence.¹ Turismo de Portugal says platforms must require and display the RNAL number.⁵ On Airbnb you add it under Registration in each Portuguese listing; it does not need renewing.⁶

Insurance

The operator must hold liability insurance for guests and third parties of at least €75,000 per claim, plus fire cover in an apartment building. The council can ask for proof at any time and cancel the registration if it is not given within three days.¹ ECO, a Portuguese business news site, reported in June 2026 that municipalities had cancelled 10,324 registrations in a review of inactive units.¹⁵

Mais Habitação: what changed in 2023 and what was reversed

Lei 56/2023, the Mais Habitação (“More Housing”) law, entered into force on 7 October 2023. For AL it suspended new registrations for flats across most of mainland Portugal, made registrations valid for five years with a review of existing ones in 2030, made them non-transferable, required the condominium’s prior decision for AL in a flat, and created an extraordinary contribution on AL flats.³

Most of this is gone. Decreto-Lei 57/2024 revoked the contribution.³ Decreto-Lei 76/2024, in force from 1 November 2024, revoked the suspension, the 2030 review, the five-year validity and the non-transfer rule, and gave municipalities the power to regulate instead.²

Decreto-Lei 151/2026 of 30 July 2026 then gave municipalities that reached 1,000 registrations by 31 December 2025, and had not yet decided whether to regulate, until 31 December 2026. While regulations are drafted or amended, a suspension of new registrations may be extended or reimposed once, but not beyond 31 December 2026 and not retroactively.⁴

Municipal powers and containment areas

Under the amended law a municipality may, in its regulation:²

• create containment and sustainable growth areas by parish, based on a study and reviewed at least every three years;
• refuse new AL in homes let on a residential lease in the previous two years;
• cap AL as a share of housing, set exceptions and, in containment areas, limit how new registrations are transferred, except on death, gifts to close family or divorce;
• in growth areas, require an energy rating of D or better and a minimum share of homes without AL.

Airbnb rules in Lisbon since December 2025

Lisbon’s amended Regulamento Municipal do Alojamento Local was approved on 2 December 2025 and published on 5 December 2025.⁷⁸ It compares AL units with permanent homes from the latest census:⁷

• Absolute containment: the whole municipality, a parish or a bairro (neighbourhood) at 10% or more.
• Relative containment: a parish or bairro at 5% to below 10%.

In absolute containment, new registrations need a council authorisation, for example for rehabilitating ruined buildings or buildings empty for over three years that the city considers of special interest. In relative containment the council may also authorise one room in a T2, or two in a larger home, that has been the host’s permanent and tax home for over three years. A home let on a residential lease in the previous five years is refused, with a narrow exception for tenants.⁷ Authorisations last five years, or one year renewable for rooms.⁷

Inside containment areas, transferring a house or flat registration makes it lapse, apart from the legal exceptions. An operator may pause AL for up to five years to let the home long term and keep the right to return.⁷

The map changes with the monthly ratios. ECO reported on 6 April 2026 that Santa Maria Maior, Misericórdia and Santo António were in absolute containment and Arroios, Estrela and São Vicente in relative containment.¹⁴ Check the regulation’s annex and the council’s latest decision for your street.

Porto

Porto’s Regulamento Municipal para o Crescimento Sustentável do Alojamento Local, revoked under Mais Habitação, was restored by Regulamento 1462/2024 of 19 December 2024.¹⁰ Containment areas are the parishes with a pressure ratio of 15% or more: Santo Ildefonso, Sé, Miragaia, São Nicolau and Vitória. The other parishes are sustainable growth areas with a cap; filling it turns a parish into a containment area.¹⁰

In containment areas new AL is allowed only by exception, for example certain building projects with at least half the floor area for housing, units empty for over three years, or the quartos type, which can be authorised in any case.¹⁰

The Algarve

We found no Algarve-wide ban. The national rules apply everywhere, and limits come only from a municipal regulation or a temporary suspension.²⁴ We could not open official texts for Albufeira, Loulé, Lagos or Lagoa, so check each town hall’s editais (public notices) before taking on a unit.

The insurance clean-up reached the region too: ECO reported in June 2026 that Lagos and Lagoa had cancelled inactive registrations.¹⁵ Postal do Algarve, a regional newspaper, reported in June 2025 that Albufeira, Lagoa, Portimão, Olhão and Loulé charge a tourist tax as well as Faro and Vila Real de Santo António (see the table below).¹⁶ Confirm current rates with each municipality.

The condominium’s role

Since November 2024, AL in a flat is not treated as a use different from housing under the Civil Code, unless the title deed or the condominium rules prohibit it. The owners can add such a ban by a two-thirds majority of the permilage, but it only applies to registrations filed after the vote.¹

For an existing unit, the owners can pass a reasoned vote of more than half the permilage, based on repeated and proven disturbance, and ask the mayor to cancel the registration; a cancellation can bar AL in that home for up to five years.¹ The condominium can also charge an AL unit up to 30% extra on its annual contribution, and the operator must give it a phone number and email.¹

Tourist taxes

There is no national tourist tax; each municipality decides.

