STR Unpacked

Ben

STR Unpacked is a short-term rental industry podcast that reviews the key news stories of the week alongside an invited sector expert, providing commentary, insight and practical interpretation of how current developments are shaping the market.

  1. 2d ago

    It Happened Again

    Greece has given operators 24 more days to file. Decision A1227, gazette B' 6467 of 26 October, moves the short-stay declaration deadline to 13 November. In translation, it covers declarations whose date of the tenant's departure, or of cancellation of the short-term lease, falls between 1 and 30 September 2026 inclusive. So it goes by the checkout or cancellation date, not the stay. An August stay with a September checkout is in. A September stay with an October checkout is not. File by 13 November and the declaration is not late. Miss it and POL.1187/2017 charges 100 euro per declaration. Never file it at all and the fine is double the rent showing on the platform the day you are audited. It is routine: the same thing happened in October last year and again in July, and the recital giving the reason is last October's sentence with the year changed. Then it was 10 days. This time 24. On the Budget, the separation of property income from the main rates was not done on Wednesday. Finance Act 2026 section 6 did it, for 2027-28, and section 7 of the same Act sets that year's property rates at 22%, 42% and 47%. Wednesday moved those numbers to 24%, 44% and 49%, from 20, 40 and 45 today, for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. But 22, 42 and 47 is the statutory rate until a Finance Bill replaces it, and no Finance Bill has been introduced. The Parliament API shows a first reading with no sitting, and the only publications against it are Wednesday's Budget resolutions, which come before the Bill. The offset is real and smaller than it looks. Schedule 1 paragraph 40 pegs finance cost relief to the property basic rate, in ITTOIA sections 274AA(5) and 274C(2), from 2027-28. Relief therefore rises with the rate, but it holds the gap rather than narrowing it: 20 points for a higher-rate payer, 25 for an additional-rate payer. Elsewhere, most of the Dutch implementation of Regulation 2024/1028 commences on Sunday. And Ireland's Bill, published last Friday, would make registering a unit a confirmation that it complies with the Planning and Development Act 2024 and any regulations under it. Daily Message: Greece fixed a deadline 6 days after it had already passed. The 2 extra points announced on Wednesday still need an Act. Is the relief leg in your 2027-28 model, or just the rate?

  2. 3d ago

    The Budget

    Yesterday's Budget names our sector exactly once, in a VAT note, as "short-term rental accommodation". The phrase "short-term let" appears nowhere in it. It still put 4 points on the tax rate on our income. From 6 April 2027 property income gets its own rates. OOTLAR 1.2: "the property basic rate will be 24%, the property higher rate will be 44%, and the property additional rate will be 49%." That is not 2 points. Budget 2025 announced 2 from April 2027, yesterday added 2 more from the same date, and the main rates stay at 20, 40 and 45. So on one day it goes 20 to 24, 40 to 44, 45 to 49. Since the furnished holiday lettings rules went in April 2025, that is our income. These are England, Wales and Northern Ireland rates. OOTLAR 1.2 says Scotland and Wales have "the ability to set property income rates in line with their current Income Tax powers". The costing reaches "unincorporated landlords", so company-held units sit outside it. And if your model carries substantial services and is genuinely a trade, your profits are non-property income and stay at 20, 40 and 45. That is a reading of the law, not a Budget statement. Then the offset, which is in the costings rather than the Budget. Page 74: "Finance cost relief will continue to be aligned to the property basic rate." The statute confirms it: ITTOIA 2005 s274AA(5) now reads "property basic rate" from 2027-28. So relief on loan interest rises from 20% to 24% the same day the rate does. Model the rate without the relief and you overstate the hit. On the tourist tax, the Fiscal Devolution Roadmap published alongside the Budget gives the levy seven paragraphs. One thing in them is new and not in our favour. September promised businesses advance notice of a levy's introduction "or any subsequent changes". The Roadmap now says "any subsequent significant changes to the design". And be careful what we ask for. The rate cap and the night cap were both refused in September, and the sector was split on nights. What is still undecided is the record-keeping duty, how you apportion an inclusive package, and third-party sales. There is still no Bill. Daily Message: the Budget named us once, taxed our income harder, and left the tourist tax with no rate, no Bill and no costing.

