Greece gets home-sharing friendly
Homeowners renting out their properties on online platforms such as Airbnb and HomeAway operate in Greece without any limits to the number of houses they can let but also face the threat of high fines if they try to skip out on their taxes.
After nearly 18 months of anticipation the Independent Authority for Public Revenue on Thursday night launched the digital platform for registering short-stay declarations.
The platform, found on the www.aade.gr website, allows sharing economy landlords to declare the properties they are leasing, who they are renting them out to and when. They do not, however, face a cap on the number of assets they are utilizing or on the period of leasing, as is the case in several other markets.
According to the new rules, each property is given an identification number that the owners have to use with every entry made on any website where the property is advertised. The authority has made it clear that should a property be listed on more than one website it will not require a new number as it will use its unique ID on all platforms.
Therefore Greece is now one of the markets where leading platform Airbnb will be able to operate unhindered, a development that Airbnb itself has greeted “Greece has made home sharing easier,” it said on its website, adding that hosts will be able to share their homes without any time-consuming procedures or limitations, provided that they register their properties on the IAPR platform and include the registration number of the assets’ listings.
Airbnb added that, in cooperation with the Greek Finance Ministry, it will enhance the home-sharing platform’s promotion by adding a field for hosts in Greece to conveniently present their property’s registration number on their entries.
The IAPR platform’s activation will now allow for the cross-checking of data supplied by hosts with the amounts deposited in their bank accounts. IAPR inspectors be also able to easily locate and identify the properties in the home-sharing market and cross-check them with the data that the online platforms themselves supply to the authorities.
