Short-term lettings: Milan is preparing new checks to tackle irregularities

Milan is introducing new measures to tackle unregulated short-term lettings based on the Barcelona model, with more extensive use of database cross-referencing. The Lombard capital is launching, in the coming weeks, a pilot scheme to tackle property tax evasion.

Following the completion of an initial audit, which identified 2,000 properties that had never paid Tari and 6,000 properties with irregular payments, thanks to the cross-referencing of data from various databases (from SUAP to Soggiorniamo, the platform for accommodation providers), the focus will now shift to irregular short-term lettings. The Lombard capital, like Florence, is taking inspiration from the Barcelona case to root out property tax evasion by cross-referencing data from municipal databases

This was confirmed to *Il Sole 24 Ore* by Emmanuel Conte, the councillor for the budget and property assets of the City of Milan, who spoke at the conference ‘The Fiscal Management of Tourism’, organised by Giuseppe Zizzo, president of Anti Lombardia, in Milan on 28 October 2026. The morning seminar on the tourist tax prompted discussions on the need for a fundamental overhaul of the tax, which has been in place for 14 years but is no longer able to keep pace with the changing needs of the region linked to a tourism sector that has evolved in terms of both accommodation and consumer behaviour. Currently, according to data provided by Claudio Sciancalepore, a senior official at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the tax generates revenue of 843,732,203.45 (2025 figures) from as many as 1,527 local authorities that have submitted information to the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s Siope database.

Looking at Milan (where the tourist tax currently ranges from 4 to 12 euros per day per person, excluding exemptions), two figures demonstrate that the tax needs to be rethought. In 2015, there were 368 short-term lettings recorded; by 2026, this figure had risen to 17,012, whilst the number of hotel accommodation establishments (one- to five-star hotels) stood at 474 in 2015 and 490 in 2026. The second factor concerns the proportion of those liable for the tax: in 2015, in 98 per cent of cases, the burden fell hotel accommodation providers; today, it stands at around 60 per cent for hotels and 36 per cent for short-term lettings.

The picture that has emerged is that of a fragmented tax, caught between numerous compliance requirements and rising amounts, over which local authorities, however, have little room for manoeuvre. As Fabio Primerano, president of Federalberghi Lombardia, has pointed out, this tax is difficult for tourists to understand – even those with high purchasing power – and they often leave without paying it, with the responsibility (and here lies the anomaly) falling entirely on the withholding agent/operator.