The insurance an Alojamento Local must carry

The duty falls on the operator. Paragraph 2 of article 13.º-A says the holder of the Alojamento Local operation «deve celebrar e manter válido um seguro de responsabilidade civil extracontratual» — must take out and keep valid a non-contractual public liability policy.

The operator is whoever runs the establishment, not necessarily whoever owns the property. Where the Alojamento Local is run by a tenant, a manager or a company, the policy must be in that person’s name — the landlord’s policy does not discharge the operator’s duty.

There is no size threshold. A single let room under the quartos modality is as fully covered as a nine-room guesthouse. The statute does not distinguish by number of units, by revenue, or by nights sold.

• The duty is the operator’s, not the owner’s as such.
• It applies to every modality and to any size of operation.
• The policy must be taken out and kept valid, not merely bought once.

The load-bearing word in paragraph 2 is «manter» — keep. A policy lapsed for non-payment stops satisfying the rule on the day it stops being valid, however many years it ran before that.

The same paragraph 2 sets the scope of cover: the policy must guarantee «os danos patrimoniais e não patrimoniais causados a hóspedes e a terceiros» — pecuniary and non-pecuniary loss caused to guests and to third parties.

Two extensions are worth separating. First, non-pecuniary loss is expressly included, not just material damage. Second, cover does not stop at guests: it reaches third parties, which in practice means neighbours, fellow owners in the building, and passers-by.

This is non-contractual liability cover. It is not home multi-risk insurance, which protects the owner’s building against its own damage, nor contents cover. Holding multi-risk does not dispense with this policy, and a multi-risk policy with an ancillary liability extension only counts if it actually delivers what article 13.º-A requires.

Paragraph 3 is a single sentence and leaves no room: «O capital mínimo do contrato de seguro previsto no número anterior é de 75 000 euros por sinistro» — the minimum capital of the policy is €75,000 per claim.

Note the unit of measurement. The minimum is per claim, not per year and not per guest. A policy offering €75,000 of aggregate capital for the whole year covers less than the law asks, because a second claim in the same year would meet a capital already spent.

The figure is a floor, not a recommendation and not a ceiling. Nothing stops you buying more, and in a high-capacity establishment there are good reasons to — but below €75,000 per claim the policy does not satisfy article 13.º-A.

The figure is fixed twice over, not in the alternative: in article 13.º-A(3) and in article 5.º of Portaria 248/2021 of 29 June (Diário da República, 2nd series), which puts it «por cada estabelecimento de alojamento registado no Registo Nacional de Alojamento Local (RNAL) por sinistro». For an operator running several establishments that is the reading that matters: the minimum counts per establishment, not per operator.

An operator whose Alojamento Local sits in a unit of a building held in horizontal property has a second duty, in paragraph 5: to take out, or to prove the existence of, valid cover for «os danos patrimoniais diretamente causados por incêndio na ou com origem na unidade de alojamento» — fire damage in, or originating in, the accommodation unit.

The wording covers the risk in both directions: fire that breaks out in the unit, and fire that starts there and spreads to the rest of the building. It is the second case that explains the rule — the harm an Alojamento Local can do to its neighbours.

Paragraph 5 allows two routes: take out the policy, or prove it exists. Where the building’s own fire policy, or the owner’s, already covers the unit on the required terms, what you do is evidence that cover. In a detached house outside horizontal property, this second policy is not required by this paragraph.

• It applies only to units inside a building held in horizontal property.
• It covers fire damage in the unit and originating in the unit.
• It can be met by taking out the policy or by proving valid cover already exists.

Article 13.º-A is headed «Solidariedade e seguros» — joint liability and insurance — and paragraph 1 explains the first half of that title: the operator is jointly and severally liable with the guests for damage they cause to the building the unit sits in.

Joint and several liability means an injured party may claim the whole of the compensation from any one of those liable. An owner whose flat was damaged by a guest does not have to identify that guest, or sue them: they can turn to whoever runs the Alojamento Local.

The insurance in paragraph 2 is the direct counterpart of that rule. The legislature created a liability that follows the operator even where someone else caused the harm, and in the next paragraph obliged the operator to insure it. Reading the two paragraphs apart loses the logic of both.

The joint liability in paragraph 1 is limited to damage caused in the building where the unit is installed. It is not a general liability for everything a guest does anywhere.

Paragraph 7 gives the council a verification power with a short deadline: the municipality may demand, whenever it sees fit, documentary proof that the policy was taken out, and the insured must supply it «no prazo máximo de três dias» — within three days at most.

Three days is little time to request a certificate from an insurer, receive it and send it on. In practice the rule is only comfortably met if the proof is filed before it is asked for — and refreshed whenever the policy renews, because the document that matters is the one proving validity as at the date of the request.

The request can arrive at any moment and does not depend on a complaint, an on-site inspection, or any incident. It is a documentary verification power the council exercises when it chooses.

The serious consequence is not a fine. Paragraph 6 of article 13.º-A says the absence of valid cover «é fundamento de cancelamento do registo» — is a ground for cancelling the registration — and article 9.º(1)(d) repeats it from the procedural side: the mayor may order cancellation where there is «a inexistência do seguro obrigatório válido ou a falta de envio da informação e comprovativo previstos no n.º 7 do artigo 13.º-A».

So there are two grounds for cancellation, not one. Having no insurance is the first. Having insurance and failing to send the proof in time is the second, free-standing, and enough on its own.

Cancellation is preceded by a prior hearing under the Administrative Procedure Code. It is an administrative procedure with a right to be heard, not an automatic switch-off — but it ends with the registration cancelled, and without a valid registration there is no title to open to the public.

The consequence the statute expressly attaches to missing insurance is cancellation of the registration, and that is what this page asserts. Article 23.º classifies breach of the requirements of articles 12.º to 14.º as a serious economic administrative offence and refers the amounts to the RJCE; whether that referral also reaches article 13.º-A is a question the text does not settle, which is why no fine figure for missing insurance is published here.