SIBA for Alojamento Local: What Foreign Owners in Portugal Need to Know

published 28 September 2026

If you own or manage a short-term rental in Portugal — locally called Alojamento Local, or AL — you are legally required to report your foreign guests to SIBA. It is not optional, the deadline is short, and the fines are real. Here is what the law actually requires, in plain terms.

What SIBA Is

SIBA stands for Sistema de Informação de Boletins de Alojamento (Accommodation Registration Information System). It is the government platform through which every accommodation provider in Portugal — hotels, guesthouses, and Alojamento Local of any type — reports the stay of foreign guests to AIMA, the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum. Until 2023 this task fell under SEF (the former immigration and borders service); the agency changed name and structure, but the deadlines and required data did not.

The obligation itself comes from Law No. 23/2007 of 4 July, which governs the entry, stay, exit and removal of foreign nationals from Portuguese territory (articles 15 to 17), with non-compliance treated as an administrative offence under article 198 of the same law.

Who Must Be Reported

The rule is broader than most new hosts expect: every foreign guest, including citizens of other EU and Schengen countries, must be reported. Only guests holding Portuguese nationality are exempt from the accommodation form. Many owners assume the obligation only covers non-European travellers — it does not.

The requirement applies to any entity that provides paid accommodation to foreign nationals: hotels, tourist developments, and Alojamento Local in every modality (apartment, house, hostel, private room, rural quinta or glamping). To register with SIBA, your property must already be registered with RNAL, Portugal's national short-term rental registry — without that registration number, you cannot open a SIBA account.

The Deadline

Each accommodation form must be submitted in SIBA within 3 business days of the guest's check-in. The deadline is counted in full business days from the date of arrival, regardless of the time the guest checked in or the time the form is eventually filed. In practice, if a guest arrives on a Thursday, the host typically has until the following Tuesday to submit — but filing sooner is safer, especially around weekends with multiple check-ins.

What Data Is Required

For each foreign guest, the form must include:

Full name
Date of birth
Nationality
Country of residence
Type and number of identification document (passport or national ID card, depending on nationality)
Document issue and expiry dates
Check-in date and expected check-out date

For family groups travelling with minors, the number of people in the group must also be recorded. All of this data must come directly from the guest's identification document — it cannot be approximated — which is why collecting it accurately at check-in is one of the more sensitive steps of the whole process.

How to Submit: Portal or Web Service

There are two ways to submit accommodation forms to SIBA:

Manual portal — after registering your property at siba.ssi.gov.pt (restricted area, "Inscrição" option, using your property's or company's Portuguese tax number, NIF), you enter each guest's details directly into the portal, one guest at a time.
Web service (API) — designed for property management software that submits data to SIBA automatically, without manual entry. Activating this mode requires a request to SIBA support (siba@ssi.gov.pt), which confirms the change by email.

Most small AL owners with one or a few units use the manual portal. It is free, but it demands discipline: every stay becomes an administrative task that is easy to forget, often at the end of a long check-in day.

Fines for Non-Compliance

Missing the deadline, or failing to report a guest at all, is an administrative offence punishable by a fine under article 198 of Law No. 23/2007 of 4 July. The amounts are set by law and may be revised by later legislation. To find the figure that applies to you, check the consolidated text of the law in the Diário da República, or confirm with AIMA or your accountant.

Practical Tips

Register with SIBA as soon as your RNAL registration is active — do not leave it until guests are already arriving.
Collect identification details before or at check-in, even for self-check-in without a key handover, rather than waiting until the stay is over.
Don't confuse SIBA with other AL obligations — the complaints book (livro de reclamações), municipal tourist tax, and social security reporting (where applicable) are separate requirements, with different deadlines and authorities.
Treat SIBA as a per-stay task, not an afterthought — attach it to your check-in process so it doesn't depend on memory.
Keep proof of each submission — in the event of an inspection, this is your evidence that the deadline was met.

How ciceroni Helps

ciceroni does not submit accommodation forms to SIBA automatically — that responsibility stays with the host. What it does is remove the slowest part of the process: collecting guest data. Each stay gets its own guide, sent to the guest before arrival, where the guest fills in their own identification details from their phone. The host then receives an organised list, ready to enter into the SIBA portal, without asking for a passport at the door or typing names under time pressure. It reduces the risk of forgetting — it is not an automatic submission to SIBA.

FAQ

Do Portuguese guests need to be reported to SIBA?

No. The obligation applies only to foreign guests, including EU citizens. Guests holding Portuguese nationality are exempt from the accommodation form.

Can I submit the form after the guest has already checked out, if I forget?

You shouldn't. The legal deadline is 3 business days from check-in, regardless of check-out date. Submitting late is non-compliance and exposes the host to a fine even if the stay itself was uneventful.

Do I need to be registered with RNAL before I can use SIBA?

Yes. SIBA registration assumes your Alojamento Local is already registered with RNAL, with its registration number and tax ID (NIF) on file.

Sources

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