On the 7th of November, the European Commission presented a new proposal that aims to "reinforce transparency in the field of short-term rentals and help public authorities to ensure the balanced development of this as part of the sustainable tourism sector".
In this sense, platforms that work with short-term rentals - such as Airbnb - must ensure that the registration number of the accommodations is visible, and at the same time they will have to "randomly verify that the hosts register and present the correct numbers". If there are cases detected that do not comply with these rules, public authorities may suspend these registration numbers and ask platforms to remove the ads.
In addition to this topic, the EC proposal also defines that “Online platforms will have to share data on the number of nights booked and guest data with public authorities, once a month, in an automated way”. These collected data will contribute to the Tourism statistics produced by Eurostat.
The European Commission's proposal will still be debated, and in the event of approval it will apply immediately and the Member States will have two years to create the necessary mechanisms.
Fonts: Jornal de Negócios
9th November 2022