At the end of last week the Veneto Region started testing the CIN, the “national identification code” for short-term rentals established in 2023 and which will come into force throughout Italy starting from next September, progressively replacing the regional recognition systems. The CIN aims to register and track tourist rentals lasting less than 30 days, but for some time there has been discussion about the usefulness of systems of this type to combat illegal rentals and keep their spread under control, especially in cities with greater presences of tourists .
The experimentation in Veneto was preceded by the one in Puglia, started at the beginning of the month a few days before the diffusion of one of the implementing decrees for the new rules linked to the CIN. The system envisaged the establishment of the national database of accommodation facilities and properties for short-term rental and for tourist purposes (BDSR) to which people who want to rent their homes for short periods of time must register, indicating cadastral information and certifications on compliant systems.
The CIN is a sort of national evolution of the CIR, i.e. the “reference identification code” that various regions had activated in recent years to keep short-term rentals under control. The agreements linked to the BDSR provide that local authorities already in possession of a CIR communicate the data to the platform, in order to simplify the activation of the CIN by those who rent houses. The platform is already available online, but at the moment in an experimental form and only with data brought together from Puglia and more recently from Veneto.
Laws and decrees provide that the CIN will move from the experimental phase to the fully implemented one on September 1st, although there is a 60-day grace period in which no fines will be issued to those who have not yet obtained the code. Anyone who rents out a house for a short time without a CIN will risk a fine of between 800 and 8 thousand euros, while those who do not display the code outside the home and in advertisements could receive fines of between 500 and 5 thousand euros.
Anyone who rents a house for a short time will be able to verify the authenticity of the CIN through the platform, managed by the Ministry of Tourism. According to the government, the new system will make the bureaucratic management of short-term rentals simpler and more homogeneous, preventing each region and local authority from acting on their own with different and sometimes contradictory rules. Once the experimental and transition phase is over, the CIN will replace the CIR in all respects.
Especially following the spread of systems and applications such as Airbnb, which have greatly simplified the management of short-term rentals, the supply of houses for rent in Italy has increased greatly and very quickly, sometimes making their traceability more difficult and indirectly favoring certain forms of illegal activity. In cities with intense tourism, the phenomenon has also led to a reduction in rental homes for residents, with consequences on the supply and cost of long-term rentals.