  3. 5d ago

    5,000 Euro And 3 Months

    Ireland's short-term letting Bill is public, and registration is not the administrative step it has been sold as. The text of the Short-term Letting and Tourism Bill, Bill 101 of 2026, was published on Friday 23 October. It is a Bill, not an Act. Parliament's own record shows it presented and published, with no debate, no amendment and no second stage. Section 1(2) leaves commencement to a ministerial order. New section 27C would require a host applying to register a unit to include in the declaration "confirmation that the unit complies with the authorisation scheme". The Bill defines that scheme as "the provisions of the Planning and Development Act 2024 and any regulations made under it". So the registration form is a certificate about your own planning. Three things follow. Nothing checks it first. The inspection and refusal routes in new sections 27, 30 and 27F run to the registers for hotels, guest houses and similar premises. For a unit, the only adverse decisions appealable are suspension and withdrawal, after the number has issued.A knowingly or recklessly false declaration would be an offence under new section 27D(5), punishable under 27D(6)(b) by a class A fine, which the Fines Act 2010 caps at 5,000 euro, or up to 3 months, or both. An honest error in the first declaration is not caught. But new section 27C(2) requires a host to notify any material change, and new section 27D(4) makes contravening that an offence with no mental element at all.The planning file can travel. Section 37 of the Bill inserts a new section 8B letting a local authority disclose information it holds about a unit's authorisation scheme to the National Tourism Development Authority, which operates as Fáilte Ireland, expressly for "enforcement of compliance".On dates, be careful. The department's page says the register opens on 1 December, with no year given, and all hosts must register by 31 December 2026. Section 7(3) says a host registers "within one month of the coming into operation of subsection (1)". The 31 December in the Bill is the annual expiry for the other registers. A unit would run 12 months from the date its own number issues, renewable only in the 30 days before. One provision goes beyond the EU regulation, which obliges member states to require the number when a host offers through a platform. New section 27D(3) would make it an offence to advertise or offer a unit away from a platform without a valid number, so a registered operator's own booking site needs it too. Prepare to register. Do not diary 31 December as law. Settle your planning first. Where does your portfolio actually sit on planning?

  4. 6d ago

    The Clock Starts Sunday

    The Netherlands has set a clock running on every Dutch short-let registration number, and it stops on 1 May 2027. On Monday 19 October a royal decree fixed the commencement dates for the Dutch Housing Act amendment and the registration decree that together implement Regulation (EU) 2024/1028. It was issued in the official gazette on Friday 23 October as Staatsblad 2026 number 331. Most of both instruments starts on Sunday 1 November. The operator point is the transitional provision. Dutch registration numbers have been issued since 2021, and the amended decree now requires an application to carry the data listed in article 5(1) of the regulation. New article 6d therefore obliges the municipal executive to give the holder of a pre-existing number the opportunity to supply the data "binnen zes maanden na inwerkingtreding van dat besluit", within 6 months of that decree's commencement. On the main commencement date that is 1 May 2027. Article 6d sets no penalty. The explanatory note supplies the consequence: a holder who does not comply can have the number "opgeschort of ingetrokken", suspended or withdrawn, "als ultimum remedium". 2 more things start on 1 November. Issued registration numbers go into "een openbaar toegankelijk register", a publicly accessible register. And the registration system must let you reuse the data from one unit's application for another, which is the one part of this package that helps a multi-unit operator. Then the backdating. 4 parts took effect on 24 October and reach back to 1 July 2026, 115 days. They are the central digital access point and its plumbing. Note the gap: the regulation has applied since 20 May, so 42 days of compelled data sit outside the retroactivity. The scope gate is the part worth knowing before anyone panics. Under article 9(1) read with article 13(1)(b), platforms transmit only for units in an area whose competent authority has requested the data, and article 13(3) requires that list to be public. No request, no transmission. And a question for a trade body. Article 23j(3) lets the minister release the dataset for 3 purposes, the third being "de heffing en invordering van de toeristenbelasting", levying and collecting tourist tax. Article 12(2) of the regulation grants access "only where" the purpose is monitoring registration compliance or enforcing rules on access to and provision of the service. A municipal tax is not obviously either. Is the data behind every one of your Dutch registration numbers complete today?

