Updated 6 November 2026

In short

• In Italy a short-term rental (locazione breve) is a let of a home for up to 30 days, made by a private individual, not a business. You can include linen, cleaning, utilities and wi-fi, but not breakfast or meals.

• In Lombardy, before the first guest: a notice to the town hall (CIA), then the regional code CIR, then the national code CIN. The home needs gas and carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers.

• At every stay: check each guest’s identity, report guests to the police through Alloggiati Web within 24 hours, send statistics to the Region on ROSS1000 and collect the tourist tax where the town applies it.

• Tax: the income is taxed in Italy even if you live abroad. You can choose a flat tax (cedolare secca) of 21% on one home and 26% on the others. From 2026, letting more than two apartments this way is presumed to be a business.

• The rest is daily work: listing, pricing, check-in, cleaning, maintenance and reviews.

This guide follows the real order of things, for owners who live in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, the US, the Netherlands or anywhere else outside Italy. Where we have a more detailed English guide, we link it.

The Italian terms you will meet

What counts as a short-term rental

Under article 4 of decree-law 50/2017, a short-term rental (locazione breve) is a lease of a residential property for no more than 30 days, made by individuals acting outside a business, directly or through agencies and online platforms. It can include linen and cleaning; the Agenzia delle Entrate, Italy’s tax agency (circular 24/E of 2017), adds utilities, wi-fi and air conditioning. Services unrelated to living there, such as breakfast, meals, car hire or a tour guide, take that contract out of the regime.

The 30-day limit applies to each contract. If you exceed 30 days in total with the same guest in a year, the contract must be registered.

In practice, if you let your home on Airbnb to tourists for a few days, it is a tourist let (locazione turistica, a let for tourist purposes outside the rules for long residential leases) for the administration, and you use the short-term rental tax regime. Lombardy also has holiday homes and apartments (CAV), a non-hotel accommodation business with its own rules, tax included: without a business, up to 3 units and at least 90 days closed per year. If you are considering it, talk to a commercialista (Italian accountant) first.

Before your first guest

These steps apply to Airbnb, Booking.com and direct bookings alike.

1. Check the home

In Lombardy, homes let to tourists, including short-term rentals, must meet the minimum standards of Annex G bis of regional regulation 6/2025: electricity, hot and cold water and heating compliant and periodically checked; minimum equipment in kitchen, bedroom and bathroom; a maximum number of beds based on floor area, with a second bathroom above 8 beds. The same annex requires cleaning and a change of linen at every change of guest, and a reception (or a contact) agreed in advance.

Before you invest time, also check whether the building’s rules (regolamento di condominio) limit how flats can be used, and, if you have a mortgage, what the loan contract says.

2. Install the safety devices

Article 13-ter of decree-law 145/2023 requires every home let short-term or to tourists, business or not, to have working detectors for combustible gas and carbon monoxide and compliant fire extinguishers. According to the Ministry of Tourism FAQ, you need at least one extinguisher every 200 m² of floor (or fraction) and one per floor, and the gas detector is not needed if the home has no gas system and the risk of leaks is excluded with certainty. If they are missing, the fine is €600 to €6,000 per violation.

3. File the CIA with the Comune and get the CIR

In Lombardy, before you start, a private tourist let or short-term rental requires a CIA to the Comune where the home is. A business let requires a SCIA instead. You file it with the SUAP, also online through the portal impresainungiorno.gov.it.

The Comune forwards it to the Province, which gives you access to ROSS1000, the regional system for tourist flows. That is where you find your CIR.

4. Request the CIN

With the CIR you request the CIN on the Ministry of Tourism’s BDSR portal, logging in with SPID or CIE (Italian digital identities). If you are a foreigner without SPID, the Ministry’s manual says you register with a form and receive credentials by email after a check. You have 30 days from the date the regional code is assigned. The CIN must be displayed outside the building and shown in every listing (to be safe, show the CIR too). Without a CIN the fine is €800 to €8,000. Every step, with all the fines, is in our guide to CIN and CIR in Lombardy.

5. Set up your accounts

Before the first guest you need access to Alloggiati Web, the State Police portal for guest reporting, and, if the Comune applies a tourist tax, registration with the Comune. In Como, for example, you start with an initial declaration to the tourist tax office and then use the StayTour portal.

