Safety and operating requirements for an AL

The capacity ceiling is in article 11.º(1): «A capacidade máxima dos estabelecimentos de alojamento local, com exceção da modalidade de quartos e hostel, é de nove quartos e de 27 utentes, sem prejuízo do disposto nos números seguintes» — nine rooms and 27 users. These are two cumulative ceilings, not one or the other.

The quartos modality has its own limit, which comes from article 3.º: the accommodation is provided in the landlord’s own residence, which is their tax domicile, in a maximum of three units.

Paragraph 3 allows supplementary beds, convertible or removable, up to a maximum of 50% of the number of fixed beds. That is a margin, not a way around the ceilings in paragraph 1.

• General rule: at most nine rooms and 27 users.
• Quartos modality: at most three units, in the landlord’s own residence.
• Supplementary beds: up to 50% of the fixed beds.

Declared capacity is not an administrative detail. It decides whether the establishment falls below or above the ten-user threshold in article 13.º, and therefore which of the two fire safety regimes applies to it.

Article 12.º(1) sets four requirements, and they are operating requirements, not decorating ones. The first is to present adequate conditions of conservation and functioning of the installations and equipment.

The other three are infrastructural: connection to the public water supply or a private system from a properly controlled source; connection to the public sewage network or septic tanks sized for the establishment’s maximum capacity; and hot and cold running water.

The sizing of the septic tank is worth noticing: the law requires it to be sized for the establishment’s maximum capacity, not for average occupancy. In a property off the public network, it is the declared capacity that governs.

The same article adds three duties that are easily forgotten: the establishment must at all times meet conditions of hygiene and cleanliness (paragraph 4); it must keep a house manual on how the establishment works and its internal rules, made available in Portuguese, in English and in at least two further foreign languages (paragraphs 6 and 7); and the person responsible must give the condominium their telephone number and e-mail address (paragraph 9).

Paragraph 2 comes down to the level of the room. Each accommodation unit must have a window or balcony opening directly to the outside, ensuring ventilation and airing.

It must also be furnished with appropriate furniture, equipment and utensils, and have a system that blocks out exterior light — in practice blackout curtains, blinds or shutters.

And it must have doors fitted with a security system that ensures the occupants’ privacy. This is not a demand for a high-security lock: it is the guarantee that a guest can close themselves into their own space.

• A window or balcony opening directly to the outside.
• Appropriate furniture, equipment and utensils.
• A system that blocks out exterior light.
• Doors with a security system ensuring privacy.

The requirement of a window opening directly to the outside is the one that most often stops an interior space from counting as a room. A windowless space can be used, but not as an accommodation unit.

Article 13.º holds two regimes, and you need to know which one you fall into. Paragraph 1 opens with «Sem prejuízo do disposto no número seguinte, os estabelecimentos de alojamento local devem cumprir as» — without prejudice to the following paragraph, establishments must comply with the fire safety rules for buildings in Decree-Law 220/2008 and the matching technical regulation.

Paragraph 2 opens the exception, and opens it by capacity: «O disposto no número anterior não se aplica aos estabelecimentos de alojamento local que tenham» a capacity equal to or below 10 users. For those, and only those, the law swaps the whole general regime for three obligations.

The practical consequence is the one that most surprises anyone preparing a large property: an establishment with capacity for 27 users does not satisfy article 13.º with an extinguisher and a blanket. It is above the threshold, paragraph 2 is not available to it, and the general fire safety regime for buildings applies.

The word repeated across the three sub-paragraphs is «acessíveis» — accessible — and, in the third, «visível». An extinguisher locked in the owner’s cupboard and a 112 written in a welcome folder kept in a drawer satisfy an inventory, not the rule.

Article 17.º(2) requires advertising, commercial documentation and merchandising to state the establishment’s name or logo and its registration number. The registration number is not for the file: it is for the listing, and for every listing.

The identification plate belongs to article 18.º, and its reach is narrower than people assume. Paragraph 1 imposes it on hostels, outside the building and beside the main entrance. Paragraph 2 extends it to the modalities in sub-paragraphs b), c) and d) of article 3.º — apartamento, estabelecimentos de hospedagem and quartos — beside the establishment’s entrance.

Sub-paragraph a), the moradia, is left out. A detached house that shares its entrance with nobody is not caught by the duty to display the plate. The model and the characteristics of the plate are in the annex to the decree-law itself.

• Registration number in all advertising and commercial documentation (article 17.º(2)).
• Plate required for hostels and for the apartamento, hospedagem and quartos modalities.
• The moradia modality is not caught by article 18.º.
• The model of the plate is in the annex to the decree-law.
• Failing to display the plate is a minor economic offence (article 23.º(2)), not a serious one.

Article 20.º is short and refers out: Alojamento Local establishments must have a complaints book, «nos termos e condições estabelecidos no Decreto-Lei n.º 156/2005».

Two things follow. First, the duty applies to every AL, with no threshold of size or modality. Second, the operating rules — how it is made available, how you reply, within what deadline, with what consequences — are not in the Alojamento Local regime: they are in the complaints book statute, which is where they should be checked.

Three points from the statute referred to are worth carrying. The electronic format is mandatory but did not replace the physical one: article 5.º-B(6) of Decree-Law 156/2005 says the electronic duty «não afasta a obrigatoriedade de disponibilização, em simultâneo, do formato físico do livro de reclamações». The reply to the consumer is due within 15 working days of the complaint (article 5.º-B(4)). And the original of the complaint sheet goes to ASAE, as article 20.º(2) itself says.

Article 20.º took its current wording from Decree-Law 76/2024. It is one of the articles the 2024 statute touched, so a version circulating in texts written before November 2024 may not match the rule in force.

Article 23.º(1) classifies breach of the requirements of articles 12.º to 14.º as a serious economic administrative offence. The article fixes no amounts: it says the conduct is «punível nos termos do Regime Jurídico das Contraordenações Económicas (RJCE)». That is why almost every figure circulating under this decree-law is not in it.

The amounts are in article 18.º of the RJCE, and they depend on who committed the offence. For a natural person, a serious economic offence carries a fine of €650 to €1,500, and a minor one €150 to €500. For legal persons the bands rise with the size of the undertaking.

Article 23.º(3) adds that attempt and negligence are punishable under the RJCE — and in case of negligence the RJCE halves both the lower and the upper limit of the fine.

There is a trap in how legal persons are banded, which the RJCE does by headcount: where the size cannot be determined, the medium-undertaking band applies by default, which for a serious offence runs from €8,000 to €16,000. Not answering a request for information can, by that route, cost more than answering it.

Enforcement falls to ASAE and to the municipal councils, which may act jointly or separately, and Turismo de Portugal carries out inspections at ASAE’s request. It is not a single competence, which is why an establishment may be visited by more than one body.