Airbnb rules in Italy: what an owner has to do, and when

Yes, letting a home on Airbnb is legal in Italy, for private owners as well as businesses. What the law asks of you comes in three stages. Before the first guest: your region’s code and the national CIN, the safety equipment, and the credentials to register guests with the police. With every stay: identify the guest, register them on Alloggiati Web, send the figures for the region’s tourism statistics and, where the council charges a tourist tax, follow its rules. Tax itself, from the income tax return to the choice of regime, is something you go through with your accountant.

Here you’ll find each obligation in the order it comes up, with a link to the official source, the questions to take to your accountant, and a calendar at the end. It all applies whether you live in Turin or in London: living abroad doesn’t change the obligations, only who deals with them on the spot.

The rules on short-term rentals in Italy have changed several times in recent years, and each region adds its own: before you act, check the sources linked here (they’re in Italian) and, for tax, talk to your accountant.

Is Airbnb legal in Italy? What the law means by a short-term rental

Italian law calls it a locazione breve: letting a home for residential use for no more than 30 days, by a private individual outside any business activity. It can include cleaning, linen and wi-fi. If you add breakfast, a hire car or a tour guide, for tax purposes it’s no longer a short let but a business activity: the Italian Revenue Agency, the Agenzia delle Entrate, explains this in its guide to short-term lets (in Italian), updated in April 2026.

Then there’s a distinction that decides much of what follows: private owner or business. Above a certain number of flats let in the same year, the law presumes the activity is carried on as a business, whatever you think of it. That limit was lowered from 2026: if you remember the number from a few years ago, check it in the Agency’s guide before you do your sums.

Before the first guest

The regional code and the CIN

In most regions you start with the regional code, which each region names in its own way: CIR in Piedmont, CITRA in Liguria, IUN in Sardinia. With it you apply for the CIN, the national identification code, on the Ministry of Tourism’s database (in Italian), logging in with SPID or CIE, Italy’s digital identity systems. The CIN has to be displayed outside the building and shown in every listing.

If you live abroad and have neither SPID nor CIE, sort that out first: several of these procedures need the owner’s own digital identity.

The procedure step by step is in our guide to the CIN code in Italy, which also sets out what the regional code is called in each of the regions where we work, and where you apply for it.

Notifying the start

In several regions you notify the start of the activity before you begin. In Piedmont the notification is made online and reaches the council and the province on its own; in Lombardy it goes to the council’s SUAP, its one-stop office for businesses; in Sardinia it goes to the council before you apply for the IUN.

If you let as a business, you file a SCIA instead, the certified notice of start of activity, with the council’s SUAP. It’s required by Article 13-ter of Decree-Law 145/2023 (in Italian), the same article that created the CIN.

The safety equipment

Every home let for short stays must have portable fire extinguishers and working detectors for combustible gas and carbon monoxide, even if you let as a private owner. When you apply for the CIN, you declare that you have them. How many extinguishers, of what type and where they go is set out in that same article of the law.

Credentials for the police

Guests’ details are sent to the Questura, the provincial police headquarters, through Alloggiati Web, the State Police portal (in Italian). You apply for the credentials to the Questura of the province where the home is, and you should apply in good time: it can take up to 30 days, and without credentials you can’t start hosting.

The tourist tax

If the council charges the tourist tax, the imposta di soggiorno, the guest pays it, per night, and it follows the council’s rules, which set the rates, the exemptions, the portal and the deadlines: in Turin the portal is called Soggiorniamo, in Rome GECOS. Each council publishes its own.

If the home is in a block of flats, it’s worth rereading the building’s regulations before you publish the listing. The Aosta Valley also has a specific requirement: you tell the building’s administrator that the activity is starting, and give them the regional code.

