AL license becomes transferable again with new government law

The announcement was made by the Minister for the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, at a press conference after the Council of Ministers in Lisbon, with the minister reaffirming the PSD/CDS-PP administration's initiative to "correct some mistakes" made by the Socialist executive.

"We approved a more advanced version of a law that eliminates some major errors, such as the non-transferability of licences, the expiry after five years, allowing us, on the other hand, not to introduce a situation of market deregulation, but after a lot of dialogue with various entities, including agents in the sector, a logic of decentralisation," he said.

For the government, "it should be the municipalities that decide on the operating rules for local accommodation in the most pressurised areas".

The law is expected to be definitively approved "very soon", in a "matter of weeks".

In the previous legislation, passed by parliament in 2023 and highly contested by the local accommodation sector, the licence for the activity was non-transferable, even due to death, divorce or succession.

The package presented at the time by the Socialists also stipulated that inactive LA holders had to prove that they were maintaining the activity. In the event of non-compliance, registrations would be cancelled by decision of the mayor of the respective municipality.

The rules also established that LA registrations would be reviewed during the year 2030 and, from the first review, renewable for five years.

The only exception would be establishments that were collateral for loan contracts that had not yet been fully paid off by 31 December 2029.

Leitão Amaro recalled that, as announced by the government when it took office, "penalising measures" for the sector had already been corrected, such as the extraordinary contribution and the coefficient of ageing for the purposes of assessing Municipal Property Tax.

Keep up with all the latest property information and data reports, subscribe to our newsletter! 

More info