At every stay

Identify the guests

You can only host people with an identity document. The Ministry of the Interior (circular of 18 November 2024) and the Council of State, Italy’s highest administrative court (ruling 9101 of 21 November 2025), say the check must be done in person (de visu): documents sent online and a keybox are not enough. The Council of State mentions that a video link set up by the host could also work, if it allows a real comparison between person and document. If you live abroad, someone has to be there, or connected, at each arrival.

Report the guests to the police

Article 109 of Italy’s public security law also applies to people letting for less than 30 days (art. 19-bis DL 113/2018). Guest details go through Alloggiati Web within 24 hours of arrival, or within 6 hours if the stay is 24 hours or less.

Send statistics to the Region

In Lombardy tourist lets must also report tourist flows (art. 38, par. 8, Regional Law 27/2015) on ROSS1000 by the 5th of the following month, also in months with no guests. For each month omitted or incomplete, the fine is €250 to €2,500.

Collect and pay the tourist tax

The tourist tax (imposta di soggiorno) exists only where the Comune has introduced it, with its own amounts and rules. Whoever runs the home collects it from guests, pays it to the Comune and is legally responsible for it. In Como, for example, it also applies to short-term rentals, for a maximum of 4 consecutive nights, and is paid within 15 days of the end of each month.

Tax: yes, Italy taxes you even if you live abroad

According to the Agenzia delle Entrate, all individuals, whether or not they live in Italy, are liable to IRPEF, and income from real estate is one of the taxable categories. Rent from a home on Lake Como is Italian income, so you declare it in Italy. Your home country may also have rules on this income: ask an adviser who knows both systems.

Flat tax or IRPEF

On short-term rental income you can choose the cedolare secca, a flat tax that replaces IRPEF and its regional and municipal surcharges. The law’s definition refers to individuals and the texts we cite set no residency condition, but have a commercialista confirm the option in your case. Otherwise the rent is added to your other Italian income and taxed at progressive IRPEF rates. The flat tax is calculated on the gross rent received. The rates:

• 21% on the rent from one home, which you choose in your tax return;

• 26% on the other homes let short-term.

Worked examples are in Italy’s flat tax on short-term rentals.

The 21% withholding

If a platform or agency collects the guest’s payment, or takes part in the payment, it must withhold 21% and pay it to the tax office for you. It is an advance payment, whatever regime you choose: you deduct it in your return. Airbnb, for example, withholds it from non-professional hosts with listings in Italy. If the guest pays you directly, nobody withholds anything and you pay all the tax with your return.

From the third apartment, it is a business

From 2026 the budget law (Law 199/2025, art. 1, par. 17) lowered the threshold: the short-term rental regime applies only if in the year you let short-term no more than two apartments (before, four). Above that, the activity is presumed to be a business: business tax rules apply and you need a SCIA instead of a CIA.

Filing from abroad

You need a codice fiscale. According to the Agenzia delle Entrate’s leaflet for foreign citizens, EU citizens can request it at the Italian consulate in their country; the route through an Agenzia office, with form AA4/8 and a passport or ID card valid for travel abroad, is described for EU citizens who move to Italy. The leaflet covers non-EU citizens only once they are in Italy: if you are not an EU citizen, ask the Italian consulate or the Agenzia which route applies to you. If you are not resident in Italy, the Agenzia’s English pages say you file the Redditi PF return (not the simplified 730), online by 31 October of the following year, directly or through an authorised intermediary such as a commercialista. If you are abroad and cannot file online, you can send it by registered post by 30 November.

And 2027? The 2027 budget bill (A.C. 3174, presented to the Chamber of Deputies on 30 October 2026 and now continuing as A.C. 3174-bis) is not yet law. In the official summary of its measures and in its flat-tax articles we found no changes to short-term rental tax. It can still change before approval: we will update this page if anything changes for you. What it changes for other leases is in our article on the 2027 budget (in Italian).

Channels: Airbnb, Booking.com and direct

According to Airbnb’s help centre, most hosts now pay a single host-only fee of 15.5%, deducted from the payout; the old split-fee model is being phased out. Booking.com charges a percentage of each booking set in your contract, which can be higher in programmes such as Genius or Preferred Partner. A direct website has no platform commission, but you bring the visitors and handle payments and refunds yourself.

The costs to plan for

Your real return is what is left after these. We do not give average figures: they depend too much on the home and the Comune.

