Short-Term Tourist Letting Register in Ireland 2026: guide

Paolo Vezzola

Founder · Vezpa PMS · Profile →

The Short-Term Tourist Letting Register (administered by Fáilte Ireland) is a significant regulatory change for Irish short-term let hosts. Under the applicable legislation, properties let on a short-term basis are generally required to be registered with Fáilte Ireland, to display a registration number on listings, and to operate within the planning rules that apply in Rent Pressure Zones. Fines for non-compliance can be substantial* and, under applicable EU rules, booking platforms may be required to remove non-compliant listings on receipt of a takedown notice. In this guide we outline what the register requires, how it interacts with existing Rent Pressure Zone planning rules, indicative costs, and how to keep listings compliant in 2026.

What the Short-Term Tourist Letting Register is

The Short-Term Tourist Letting Register Act 2024 created a national register of short-term tourist lettings in Ireland, administered by Fáilte Ireland (the Irish national tourism development authority). The register applies to any property that is let to tourists for a continuous period of fewer than 21 days, regardless of whether the let is the host's principal home, a second home, or a dedicated investment property.

The register has three main objectives:

• Transparency: a public register of who is operating short-term lets in Ireland, accessible to local authorities and the public
• Planning compliance: making sure that short-term lets in Rent Pressure Zones either operate within the 90-day exemption or hold the necessary change-of-use planning permission
• Tax visibility: linking short-term let activity to Revenue records so that rental income is properly declared

The register was rolled out in phases through 2025-2026 in coordination with the EU Short-Term Rental Regulation (EU 2024/1028), which establishes a Europe-wide framework for short-term rental data sharing. Once both systems are live, Fáilte Ireland will share data with the EU central database, and platforms (Airbnb, Booking, Vrbo) will be required to verify the registration number before publishing any Irish listing.

Who must register

The obligation to register applies to any provider of short-term tourist letting in the Republic of Ireland, including:

• Owners renting out their principal private residence (homesharing)
• Owners renting out a second home or holiday cottage
• Investment property landlords offering short-term lets
• Bed & breakfasts, guest houses, farmhouses
• Self-catering apartments and holiday homes
• Hosts using Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Tripadvisor, Plum Guide and any other booking platform

The 21-day threshold is critical: any let of 21 days or more (consecutive) is classed as a residential tenancy, not a short-term let, and falls under the Residential Tenancies Acts and the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), not the Fáilte Ireland register. So if your minimum stay is set at 28 nights, you're a residential landlord and the register doesn't apply — but the Residential Tenancies Acts do.

Rent Pressure Zones and the 90-day rule

The most complicated piece of the Irish short-term let regime is the interaction with Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs). Since 2019, the Planning and Development Act has required short-term lets in an RPZ that exceed certain thresholds to obtain planning permission for "change of use" from residential to short-term tourist accommodation. The thresholds depend on whether the property is your principal home or a second home / investment:

The Rent Pressure Zones cover Dublin city and county, Cork city, Galway city, Limerick city, Waterford city and many of the surrounding suburbs and commuter towns. The current list is published by the Residential Tenancies Board and updated periodically — you can check whether your address is in an RPZ on the RTB's website.

What the register does on registration

When you register a property with Fáilte Ireland, the system:

1. Verifies your identity and the property address (cross-checked against Eircode and Land Registry)
2. Asks you to confirm whether the property is your principal home or a second home / investment
3. Asks for the property's RPZ status (auto-checked against the official RPZ map)
4. If the property is in an RPZ and is a second home, asks you to upload a copy of the change-of-use planning permission — or to acknowledge that you do not have one (in which case the registration is refused)
5. If the property is your principal home, asks you to declare that you'll stay within the 90-day annual cap or have planning permission in place
6. Issues a unique STTL registration number in a standardised format (e.g. STTL-2026-DUB-12345)
7. Adds the property to the public register, viewable by anyone

The registration number must then be displayed on every advertisement, listing, website page and invoice for the property. Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and other platforms have built fields into their Irish listings to capture and display the number; before Fáilte Ireland publishes a listing without one, the platform will eventually be obliged to remove it under the EU Short-Term Rental Regulation.

Registration fees

The Fáilte Ireland register charges an annual fee per registered property, which varies depending on the property type and capacity. Indicative fees for 2026:

• Single room in principal home (homesharing): ~€40* per year
• Whole property, principal home (90-day cap): ~€65* per year
• Self-catering apartment or holiday cottage (1 unit): ~€105* per year
• Multi-unit holiday cottage scheme: tiered fee per additional unit

The fees are administrative and intended to cover the cost of running the register, not to generate revenue. Compared to the registration fees in some other EU countries (Spain, Portugal), the Irish fees are modest. Failure to renew on time is treated the same as operating without a registration — the listing must come down until the renewal is processed.

