Portugal's Alojamento Local, Now That Lisbon Has Stopped Issuing
Portugal did something unusual in late 2024: it made short-term rental licences permanent and transferable. Then municipalities started refusing to issue new ones.
Those two facts together explain why an AL number in Lisbon is now worth considerably more than the administrative effort of obtaining one.
Checked 27 September 2026. These rules change often and they change locally. Verify against the authority before acting. General information, not legal advice.
The basics
Any property let to guests for periods of up to 30 days needs Alojamento Local registration. The AL number must be displayed on all listings and at the property entrance — the same dual obligation as Italy’s CIN.
The framework was reset by Decreto-Lei 76/2024, which among other things made existing registrations permanent and transferable rather than time-limited.
Why “transferable” changed the economics
While licences expired, an AL number was a permission you renewed. Now it is closer to an asset attached to the property — and in a municipality that has stopped issuing new ones, it is an asset that cannot be replaced.
That inverts the usual advice. Elsewhere, letting a registration lapse is an inconvenience. In a Lisbon containment zone it may be irreversible: you cannot simply reapply, because applications are closed.
So the single most valuable thing you can do with an AL number in Lisbon is not lose it. Which means knowing where it is recorded, what conditions attach, and when anything needs renewing — the sort of thing that lives in a folder until the one week it matters.
Lisbon’s containment zones
Lisbon’s Municipal Assembly suspended new AL licences across the city, initially for six months and since extended. Alongside that, a zoning mechanism took effect:
- A parish or neighbourhood becomes a zone of absolute containment once AL reaches 10% of housing there. New AL licences are suspended in those areas.
- Relative containment activates at 5%, bringing tighter conditions short of a full stop.
The consequence is that “can I get an AL licence in Lisbon?” has no citywide answer. It depends on your parish, and the ratio moves. Check the specific area, and check it again before you exchange on anything.
What arrives in May 2026
EU Regulation 2024/1028 applies from 20 May 2026, and for Portugal it means platforms must verify AL numbers and remove listings that fail. A registration that is missing, mistyped or lapsed stops being a paperwork issue and becomes a listing that is not visible.
If you take one thing from this: check that the number on each of your listings matches the number on your registration, character for character. Automated verification is unforgiving about a transposed digit that a human would have let pass.
No national night cap
Portugal does not cap nights nationally. It regulates through licensing, zoning and tax — which is why the interesting questions here are can I get a licence and can I keep it, rather than how many nights have I used.
If your municipality does impose a limit, the letting limit will track it as a custom rule.
Where Airflow fits
Store the registration number once and it renders wherever Airflow publishes the property. Import every channel — including direct — so your own figures do not depend on one platform’s view. And if your jurisdiction caps nights, the letting limit counts them and tells you the date you are forecast to cross, rather than the month after.
Beside the number is a Licence status. An AL registration is now permanent, so there is usually no expiry date to count down to. What matters in Lisbon is the area: set the status to “Area under a moratorium” and the note under the number says so plainly — a lapsed licence may not be replaceable. If anything attached to your registration does carry a date, put it in Expires: the note counts down, and Airflow sends reminders at 12, 6, 3 and 1 months before the date and on the day.
- Create an account — start free; a card is needed at sign-up.
- Import your booking history by iCal link or CSV, past bookings included.
- Add your AL number and set its Licence status.
- Turn on the letting limit if your city caps nights.
Sources: idealista — short-term rentals in Portugal: rules, AL licences and legal changes, Lisbon extends AL licence suspension. Related: Barcelona’s Licences All Expire in November 2028.