190-E Short term rentals.   Alojamento Local.

In the past I have written several articles about the problems we have encountered in recent years with letting private properties to tourists on a daily or weekly base (short rentals).

During the past years quite a few agencies and property owners have been caught by the ASAE (the authority in charge with inspections) and agents and property owners received heavy fines as their properties did not have the correct license.

Although letting a private property for longer than 6 month was never a problem short time rentals to tourist on a daily or weekly bases therefore was.

After a lot of discussions and promises on a regional and national level it seems that finally the Portuguese authorities have found a solution. The good news…there is some light at the end of the tunnel. By law decree of March 7^th. of this year finally new legislation was published in the state paper (Diário de República) regulating new requirements for tourist developments and also provisions were made to regulate short holiday lets in private properties.

In paragraph 2 of article 3 of this law it was announced that new additional legislation would be published to regulate these lets. One also has come up with a new name for this type of lets which will be called Alojamento Local (AL) = Local Accommodation (AL).