
Starting today, whoever rents properties on Booking or AirBnb will not be able to operate informally.
Cooperation has been established between the international companies that offer this type of service and the tax administration for the formalization of the market and for the taxes that must be paid for the income generated from short-term rentals. At the request of the Albanian authorities, the Booking platform, through an announcement, has asked the owners of the apartments that if they do not declare the NIPT, from November 1 they will pay 20% VAT for the commissions that Booking holds.
Example: If a house has a daily rent of 100 euros, Booking usually takes 12-18% commission, or 12-18 euros. Now Booking will keep the VAT from the apartment owners on the commission it receives, an additional 2.4-3.6 euros. Booking will then pay this amount to the Albanian fiscal authorities. Despite the fact that the amount that Booking will keep as VAT on the commissions may not be very high, the aim of Taxation is to identify the individuals registered on this platform through these payments, since the data from the payments made by Booking will are sent to the Tax Directorate.
The latter will then turn to the owners of the apartments to ask them to pay taxes on the income they benefit, based on the fiscal legislation. After identification from taxes, individual owners have two alternatives: To continue to maintain the status they have, ie. not register for taxes, but in the meantime they have to pay 15% as tax on the income they receive from the rent. Or to register as a categorized commercial entity, as an accommodation structure for which the VAT liability is 6%. Categorization as an accommodation structure for the benefit of 6% VAT is carried out by the Ministry of Tourism, and further after receiving it, the commercial entity is registered for NIPT in Taxation. top channel