Catania Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Catania and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you're allowed to, and there's no permit lottery, no night cap and no historic-centre ban waiting for you. Catania is the second city of Sicily and the seat of its own Metropolitan City, so the rules arrive from three directions at once: the Italian state, the Sicilian Region, and the Comune di Catania over in Piazza Duomo.

The catch is that Sicily rewrote its accommodation law in 2025 and then spent 2026 arguing about what it meant. Legge regionale 25 febbraio 2025 n. 6 pulled locazioni turistiche, meaning ordinary tourist rentals, into the same statute that governs hotels, and the decree behind it gave every rental already trading until 30 June 2026 to re-file its details with the region. Miss that one and you don't get a fine. You risk losing the CIR and CIN codes that make the listing legal to advertise at all.

So let's walk through what it takes to do this properly in 2026: which codes you need and who issues them, the paperwork Sicily now wants, the tourist tax your guests pay, what the Comune does when someone ignores all of it, and who to call when something stalls. Every figure below comes from Catania's own tourist-tax regulation, the Sicilian law and its decrees, or the national tax pages, and where I couldn't pin something down I've said so. Since the numbers matter as much as the rules, run the property through BNBCalc before you commit to any of it.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in Catania, Italy?

Those three levels barely overlap, which is the one mercy here, because each wants a different thing and you can work through them in order.

The national layer defines the contract you're signing. Under article 4 of decreto-legge 50/2017, a locazione breve is a residential lease of 30 days or less, agreed by a private individual outside any business activity. Sitting on top of that is the Codice Identificativo Nazionale, the CIN, created by article 13-ter of decreto-legge 145/2023. Every unit needs one. It has to appear in every advertisement and outside the building, and the platforms have to show it too.

The regional layer is where Catania differs from Rome or Milan, and it's the layer that changed. Article 35 of L.R. 6/2025 defines a locazione turistica as the letting of a residential unit, or part of one, that isn't subject to hotel-style classification.

Then comes the sentence that decides your whole setup: the activity counts as non-business only if the same manager runs no more than two units. That ceiling used to be four. Article 5 of L.R. 27 May 2026 n. 12 halved it, though the same amendment gave something back, confirming that a tourist rental with a valid habitability certificate isn't subject to the structural and functional requirements imposed on hotels and B&Bs.

The municipal layer is narrower than you'd expect. Catania's regolamento comunale per l'imposta di soggiorno, approved by deliberazione n. 65 of 28 October 2025, governs the tourist tax and the reporting that goes with it. That's essentially the Comune's whole footprint on short-term rentals.

What Catania doesn't do is worth stating plainly, because a lot of Italian cities do it. Going through the municipal regulation and the regional decrees, I found no annual night cap, no ban in the historic centre, no change-of-use requirement, no cap on the number of licences and no neighbour-notification step. If the Comune adopts one later it'll come as a delibera di Giunta, so do check the council's acts before you buy a second unit.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Catania

That two-unit line is the first real decision, and it's the one that quietly sets everything else.

Stay at one or two apartments and you're a non-business locatore. You file a start-of-activity communication with the Comune's SUAP, the one-stop office for productive activities, which then forwards it to the regional tourism department. Article 35 tells you what goes in it: a model of the hospitality offer, the address, the capacity of the unit, the identity of the owner or whoever manages it, and a declaration that you're complying with article 13-ter. No SCIA, no classification, no stars.

Take a third unit and the whole thing changes shape. You're now presumed to be operating in forma imprenditoriale, which means a SCIA under article 9 of L.R. 6/2025 filed at the SUAP, a VAT number, and classification as a casa e appartamento per vacanze or another extra-hotel category. Classification filings also carry €75 in diritti di segreteria, and article 5 is blunt about it: no payment, no valid filing. Remember that the fee is per filing, so a later variation costs it again.

Italian tax law happens to draw the line in the same place, which makes the decision cleaner than it looks. Law 199/2025 art. 1 c. 17 cut the locazioni brevi ceiling from four apartments to two per tax period from 2026, so a third unit pushes you into business territory for the region and the Agenzia delle Entrate at the same moment. Two is the number to plan around.

