The EU's new Short-Term Rental Regulation entered into force in 2024. Here is what it means for hosts, platforms, and local authorities across Europe in 2025 and beyond.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice.
For years, Europe's short-term rental sector operated in a regulatory patchwork: 27 member states with their own rules, hundreds of regional and municipal frameworks, and digital platforms operating across all of them with inconsistent compliance. That era is ending.
In March 2024, the EU Regulation on Short-Term Rental Accommodation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1028) entered into force. It is directly applicable across all EU member states without the need for national transposition legislation — meaning it creates binding obligations on hosts, platforms, and authorities from the moment it applies. The regulation began applying to platforms from 20 May 2025 and to member state authorities from 20 July 2025.
This regulation is one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever passed affecting the short-term rental industry. Understanding it is not optional for any host operating in the EU.
The regulation is built on two pillars:
Standardised host registration: Member states that operate — or wish to operate — registration schemes for short-term rental hosts must follow a common EU framework when designing those schemes. The rules govern what information hosts must provide, how quickly registration must be processed, and what hosts can be asked to prove.
Mandatory platform data sharing: Online short-term rental platforms (Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, and all others meeting the threshold) must collect registration numbers from hosts, verify them, and share activity data with national and local authorities on a regular basis.
These two pillars work together: the registration system provides the framework for identifying legitimate hosts, and the data sharing mechanism allows authorities to identify hosts who are operating without registration or who are under-reporting their activity.
The regulation applies to:
It is important to be clear about what the EU STR Regulation does not do:
What it does is create a common procedural framework for registration and a data-sharing obligation for platforms. The substantive decision about whether to allow, restrict, or ban short-term rentals in any given area remains with national and local authorities.
Member states operating registration schemes must:
Issue registration numbers quickly: Registrations must be confirmed within two working days of a complete application for properties that are the host's primary residence, and within seven working days for other properties. Many existing national systems (particularly Spain's regional systems) take much longer — these will need to be reformed.
Accept a minimum set of host information: The regulation specifies what hosts can be asked to provide. Member states cannot demand information beyond this set for the purpose of registration (though they may require additional documentation for other permit processes).
Create a single digital registration point: Registration must be available online through a single access point at the national level.
Operate a random verification system: Authorities must implement a system to randomly verify the accuracy of registration information, rather than relying entirely on self-declaration.
For primary residence lets, registration information includes:
For non-primary residence properties:
The regulation requires that each property receive a single registration number that must be displayed on all platform listings and advertising. This eliminates the current confusion in countries like Spain where a property might have separate regional registration, municipal registration, and platform-specific identifiers.
This is the most transformative element of the regulation for the industry. Platforms must:
Collect and display registration numbers: Platforms must collect a registration number from every host operating in a member state that operates a registration scheme. The number must be displayed on every listing.
Verify registration numbers: Platforms must implement technical mechanisms to verify that registration numbers are valid (format checks and API-based verification against the national registry). Platforms cannot manually verify every listing but must perform automated validity checks.
Share activity data with authorities: Platforms must transmit monthly data to national single digital entry points. The data includes:
Remove non-compliant listings: Where a member state has notified a platform that a host does not have a valid registration, or that a property is in an area where short-term letting is prohibited, the platform must remove the listing. The timeline for removal is 48 hours.
The data sharing obligation will have a very direct effect on tax compliance across Europe. Tax authorities in every member state will receive monthly data from all major platforms covering every host's income and activity. Cross-referencing this data with tax returns will be straightforward.
Hosts who have been under-declaring rental income — a widespread practice that previous enforcement was unable to address — will face significantly elevated audit risk from 2025 onwards. If you operate in the EU, review your tax declarations now.
For UK-based owners of European properties, remember that the UK and EU have tax information exchange agreements under DAC7 (the EU Directive on Administrative Cooperation, which also requires platforms to report host income to authorities). Your HMRC tax position may be affected by what EU authorities learn from platform data.
France already operates a relatively comprehensive notification system, but the speed of registration and data centralisation will need significant improvement to meet the two and seven day requirements. The regulation is expected to accelerate France's already-advancing digital portal for AL declarations.
For Paris specifically, the city's registration number requirement (already in force and enforced) aligns well with the EU framework but the underlying permit system (changement d'usage) is not registration under the EU definition — it is a substantive permission. The EU regulation explicitly preserves these more restrictive local rules.
Spain's fragmented regional registration landscape — where each autonomous community operates its own system — will need significant coordination to implement the single digital entry point requirement. The national tourism ministry is expected to create a federal coordination layer while preserving the underlying regional registration schemes.
For hosts, the practical impact should be simplification over time, though the underlying regional requirements (Catalonia's HUT registration, Andalusia's RTA, Balearics' licence caps) remain fully in force.
Portugal's RNAL system is already national and centrally managed by Turismo de Portugal, putting it in a strong position to comply with the EU framework. The main changes will be around data transmission to the EU single digital gateway and accelerated registration timescales.
Italy has been one of the most legally complex STR environments in Europe, with regional variation (Venice's unique situation, Milan's restrictions) and a national Codice Identificativo Nazionale (CIN) — national rental registration code — that was introduced in 2023. The EU regulation will interact with this existing system.
For Venice specifically, the city's unique ordinances restricting day-visitor access and managing accommodation density operate under national and local powers that the EU regulation does not override.
Germany's Zweckentfremdungsverbot (misappropriation prohibition) laws — most notably in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich — restrict the conversion of residential housing to tourist use. These city-level laws remain fully in force under the EU regulation. Berlin in particular remains very difficult for secondary residence STR operators.
The regulation requires member states to establish effective penalties for non-compliance by both hosts (failing to register, providing false information) and platforms (failing to collect or transmit data, failing to remove non-compliant listings). The specific penalty amounts are left to member states, but they must be effective, proportionate, and dissuasive.
In practice, the most significant enforcement mechanism for hosts is not direct administrative action (which is resource-intensive for authorities) but the delisting of non-compliant properties from major platforms. If your property cannot be listed because it lacks a valid registration number, your revenue stops immediately. This is a powerful compliance incentive.
The EU STR Regulation applies to all hosts operating properties in EU member states, regardless of their own nationality or residence. Post-Brexit, UK nationals operating properties in Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, or anywhere in the EU are fully subject to the regulation's requirements.
For UK hosts, the practical actions are:
The EU STR Regulation is not the end point — it is a framework. Individual member states and cities retain the power to be more restrictive, and the political pressure over housing affordability in tourist cities across Europe has not diminished.
The direction of travel is clear: greater transparency, greater data sharing, greater tax compliance enforcement, and in many urban markets, continued or increased restrictions on new STR registrations. Hosts who adapt — by ensuring compliance, building direct booking revenue that is less dependent on OTA platforms, and maintaining the quality of their offering — are well positioned. Those who rely on operating below the regulatory radar face an increasingly inhospitable environment.
Navigating the EU's evolving STR regulatory landscape is complex, but running your business operationally does not have to be. LetPilot gives European holiday let operators the tools to manage bookings, automate compliance-related communications, track revenue across properties in multiple countries, and build the direct booking relationships that reduce platform dependency. Try LetPilot free at letpilot.co — no credit card required.