Short tourist rents, « municipalities cannot prohibit or limit them »: the reasons for the sentence

Italian municipalities cannot impose restrictions on short rents activities for tourism purposes, unless they have an entrepreneurial function. This is what the sentence no. 2928/2025 of the Council of State, according to which the properties destined for tourist lease from private users do not fall within the concept of accommodation facilities (where, for example, the holiday homes are included), therefore they are not subject to the same legislation. The administrative judges also reiterate that there is no national law that regulates short private rents and that The task of doing it is not conferred on the municipal administrations.

The « zero » case of the Municipality of Sirmione

The origin of this affair dates back to 2022, when the municipality of Sirmione, in the province of Brescia, developed a regulation of the private tourist lease market. At the time it had also partially expressed a ruling of the TAR which – according to the Council of State – has « erroneously recognized the power of the local administrationI ask for production, together with the communication of the start of activity, of further documentation « compared to what has already been requested by the Region. A measure that, in this way, gave the Municipality the power to « prohibit the stipulation of lease contracts for tourist purposes ». In fact, a dispute was opened against Sirmione after the administration refused the practice of a private user who intended to start a non -entrepreneurial tourist lease activity, because it only provided the communication of the start of activity (CIA) when the certified report of start of activity (SCIA) was also necessary.

The verdict of the Council of State

According to the sentence of the Council of State, it is not so: article 38 of the Lombardy Region law n. 27 of 2015 (in the version introduced by art. 15, paragraph 1, letter c, of regional law n. 20 of 2024) establishes that « all the tourist leases managed in non -entrepreneurial form are subject to the prior presentation of the communication of the start of activity (cia) to the Municipality in whose territory the activity takes place, while the tourist leases managed in entrepreneurial form are subject to the presentation of the SCIA ». Furthermore, « in the current regulatory framework – reads the pronunciation of the Council of State -, the lease of properties, also for tourist purposes, which is exercised in non -entrepreneurial form, being a device deed of the property, attributable to the owner’s right and to contractual freedom, does not fall within the context of article 19 of law no. 241 of 1990 and is not subject to prescriptive powers and inhibitors of the public administration ». The sentence specifies, moreover, that both short rents for tourism purposes cannot be equivalent to the accommodation facilities, being « properties that do not flow into this category and are not subject to the entire discipline ».

Because the municipalities limit short rents

The reasons why the Municipalities have started to apply specific regulations for the territory to regulate short rents are different and vary according to the location. For example, in the case of Florence – which recently has recently approved a new regulation of the tourist lease market – as well as of Venice we can talk about Overurism: the influx of tourists is so high that the load proves to be too excessive for the territory and one of the tricks to reduce it is precisely stakes at short rents. For larger cities, however, like Milan, Rome, Bologna, the question has to do above all with the lack of accommodation For residents or for off -site that move for study and work reasons: an activity of short rents that includes a large number of properties, guarantees a number lower than the sale and long -term rents, as well as bringing the prices of the rent to rise more and more.