The government is taking on short-term rentals. The bill will go to the meeting

The government meeting is about to start. One of the items considered by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, July 14, will be the draft changes regarding short-term rental.

The amendment prepared by the Ministry of Sport and Tourism is intended to organize the market and limit the gray zone. The new regulations are intended to introduce clear rules for people offering short-term accommodation.

The draft act amending the Act on hotel services and the services of tour guides and tourist guides and certain other acts assumes that short-term rental will be formally recognized as a hotel service. The idea is to regulate activities that have developed dynamically in recent years, but were partially outside the applicable regulations.

– The bill clarifies the concept of a hotel service by assuming that a hotel service is a short-term service lasting no longer than 30 days and that this concept is identical to the concept of “short-term rental” – stated in the justification of the bill.

Short-term rental with a new definition

One of the most important changes is to clarify the definition of short-term rental. After the new regulations come into force, the short-term provision of apartments for stays of up to 30 days will be treated as a hotel service.

The ministry argues that the current regulations no longer correspond to the market situation, where, in addition to traditional hotels and guesthouses, there are thousands of private premises rented to tourists.

The project also provides for:

• creation of the Central Tourist List of Accommodation Facilities,

• collecting information about facilities providing hotel services in one place,

• clarifying the rules for conducting such activities.

According to the authors of the project, the new solutions are intended to increase market transparency and facilitate control over entities offering accommodation.

This is to limit the gray zone

The justification for the project emphasized that the proposed regulations are to create a legal basis for the introduction of new control and recording tools.

– A regulatory option is recommended that will enable solving the identified problems and achieving the assumed regulatory goals. The introduced regulations, in turn, will provide a legal basis for the introduction of the planned instruments – it was written in the justification.

There is still a long legislative path ahead of the project, but if the new regulations are adopted, the short-term rental market may face one of the largest regulatory changes in years.