During: with every guest

• Identify the guest. The law asks you to check that the person coming in is the person on the document. A document sent through the chat, plus a code for the door, isn’t enough: Italy’s Council of State confirmed this in November 2025. What guests are asked for, and why, is in our guide to why hosts ask for your passport.
• Register them with the police within 24 hours of arrival, and within six hours for stays of a day or less. Every guest is registered, children included.
• Send the figures for the statistics to the region’s system — in most of the regions where we work, the same system that issues the regional code.
• Follow the council’s rules on the tourist tax, where there is one: the rates, the exemptions and the guest’s receipt are set by the council.

Tax: where the rules are written

You won’t find tax rates, thresholds or deadlines here: they change with each budget law, and a page that quotes them is out of date within months. You’ll find what exists, where to read it and what to ask; the rest is your accountant’s job.

• The income is declared every year, in your income tax return. You can choose ordinary taxation or the cedolare secca, a flat-rate tax that replaces it; how it works is in our guide to Airbnb tax in Italy. The rules are on the Agency’s page on short-term lets and the cedolare secca (in Italian).
• Intermediaries have obligations of their own. The law provides for a withholding tax charged to intermediaries who take part in the payment, platforms included, and for the contracts to be reported to the Agency: who is required to do it and how it applies is explained by the Revenue Agency.
• If the activity is a business, because you chose it or because you’ve passed the number of flats that triggers the presumption, you need a VAT number, the partita IVA, and a SCIA, and business taxation applies.
• The tourist tax also has an annual return, on a single national form. Whether and how it concerns you is something to check with the council and your accountant.

A note for anyone reading this in 2027: from 1 January the tax rules on short-term lets move into the new consolidated income tax code (in Italian), Legislative Decree 117 of 2026. The legal references change; what changes for you is a question for your accountant. If you’re tax resident outside Italy, have that conversation before the first booking, with someone who knows the rules of both countries.

Questions to take to your accountant

1. With my income, is the cedolare secca or ordinary taxation the better choice?
2. With the homes I have, am I below the limit above which a business is presumed this year?
3. If I list the home on a platform or hand it to a manager, what changes in my tax return?
4. The tourist tax: in my case, who is responsible for it, and which returns concern me?
5. What changes for me from 2027?

The calendar of obligations

With every stay

• Identify every guest on arrival and register them on Alloggiati Web within 24 hours, or within six hours if the stay lasts a day or less.
• Record the arrival in the region’s statistics system. Many of these systems let you do it at check-in, and also prepare the file for the police.
• Download the Alloggiati Web receipt, available from the day after you send the details and downloadable for 30 days, and keep it for five years.

Every month

• Close the month in the regional statistics system by the day the region sets: in Piedmont the 10th of the following month, in the Aosta Valley the 5th. In Piedmont the month has to be sent even when there were no guests.

On the council’s schedule

• The tourist tax, where there is one: how often you report and the deadlines are set by the council, in its regulations.

Every year

• Your income tax return, with the choice between the cedolare secca and ordinary taxation: timing and method you go through with your accountant.
• At the start of the year, count the flats you’ll be letting: the limit above which the business presumption applies is checked year by year.
• Check the extinguishers and detectors: the law wants them “working”, not just installed.
• Report any changes to the home, such as beds, bathrooms or owner. In Piedmont, the Aosta Valley and Sardinia you do it with the same procedure as the start.

What passes to the manager, and what stays with you

If you hand the home over to a manager, much of this list passes to them. The police allow agencies that manage private flats on the owners’ behalf to register on Alloggiati Web and send the registrations for them. Who does what, how the tourist tax is handled, and how and when payments are made all go into the management contract.

What stays with you: your income tax return and the choice of tax regime, the home’s documents, and your digital identity for the procedures that need the owner’s signature.

In the homes we manage, the codes, the notification to the council, Alloggiati Web and the statistics are part of short-term rental management: we don’t send you a list of things to do, we do them. Every month you get the statement: bookings, expenses and our commission, line by line. The tourist tax follows the council’s rules, which set the rates and exemptions: how it’s handled for your home we agree with you. For tax matters, your accountant is the reference; if you have a question, ask us. How we work with owners who live elsewhere is on the property management page, and how we work from the property visit to the statement is in the Maison Method. If you’d first like to know what your home could earn, the estimate is free.