A European approach is being developed that requires platforms such as Airbnb and Booking to collect and share data about landlords with local authorities via a single central digital portal per member state. As a landlord, this mainly means you will be asked more often for a registration number or similar proof before you are allowed to place an advertisement, and municipalities will soon be able to more easily see how many nights are being rented via which address.
Whether this matters to you depends on how and where you rent. If you rent through a large platform, you will probably notice it as an extra step when creating or renewing your advertisement. If you only rent through your own website or a holiday park, the direct impact is often smaller, but the underlying idea -- municipalities want to know what happens in their streets -- applies just as much.
What exactly changes
The idea behind this approach is simple: currently each municipality and each country registers this in its own way, with its own forms and its own requirements. This is difficult for platforms operating throughout Europe, and it makes it hard for authorities to get a complete picture. The new approach provides one standardized way to provide data: a registration number, the address, and how much is being rented.
What this concretely means for you varies by country and sometimes by municipality. Some places already have a mandatory registration number that you must mention with your advertisement; that obligation does not change now, but will soon be handled via one central system instead of through separate municipal offices. Other places are getting such a system for the first time.
What does not change
This approach is about sharing data between platforms and authorities, not about how you rent your property or what you pass on to your guests. Your house rules, your pricing, the way you collect reviews and the agreements you make with guests about energy consumption remain unchanged. If you, for example, still need to find out exactly how the latter works, you will find an overview in the knowledge base with all topics around rental and energy.
It is also not a replacement of existing tourist taxes or local permits. Those obligations have existed for some time and continue to exist alongside this data exchange. The new approach mainly ensures that municipalities will soon be able to more easily check whether what is listed online matches what is registered.
In detail, for those who want to know exactly
The underlying European text regulates the data exchange between platforms and a central digital access point per member state, and leaves it to each member state to determine exactly what its own registration system looks like and when it must become operational. Part of that elaboration is not yet fixed and will be filled in over time for each country. For the exact text and current status, EUR-Lex is the appropriate source; for what this means for your own municipality or country, the local regulator or a lawyer is the right party to consult.
What this means for small landlords
If you rent one property alongside your regular work, this may feel like something for large holiday parks. It is not necessarily: the obligation to provide data usually does not depend on how many properties you rent, but on the fact that you do rent short-term. A good first step is to check whether your municipality already requires a registration number, and whether your platform already asks for it when placing an advertisement.
In addition, it is a good time to check that your own administration is in order: address, number of nights rented, and the way you record that. Whoever combines that with the question of how electricity is charged to guests will find in a few questions that quickly show where you stand a practical starting point, and in the frequently asked questions about rental and regulations answers to the questions that most landlords ask first.
Staywatt is not a legal advisor and does not make any statement about your specific situation; we measure and settle electricity with guests and charging stations, and refer for registration and notification obligations to the official text and your municipality or lawyer. If you would like to immediately see how it stands with the side that we do know -- making electricity costs fair by having your guests share in the payment -- then take the free quick-scan or browse through the explanation of where our information comes from.