• Commissions from platforms or a manager (what managers charge on Lake Como).

• Cleaning, laundry, utilities, wi-fi, consumables and maintenance.

• Insurance. Liability cover towards guests is compulsory for accommodation businesses such as a CAV (art. 38, par. 10, Regional Law 27/2015); the rule does not name the plain tourist let, so ask the Comune and consider a policy anyway.

• Software, the commercialista and taxes: flat tax or IRPEF, plus local property taxes (IMU, if due, and TARI, the waste tax).

• Your time. From abroad it also means having someone local for check-ins and emergencies.

What the numbers look like on the lake is in Lake Como rental income.

Day-to-day management

The paperwork is done once. The work repeats with every booking: listing and prices in several languages, calendars synced across channels, messages also in the evening and at weekends, check-in with identification in person and the police report, cleaning between check-out and check-in, repairs while guests are in the home, and reviews, which the next guest reads before booking.

You can do it all yourself, work with a local co-host or hand the home to a property manager. See our short-term rental management service in Como.

Frequently asked questions

What do I need to rent my Lake Como home on Airbnb?

A home that meets Lombardy’s minimum standards, with detectors and extinguishers; then the CIA to the Comune, the CIR and the CIN. At every stay: identification, Alloggiati Web, ROSS1000 and, where it exists, the tourist tax.

I live abroad. Do I pay tax in Italy?

Yes. Rent from an Italian home is Italian income, and non-residents file the Redditi PF return in Italy. The short-term rental definition refers to individuals and the texts we cite set no residency condition, but ask a commercialista to confirm that the flat tax (21% on one home, 26% on the others) is the best option in your case.

Do I need a VAT number (partita IVA)?

Not if you let as a private individual, outside a business. From 2026, however, more than two apartments let short-term are presumed to be a business: check your case with a commercialista.

Do I have to report guests to the police for a single night?

Yes, through Alloggiati Web, within 24 hours of arrival, or within 6 hours if the stay is 24 hours or less.

Sources

• Gazzetta Ufficiale, Law 30 December 2025, no. 199 (2026 budget law), art. 1, par. 17

• Agenzia delle Entrate, Circular 24/E of 12 October 2017 on short-term rentals (text on the Ministry of Economy portal)

• Agenzia delle Entrate, Circular 10/E of 10 May 2024, par. 1.2-1.5 (copy of the official text)

• Agenzia delle Entrate (English), Personal income tax: what it is

• Agenzia delle Entrate (English), How and when to file a tax return and When and how to submit a Redditi PF form

• Agenzia delle Entrate (English), Tax code leaflet for foreign citizens

• Agenzia delle Entrate (English), Glossary

• Normattiva, Law 431/1998, art. 1, par. 2(c)

• Ministry of Tourism, FAQ on the BDSR database and CIN

• Ministry of Tourism, BDSR manual for private operators, version 5.0

• Lombardy Regional Council, Regional Law 27/2015, art. 38 and art. 26

• Regione Lombardia, Codice identificativo di riferimento (CIR)

• Regione Lombardia, Important information for starting an accommodation business

• Gazzetta Ufficiale, Lombardy regional regulation 30 July 2025, no. 6 and text published in BURL no. 31 of 1/8/2025 (PIM copy)

• Council of State, Section III, ruling no. 9101/2025 of 21/11/2025 (full text)

• Prefecture of Parma, note of 22/11/2024 forwarding Ministry of the Interior circular no. 38138 of 18/11/2024

• Comune di Como, Tourist tax and municipal regulation (CC resolution 84/2019)

• Airbnb Help Centre, Italian withholding overview for hosts and Certificazione Unica and 2026 changes

• Airbnb Help Centre, Airbnb service fees

• Booking.com Partner Hub, Understanding our commission

• Chamber of Deputies, A.C. 3174, 2027 budget bill (record and progress) and text of the articles, Tomo II

Own a home on Lake Como?

If you are thinking of letting it to tourists, or you already do and want to know whether it could earn more with less hassle from abroad, we can look at it together. Breva Collections manages short-term rental homes on Lake Como, from the paperwork to the guests. Ask for a free evaluation, or read about our short-term rental management in Como.

This article is for information only and does not replace advice from an Italian accountant (commercialista) or tax adviser.