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Temporary rentals: the impact that the new measure taken by the city government will have - La Nacion Propiedades
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Alquileres temporarios: el impacto que tendrá la nueva medida que tomó el Gobierno de la ciudad
Los propietarios que no cumplan con la disposición anunciada por el gobierno de la Ciudad podrían afrontar sanciones de hasta $1.000.000
www.lanacion.com.ar
February 10, 2025
Property owners who do not comply with the provision announced by the City government could face fines of up to $1,000,000
By Candela Contreras
The Buenos Aires government is seeking to regularize a sector that was hit after the repeal of the rental law
The real estate market has undergone major changes in the last year , both in the sales market, with the return of mortgage loans - the main revelation of 2024 - and in rentals , with the repeal of Law 27,551. The latter not only changed the rules of the game for traditional rentals, but also for temporary rentals .
In this sense, a new measure impacts the sector: the Buenos Aires City Government modified the way in which temporary rentals for tourist purposes are registered in the city of Buenos Aires. Therefore, up to 180 days from now (counting from Monday, February 3, when the resolution was published in the Official Gazette), owners have time to register their properties and thus be able to publish them on digital platforms , such as Airbnb and Booking. From now on, it is a condition that the property is registered in order to be able to publish it on the platforms.
The City explained that this change “seeks to facilitate the registration of properties and procedures in an agile and free manner.” The measure aims to reduce informality in the sector , provide greater security to tourists and property owners , and establish more equitable conditions with the hotel sector.
“The case of temporary tourist rentals is a phenomenon that exists worldwide and in Buenos Aires we are looking for a way to incorporate them into the formal offer . For this reason, we took on the challenge of establishing fairer guidelines so that all types of accommodation can compete more equitably ,” says Valentín Díaz Gilligan, president of the Tourism Board of the City of Buenos Aires.
According to a recent study by Torcuato Di Tella University, in the third quarter of 2023 there were around 20,000 units published on the Airbnb platform , but only 1,000 registered . This represents only 1.26% of the total number of private homes in the City and 9.18% of uninhabited homes . Therefore, the city government claims that during the last year it has worked together with digital platforms to establish a mechanism that would facilitate registration and guarantee its compliance .
Meanwhile, property owners who do not comply with this requirement will not be able to publish their properties on digital platforms and could face financial penalties of up to $1,000,000 . For their part, platforms that allow the publication of unregistered properties will also be sanctioned and may receive fines for failure to fulfill their role as withholding and collection agents for the Urban Use Right.
The City may access the property register of the platforms to verify that only registered properties are offered . If this is not the case, the removal of the publications may be required . The deadline for a platform to remove an unregistered unit will be 15 business days after notification.
“It is a very important step towards achieving equity in the offer and civil liability of this activity, since the formal hotel industry suffered the consequences of the criminal acts that have been committed in tourist apartments (scams, prostitution, human trafficking, attacks, riots and even the loss of lives), with more inspections, requirements, provisions, tributes and taxes, among other issues,” adds Silvina Ripke, head of the Informal Activities Department of the Hotel and Gastronomic Business Federation of the Argentine Republic (FEHGRA), one of the promoters of the measure. The representative shares a survey that her department carried out monitoring the growth of temporary tourist accommodations nationwide for two years. “In 2023, there were 118,100 ATT published, which generated more than US$ 365 million in sales; and in 2024 the growth of the ATT was 36%, publishing 160,710 ATT., whose sales generation was more than US$ 505 million, evading more than US$ 180 million in VAT for both years," he specifies.
Owners who do not comply with this measure could face fines of up to $1,000,000.Image by Peggy on Pixabay
New tax for tourists
Through AGIP resolution 2025-6 , digital platforms become agents for withholding and collecting the Urban Use Tax , a tax that is charged in most of the main international destinations and is applied to foreign tourists who sleep in the City for the value of US$1.5 per night per person , a situation that already occurs in three, four and five star hotels.In comparison, the amounts that the City of Buenos Aires will start charging are lower than those of other major cities in the world , such as: in Rome it reaches €4 for a one-star hotel; in New York it is US$3.5 ; in Miami it is 7% of the total ; in Berlin and Amsterdam, it is 5% of the rental value. While, in comparison with Latin American locations: in Quito the rate is US$6 ; in Mexico City between 3.5% and 5% of the room rate.
“The money raised by this tax will be used to promote international tourism in the city through Visit Buenos Aires, the non-state public entity created for this purpose,” reads the Buenos Aires government’s statement.
LA NACION consulted the two most important platforms for publishing short-term rental offers. Booking declined to comment, and Airbnb responded that “the recent changes in the secondary regulation of short-term rentals announced by the authorities of the city of Buenos Aires are a step to promote responsible tourism and present an opportunity for the sector to grow in an organized manner , with the collaboration of all platforms.”
How is the property registered from now on?
Today, to register the property, only a sworn statement is needed , in addition to some additional documentation related to the property (such as the title deed or power of attorney) in replacement of technical records, civil liability insurance coverage and notification to the Consortium of co-owners, as was previously required.
In addition, the use of the platforms' online system as a digital address is permitted - previously this had to be done through a separate procedure - and the enforcement authority is given the power to remove irregular publications from the same platform .
A key fact to bear in mind is that this measure only affects temporary rentals, that is, all stays ranging from one night to three months. In this way, the obligation to have a registration number in order to be able to publish on the web portals intended for their marketing is maintained , a benefit for users in the event of possible scams.
Step by step to register
- Login to TAD (Tax Code or MIBA).
- Select “Registration in the Temporary Rental Registry” in the Procedures search engine.
- Upload data and documentation.
- Application analysis.
- Registration.
- Sending a registration certificate (a tool without which the unit cannot be published on a platform).
The search for regularity in a sector that has lost prominence
This measure arises in the midst of a sector of the real estate market , such as temporary rentals, which has been hit for some time. Since, after the repeal of the rental law at the end of 2023, the rules of the game that existed previously had led many owners to abandon traditional rentals and move into the temporary market as an investment method.
Now, the new legal scenario that has been experienced since 2024 , with said law repealed, without a regulatory framework and with the possibility of freely agreeing between the parties, the most important terms of the contract (choosing the currency, the duration, the indexation and the periodicity of the adjustment they wish), prompted some owners to remove their properties from the temporary market and publish them again under the traditional rental format .
“These new measures tend to be invasive for a market like the temporary market. I am not sure that it will help attract more tourists to Buenos Aires at a time when real estate activity with respect to temporary workers has fallen a lot, with a country that is expensive in dollars for tourists ,” says Daniel Bryn, head of Invertire.
In concrete numbers, until the last months of 2023, the profitability of temporary rentals (charging rent in dollars) was much higher than traditional ones. But, from that moment on, a fall began throughout 2024 and in January 2025 the gross monthly income from temporary rentals reached US$565, which represents a year-on-year drop of 22.73% , details the Monitor Inmobiliario study that Bryn carries out every month, taking as a source AIRDNA, a site where information about Airbnb is published.
In this sense, the gross annual profitability of temporary rentals fell from peaks of 8.36% in 2023 to 6.46% in January 2025. Despite the drop, it remains a more profitable option compared to long-term rentals, as in traditional rentals it is at 5.18% .
There are currently 27,083 units for temporary rent in CABA. The year-on-year growth is 15.84% . “The number of properties for temporary rent has increased significantly since 2022, exceeding pre-pandemic levels,” the survey details. Despite this, the sector's main concern is the level of vacancy : currently, properties spend approximately 15 days unoccupied per month , which is equivalent to a 50% occupancy rate. This contrasts with the levels of more than 70% seen in 2022 and 2023.
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