In Lisbon the establishment applies the tax to its guests, and Porto’s operators record it on the city’s platform.⁹¹¹ The Belgian and Dutch side is covered in tourist tax on Airbnb in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Taxes for a non-resident owner from Belgium or the Netherlands

AL is a business activity: the operator registers it with the Autoridade Tributária before filing for registration.¹ Under the IRS code’s simplified regime, AL in a house or flat is excluded from the 0.15 hotel coefficient, so the 0.35 services coefficient applies and 35% of the income counts as taxable; in a containment area it is 50%.¹²

For a non-resident, article 72 of the IRS code sets 28% for income not attributable to a permanent establishment in Portugal and 25% for income that is.¹³ Which applies to your AL, and whether other options exist, is a question for a Portuguese tax adviser. The income is also reported at home; how Belgium and the Netherlands treat foreign rental income is in Airbnb income tax in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The rules by level

A checklist for a co-host

1. RNAL. Does the number exist, and do the type, capacity and operator match what the owner told you?⁵
2. Operator. The titular da exploração carries the insurance and duties; a change is filed within 10 days.¹
3. Insurance. Get both policies and diary the renewal dates.¹
4. Containment status. Is the parish or bairro in containment, and was the registration ever transferred? In Lisbon, a transfer inside containment can make it lapse.⁷
5. The building. Ask for the condominium rules and recent minutes, and give the administrator your phone and email.¹
6. On the wall. Check the identification plate, the complaints book (livro de reclamações), the house information book and, in an apartment building, the noise hours sign.¹
7. Listings. Put the registration number in every listing and advert, including Airbnb’s Registration field.¹⁶
8. Tourist tax. Who registers with the municipality, collects, files and pays?⁹¹¹
9. Contract. Put each of these in your management agreement, including who pays a fine.

Questions people ask

Sources

All sources checked 2 November 2026.

1. Diário da República, “Decreto-Lei n.º 128/2014, de 29 de agosto: Regime jurídico da exploração dos estabelecimentos de alojamento local (versão consolidada)”, Consolidated text in force on 2 November 2026, last change 10 December 2024, in Portuguese
2. Diário da República, “Decreto-Lei n.º 76/2024, de 23 de outubro”, Full text also read in the Autoridade Tributária’s copy, which includes Declaração de Retificação 39/2024; in Portuguese
3. Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira, “Lei n.º 56/2023, de 6 de outubro (Mais Habitação), with amendment notes”, Shows article 22 and its annex revoked by Decreto-Lei 57/2024; in Portuguese
4. Diário da República, “Decreto-Lei n.º 151/2026, de 30 de julho”, Temporary measures on municipal AL regulations, in Portuguese
5. Turismo de Portugal, “Alojamento Local: licenciamento e registo da atividade”, In Portuguese
6. Airbnb Help Centre, “Portugal's registration process: frequently asked questions”
7. Município de Lisboa, “Aviso n.º 29926-A/2025/2: Alteração ao Regulamento Municipal do Alojamento Local”, Diário da República no. 235, 2nd series, supplement, 5 December 2025, with the republished regulation; in Portuguese
8. Município de Lisboa, “Alojamento Local em Lisboa tem novo regulamento”, Council news, 27 November 2025, updated 2 December 2025, in Portuguese
9. Município de Lisboa, “Taxa turística de dormida sobe para 4 euros”, Council news, 1 September 2024, in Portuguese
10. Diário da República, “Regulamento n.º 1462/2024, de 19 de dezembro (Município do Porto)”, Restores Porto’s Regulamento Municipal para o Crescimento Sustentável do Alojamento Local, in Portuguese
11. Câmara Municipal do Porto, “Taxa Municipal Turística do Porto”, In Portuguese
12. Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira, “Código do IRS, artigo 31.º: Regime simplificado”, In Portuguese
13. Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira, “Código do IRS, artigo 72.º: Taxas especiais”, In Portuguese
14. ECO, “Lisboa ajusta níveis de contenção do Alojamento Local após 'limpeza' de registos”, Business news, 6 April 2026, citing Público; in Portuguese
15. ECO, “Mais de dez mil alojamentos locais encerrados pelos municípios”, Business news, 11 June 2026, citing Diário de Notícias; in Portuguese
16. Postal do Algarve, “Já são pelo menos 42 os municípios a cobrar taxa turística: em Faro são 2€ por noite e Lisboa 4€”, Regional newspaper, 13 June 2025, in Portuguese

We check every figure against the sources above. Spotted something out of date? Email systemen@hostproacademy.com with the guide title.