Offences and fines

The Short-Term Tourist Letting Register Act 2024 creates several criminal offences with significant fines. The offences include:

The higher indicative maxima are typically reserved for serious or repeated breaches, often by professional operators with multiple unregistered properties. For an individual host who forgets to register a single property, the realistic exposure tends to be significantly lower, along with the requirement to take the listing down until registration is sorted.

What good operational practice looks like

For Irish hosts in 2026, the practical compliance checklist looks like this:

1. Check the RPZ status of every property you let. The RTB publishes the official map.
2. For RPZ second homes: get planning permission for change of use first, or accept that you cannot legally short-let the property and switch to long-term residential.
3. For principal homes in an RPZ: track your annual nights let to make sure you stay under 90.
4. Register every property with Fáilte Ireland and pay the annual fee.
5. Update every listing on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, your own website and any other channel with the STTL registration number.
6. Update every invoice and direct booking confirmation with the registration number.
7. Keep records of all bookings, dates, durations and total nights let, in case of inspection.
8. Renew the registration annually before expiry — set a calendar reminder.

How a PMS helps you stay compliant

A PMS that's aware of the Irish regulatory framework should automate the parts of compliance that are most error-prone:

The 90-day tracker is the single most useful function. Manually counting cumulative nights let is something nobody does until they realise they're already at 95 nights for the year — at which point they're in breach. A PMS that shows "nights let YTD: 67 / 90" on the dashboard removes the risk entirely.

Frequently asked questions

Does the register apply to Northern Ireland?

No. The Short-Term Tourist Letting Register Act 2024 applies only to the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and falls under separate (and currently lighter) short-term let regulation. If you have properties on both sides of the border, you must register the Republic properties only.

What if my property is in an RPZ but I have planning permission for short-term letting?

Then you can register normally and operate without the 90-day cap. The planning permission for change of use is what removes the cap; the register confirms it. Make sure you have a copy of the grant of permission to upload during registration.

Can I register as a "homesharer" if I rent out a spare room in my house?

Yes. Homesharing (letting a room in your principal residence while you continue to live there) is the lightest category of registration. The fee is lowest, the planning rules don't apply at all (because you're living there), and the documentation requirements are minimal. This is the category that most casual hosts in Dublin and Cork city use.

What happens to my existing Airbnb listing if I don't register?

Once Fáilte Ireland is fully operational and integrated with the EU Short-Term Rental Regulation, Airbnb will be required to verify the registration number before keeping a listing live. Listings without a valid number will be automatically suspended or removed. This process is being phased in through 2026 — don't wait for the takedown notice.

Does the register interact with the Local Property Tax (LPT)?

Indirectly, yes. The LPT is a tax on the value of residential property and is paid by the owner regardless of letting status. But Revenue uses STTL register data to cross-check rental income declarations, so a property registered as a short-term let with Fáilte Ireland but with no rental income declared on Revenue's Form 11 will trigger a query.

What about Bed & Breakfasts already approved by Fáilte Ireland?

B&Bs and guest houses already approved under the Tourist Traffic Acts (with a Fáilte Ireland classification) are exempt from the new register. Their existing approval is sufficient. The new register specifically targets the previously unregulated self-catering and Airbnb-style segment.

If I'm registered with the EU Short-Term Rental Regulation, do I still need to register with Fáilte Ireland?

Yes. The EU regulation establishes a data-sharing framework, but it does not replace national registers. Each member state still operates its own register, and the EU framework allows them to share data with each other and with platforms. Ireland's register is the Fáilte Ireland one.

Conclusion

The Short-Term Tourist Letting Register is the most important regulatory change for Irish hosts in a generation. It combines registration, planning compliance, tax visibility and platform enforcement into a single mechanism, and the fines for non-compliance are large enough to put a small operator out of business. The good news is that for hosts who comply, the register actually reduces uncertainty: you know your status, you have a number, and you have a clear answer to give Airbnb if they ask.

The practical advice for 2026 is simple: register every property, store the number in your PMS, display it on every listing and invoice, track your nights let against the 90-day cap if your property is a principal home in an RPZ, and renew on time. If you do those four things consistently, the rest takes care of itself.