Short rentals, stop limits imposed by municipalities

Stop the bans imposed by municipalities on short-term rentals. The activity of tourist rental, exercised in a non-entrepreneurial form, does not fall within the scope of their prohibition powers. TheCouncil of State, with ruling no. 2928/2025, sets a very important precedent in theshort-term rentals affair, dealing a blow to administrations that, in various parts of Italy, are trying to regulate the phenomenon with locally constructed rules.

Among these, there are the cases of Florence (which has just approved a new regulation on the subject), Bologna, Rome, Venice and Sirmione, in the province of Brescia. It was precisely the Lombardy administration, with a regulation dated January 2022, that was among the first to try to regulate the phenomenon. On that regulation an initial judgement had been pronounced by the Regional Administrative Tribunal, which partially accepted the reasons of the plaintiff, on which the Council of State has now also pronounced itself, with tones even more unfavourable to the administration.

The judges, in fact, conclude that the attempt to regulate the tourist leasing phenomenon at the local level does not rest on solid foundations: there is no competence established by law. The decision explains: 'In the current regulatory framework, the activity of property rental, even for tourism purposes, which is exercised in a non-entrepreneurial form, being a dispositive act of the property, attributable to the owner's right and contractual freedom, does not fall within the scope of Article 19 of Law No. 241 of 1990 and is not subject to prescriptive and inhibitory powers of the public administration'.

Several passages of the judgment, that is, underline how both at the national and regional level tourist leases cannot be equated with accommodation facilities. They are - says the ruling - 'properties that do not fall into that category and are not subject to the entire discipline'.

For this reason, the appeal that came from a landlord who had been prevented from carrying out tourist rental activities was upheld. The judgement of the Regional Administrative Court, which had "erroneously recognised the municipality's power to request the production, together with the communication of the start of activities, of additional documentation" with respect to the regional regulation "and to prohibit the applicant from entering into lease contracts for tourist purposes", was rejected. The administration, therefore, cannot 'prohibit the exercise of the applicant's contractual freedom (in particular that of concluding lease contracts for tourist purposes, concerning its property)'.