  5. Oct 22

    It Is Not Whether, It Is When

    Airbnb announced two new community policies on Tuesday. For reservations booked on or after Friday 20 November, the host rental agreement comes off the platform. The trigger is the booking date, not the stay date. Contracts are permitted only where a law or a community association rule requires it, where it is “necessary to facilitate access to an optional amenity”, on “a monthly stay (28 nights or more)”, or on a Luxe listing. And read the sting: “Airbnb doesn’t require guests to sign host-imposed contracts, and doesn’t help enforce the terms of these contracts.” Win the exception and you win a document your guest can decline. Hosts also “may not solicit personal data at any point during the booking process or stay”: contact details, ID documents, financial data, background checks or credit history, and biometric or health data. You may check an ID in person at check-in if you disclose it in the requests section. You may not retain a copy. It is not a United States policy. The same text with the same date sits in Airbnb’s UK Help Centre in pounds, on airbnb.es in euros, and on its New Zealand site. The useful question is when your legal duty bites, because Airbnb permits the check at the door and bars it before arrival. Of 21 European regimes I have checked, 20 land on the permitted side. At arrival: the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Czechia, Portugal, France, Hungary, Norway, Serbia, Ukraine, Turkey. Reported after arrival: Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia. Untimed: Ireland, Switzerland, Iceland. Spain alone reaches back to the booking. UK operators, read this one twice. The Immigration (Hotel Records) Order 1972 makes you require name and nationality from every guest aged 16 or over, and a passport number from any guest who is an “alien”. That catches more of your book than you think: every EU national is an alien for this purpose. Outside it are Irish citizens, Commonwealth citizens and British protected persons, and asking those guests for a passport number collects more than the law requires, which Airbnb prohibits. The definition arrives via S.I. 1982/1025, because legislation.gov.uk still serves the Order’s original 1948 wording. The other half you may welcome. The companion policy bars asking guests to do tasks that “require significant effort or time” or that “would typically be performed by a cleaner, including stripping the bed, taking trash offsite, or washing and putting away dishes”. Punitive guest fines go too, though damage recovery is untouched. And rules cannot be added after booking “by message, signs in the home, or in person”. Before 20 November: classify every market by when its duty bites, and get the rules that matter into the listing.

  6. Oct 21

    Liable For Uncollected Money

    Poland promulgated a law on Monday that turns a short-let operator into a tax remitter. Not a collector. A remitter. The distinction is worth money. The Act of 18 September amending the Local Taxes and Charges Act, the Personal Income Tax Act and the Civil Law Transactions Tax Act was promulgated on Monday 19 October 2026 at position 1354. The short-let provisions bite on 1 January 2027. New article 17, paragraph 9: "Collection of the local charge and the spa charge is effected by the remitter, which is the entity providing accommodation services." Article 8 of the Tax Ordinance makes a remitter calculate, collect and pay over. Article 30, paragraph 1 makes a remitter liable for tax not collected, or collected and not paid. Paragraph 2 gives a collecting agent, all a council could appoint before, liability only for tax collected and not paid. The new head of liability is the money you never took. Three nuances that matter. It is not automatic. Paragraph 4 requires a decision on the remitter's liability, issued in tax proceedings, so you have appeal rights. Paragraph 5 switches liability to the guest where the charge went uncollected through the guest's fault. That is a transfer, not a let-off, and the authority has to find the fault. Paragraph 5a closes that door for some of us. Where the remitter is a property company, paragraph 5 cannot be used at all. If you hold Polish stock in a special purpose vehicle, you have no escape route. Three things to do before January. Check your council's by-law. Article 8 of the act voids the existing ones on these charges. Expect someone to point at article 20a, which now backfills unenacted rates with last year's. It supplies a number. Our reading is that it cannot price a charge no resolution has introduced, but the act does not say so expressly, so ask in writing. Build the register. Article 17, paragraph 15 wants one per property: each guest's name and home address, and the rate applied or the legal ground for not charging them. Name your people. Tax Ordinance article 31 makes a corporate remitter designate the individuals who calculate and collect, and notify their names and addresses to the tax office by the first payment, then within 14 days of any change. On rates, the ceiling in force today is 3.46 zloty a day, rising to 5.00 a night. The ministry did announce 2027 figures in July, at 3.56, but it announced them for provisions this act repeals on 1 January, so they never govern a day of 2027. The compliant operator got conscripted first. Polish operators, has your council said what replaces its by-law?

