# EU Rule Forces Airbnb, Booking.com to Delist Unlicensed Portugal Rentals
> EU Regulation 2024/1028, live since 20 May 2026, forces Airbnb and Booking.com to verify AL numbers — thousands of Portuguese listings already delisted.
- Source: https://www.growinportugal.com/news/booking-and-airbnb-must-now-auto-delist-unlicensed-short-ter-2026-09-26
- Publisher: GrowIN Portugal (https://www.growinportugal.com)
- Published: 2026-09-26
- Last reviewed: 2026-09-26
- Language: en
> **Key figures — as of 2026-09-26:** EU Regulation 2024/1028 has applied in full since 20 May 2026, forcing Airbnb and Booking.com to verify registration numbers before publishing a listing — Portugal's national AL registry (RNAL) counted 119,147 active registrations after municipalities struck off more than 10,000 non-compliant entries this year — Lisbon alone cancelled 6,765 of roughly 19,000 licences (about 40%) for missing civil liability insurance — operating without a valid AL number can carry fines up to €40,000.
## The rule that turned paperwork into a switch
Four months on from the deadline, the number that matters most to foreign owners is 119,147 — that's how many Alojamento Local (AL) registrations remain active on Portugal's national registry after a wave of municipal reviews this year, according to figures reported by Portugal's National Local Accommodation Registry (RNAL), there are currently 119,147 active AL registrations nationwide. That figure is smaller than it would otherwise be because several Portuguese municipalities recently launched a review of Local Accommodation registrations, resulting in the cancellation of more than 10,000 registrations across the country.
The trigger is EU-wide, not Portuguese. Effective from May 20, 2026, Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 introduces a harmonized framework for the collection and sharing of data related to short-term rental services facilitated through online platforms. The regulation doesn't invent a licensing system — member states still decide whether to impose registration schemes and other substantive restrictions — but it does force platforms to check what already exists. As MEP Kim van Sparrentak put it, "previously, rental platforms didn't share data, making it hard to enforce city rules. This new law changes that, giving cities more control."
For Portugal, the number platforms now verify is the AL registration issued through the Balcão Único Eletrónico. A listing without one is meant to disappear from search results automatically rather than sit there quietly under-the-radar, which was previously the norm for a meaningful slice of the market.
## Why Portugal's own numbers already tell the story
Portugal didn't wait for Brussels to start cleaning house. Municipal insurance and compliance sweeps earlier this year had already removed a large chunk of the national stock before the EU verification requirement even kicked in. Lisbon, the first city to carry out the verification process, revoked 6,765 registrations out of approximately 19,000 registered AL units, representing around 40% of the city's total registrations. Other municipalities, including Porto, Lagoa, and Lagos, have also completed similar reviews. In Porto, authorities cancelled 1,413 AL registrations, equivalent to roughly 12% of the city's registered local accommodation units. The common thread wasn't tourism policy or containment zones — the review primarily targets accommodation units that are no longer operating, have failed to submit mandatory liability insurance documentation, or no longer comply with regulatory requirements.
That liability insurance requirement is easy to overlook from abroad. Owners registering an AL property must hold civil liability insurance policy covering at least €75,000 per incident — a routine renewal, until it lapses and the whole listing goes dark.
## GrowIN's calculation
Add the >10,000 cancellations back to today's 119,147 active registrations and Portugal's AL stock stood at roughly 129,000 before this year's cleanup began. That means **the national cull removed close to 8% of the entire Portuguese short-term rental market in a matter of months** — not because of new taxes or bans, but because owners hadn't kept a single document current. For a foreign landlord who bought a Lisbon or Porto apartment specifically to let on Airbnb, that's not a rounding error; it's the difference between a functioning listing and a blank search result.
**"A missed insurance renewal is no longer just a fine — under EU data-sharing rules, it's an instant, automatic exit from every booking platform,"** says GrowIN Portugal Editorial.
## What actually changes for owners now
Platforms are required to check registration data against national systems rather than take a host's word for it, and to verify the number, report monthly activity to the national SDEP, delist properties without a code. In Lisbon specifically, the local rules layered on top have got stricter too: the municipal regulation revised in late 2025 introduced an amended Regulamento Municipal do Alojamento Local (RMAL) that introduced a ratio-based containment system, where absolute containment applies where AL registrations represent 10% or more of a parish's permanent housing units – no new AL registrations are permitted. That means an owner who loses a licence in one of those parishes can't simply file a new application — the zone is closed regardless of why the old one lapsed.
Practically, three things are worth checking this week if you own or manage a Portuguese AL property: that your RNAL number displayed on Airbnb and Booking.com exactly matches the address, floor and capacity on file with Turismo de Portugal; that your civil liability insurance is current and the renewal proof was actually submitted, not just paid; and that your Finanças activity registration and CAE code still reflect what you're doing, since tax and licensing checks increasingly cross-reference each other. Fines for operating without a valid number can run **up to €40,000**, on top of losing the booking-platform presence that makes the business viable in the first place.
## What to watch next
Enforcement intensity will likely keep climbing rather than plateau — data sharing under the regulation is designed to make informal non-compliance visible by default, not something that needs an inspector to stumble across it. Owners should also watch whether more municipalities beyond Lisbon and Porto run their own insurance-and-compliance sweeps before year-end, and whether containment thresholds tighten further in high-density parishes. For guidance on how AL rental income interacts with Portuguese tax filing obligations, see our tax and NIF hub, and if you need help sorting out registration, insurance or licence status before the next review cycle, GrowIN's services team can walk through what's actually on file versus what should be.
The paperwork was always mandatory. What's changed is that ignoring it no longer stays invisible.
## Sources
- [European Commission — Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/news/new-rules-bring-increased-transparency-short-term-rentals-sector-2026-05-20_en)
- [EUR-Lex — Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 summary](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/online-short-term-accommodation-rental-services-data-collection-and-sharing.html)
- [ADL Investment (citing RNAL / The Portugal News data)](https://adlinvestment.com/en/news/2026-06-15-local-accommodation-cancellations/)
- [Your Overseas Home — Short-term rental rules in Portugal 2026](https://www.youroverseashome.com/portugal/articles/short-term-rental-rules-portugal-2026/)
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© GrowIN Portugal. Cite as: GrowIN Portugal, "EU Rule Forces Airbnb, Booking.com to Delist Unlicensed Portugal Rentals", https://www.growinportugal.com/news/booking-and-airbnb-must-now-auto-delist-unlicensed-short-ter-2026-09-26