  7. Oct 20

    17% Only Sometimes

    Turkey is about to cap what the booking platforms can take out of a stay. The cap that was adopted is not the cap that was tabled. The bill as tabled in August capped the platform's take at 17% of the sale price, under whatever name, with no geographic limit. At the committee sitting on 6 October, Booking.com's representative asked for it to be confined to reservations made from Turkey to Turkey. The culture and tourism deputy minister made the same point about international competitiveness. The committee adopted exactly that, and its own stated reason is one phrase: in conformity with the scope of the regulation. The report was distributed on 13 October and the bill sits at item 124 of 124 on the floor agenda. Cutting the other way: the deputy minister said 17% sits below the rates the platforms actually apply. The tax base. The tabled text excluded value added tax; the adopted text excludes all taxes, in every case, and the reasoning names the accommodation tax too. But the committee moved that rule into a new paragraph 9 and left article 6 alone, and article 6 penalises only paragraph 8. The one change that helps on inbound bookings has nothing behind it. The permit. Commencement is 1 January 2027, platforms then have three months to apply, and the fee is 5 million lira indexed each January, with a presidential power to halve or double it. One that does not apply faces a ministerial blocking order that goes to a criminal judge within 24 hours and lapses if the judge does not rule within 48. Your liability. The platform must verify and display your permit number, and where it does not, the penalty imported is the existing host-side regime under law 7464. For a Turkish unit without a permit this is a delisting risk on top of what you already carry, not a commission saving. And you could not enforce the cap yourself; the ministry applies the sanctions. The drafting. Two terms carry all of it and neither is defined, from within the country to within the country, and sale price. Article 7 hands both to the ministry. Denmark's consultation on powers to order a platform to remove adverts or block bookings closes at noon tomorrow. And the Treasury said again on 19 October that VAT is charged on the full amount paid including an overnight visitor levy, having said the same on 17 September, with the Budget 8 days away. Daily Message: the cap you read about and the cap that was adopted are not the same cap.

  8. Oct 15

    Serbia's 50% Jump

    Belgrade's overnight guest tax rose 50% today. Before you reprice anything in Serbia, work out which limb of the law your stock sits in, because only one of them moved. The instrument is a government regulation in national gazette 90 of 18 September 2026, made under article 75(1) of the hospitality act. It sets new bands for the residence tax by tourist place category: Category 1: 190 to 240 dinars (was 100 to 160) Category 2: 150 to 200 (was 80 to 140) Category 3: 110 to 170 (was 70 to 120) Category 4: 90 to 140 (was 60 to 110) In Categories 1 and 2 the new floor sits above the whole of the old band, so those councils have to move. Belgrade did. City assembly, 6 October, published in city gazette 82/2026: article 2(1) of its residence tax decision has "160,00 dinars" replaced with "240,00 dinars", in force 15 October. Belgrade is Category 1, so 240 is the ceiling of its band and 190 the floor. It took every dinar going. Now the limb that decides whether this is your problem. Article 70 makes the residence tax a per-night charge the guest pays. You collect it with the room rate, you must show it separately on the invoice, and you remit by the 5th of the following month. Article 72: if you fail to collect it, you pay it yourself within 15 days. Article 71 is the exception. A natural person letting through a registered private household does not collect per night at all, but pays a flat annual amount per bed. That amount lives in a separate 2019 regulation made under article 75(2). Today's instrument is made under 75(1) and does not touch it. So the headline rise reaches hotels, companies and entrepreneurs. It does not reach the private-household segment, where the numbers have been frozen since 2019. Two details worth more than the rate itself. Article 74 exempts anyone staying continuously longer than 30 days, exempts under-7s and halves the rate for ages 7 to 15. And article 6 of the new regulation repeals the 2013 one on the day the new bands start applying, not when it came into force, which is why the old bands were still operative yesterday. Honest limits. Vrsac also moved, 100 to 150 dinars, but its amendment changes article 3 of its 2019 decision and I could not obtain that decision to confirm article 3 is the per-night rate rather than the annual limb. Treat it as unconfirmed. There are 21 categorised places and I have not swept them all. If you invoice Serbian stays, today is a gazette-checking day.

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STR Unpacked is a short-term rental industry podcast that reviews the key news stories of the week alongside an invited sector expert, providing commentary, insight and practical interpretation of how current developments are shaping the market.

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  • Creator
    Ben
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    172
  • Rating
    Clean
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    © 2026 Ben
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    STR Unpacked