Before any of that, the property itself has to qualify. Article 35 requires the unit to be properly registered at the catasto, to hold an attestazione di prestazione energetica (the energy performance certificate), to carry a professional declaration of conformity for its systems, and to meet the ordinary hygiene and building standards for a dwelling.

A unit built under an unresolved building amnesty can't host at all, since Allegato A rules out any structure still awaiting a sanatoria. Be aware that this is the step that costs money and time, not the codes. And once you know what bringing a flat up to standard will cost, run the property through BNBCalc to see how many nights it takes to earn that back.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Catania

Assuming the flat itself clears those checks, you can then start collecting codes, and the order still matters, because the second one can't be issued without the first.

The Sicilian CIR, the regional identification code, comes first. Sicily created it by assessor decree n. 1783 of 27 July 2022 and issues it through the Turist@t system run by the regional Osservatorio Turistico. You request an account online, print and sign the PDF the system generates, upload it with an ID document, and wait for two emails: one to set a password, one carrying your username. The portal states the service is completely free, so nobody should be selling you a CIR.

The national CIN comes second. It's issued by the Ministero del Turismo through the Banca Dati Strutture Ricettive, which you log into with SPID or CIE, and the ministry's own FAQ confirms the regional code is a prerequisite where the region issues one. There's no renewal cycle. The code attaches to the unit and stays with it.

Then comes the piece that made 2026 uncomfortable for Sicilian hosts. Paragraph 17 of Allegato A to the regional decree required every tourist rental already trading to bring itself into line by sending Allegato B, a detailed property form, to the tourism department's certified mailbox.

D.A. n. 1920 of 24 June 2026 held that deadline at 30 June 2026 and added one narrow concession. Where a host had already started the procedures but the issuing office hadn't produced the paperwork in time, the supporting technical documents can follow by 30 December 2026, on pain of the activity ceasing and the CIR and CIN being revoked.

Note what did move, though. Classified structures such as B&Bs and case vacanze were pushed out to 30 June 2027, while tourist rentals were not.

The Comune's step is the last one and the simplest. Article 6 of the tourist-tax regulation requires you to request credentials for the municipal tourist-tax portal at the moment the activity starts, and Catania moved that portal to PayTourist from January 2026. You enter the CIR and CIN during registration, and the same codes then have to appear in every listing and on a sign outside the building. Not registering at all draws €100 to €500 under article 9.

Required Documents for Catania Short-Term Rentals

Since Allegato B is what the region actually reads, it's worth getting that file right the first time rather than discovering a gap in December.

The current Allegato B, dated 24 June 2026, asks for one sheet per unit and wants:

• Your details as landlord: name, codice fiscale, place and date of birth, residence, landline and mobile, email and PEC, and whether you're signing as a private individual or as a company representative with a VAT number.
• The property, identified by cadastral data: comune, full address including staircase, internal number and floor, plus foglio, particella and subalterno. A unit with its own entrance and its own kitchen counts as one unit abitativa, and each subaltern gets its own form.
• The floor plan and the cadastral certificate, both mandatory attachments, alongside proof of abitabilità or agibilità.
• Capacity and layout: rooms, beds, complete bathrooms, balcony or terrace, lift, accessible bathroom, heating and air conditioning type, and the kitchen inventory down to whether there's a dishwasher.
• Three pieces of safety equipment, listed as obligatory: a carbon monoxide detector, a combustible gas detector, and a compliant fire extinguisher.
• Every website you advertise on, each with the name the listing runs under.
• Sworn technical reports on the electrical, gas and water systems, a current visura catastale, and a digital signature or a copy of your ID.

The extinguisher rule is worth reading in the law rather than the form. Article 6 of L.R. 6/2025 requires working gas and carbon monoxide detectors wherever there are combustion appliances, plus compliant portable extinguishers placed where people can see and reach them, one per 200 square metres of floor area or fraction of it, with a minimum of one per floor. In a normal Catania apartment that's a single extinguisher, mounted near the door.

A chunk of the original list is now gone, which is the happiest development of 2026 for small hosts. On 4 May 2026 the TAR Sicilia, ruling on an appeal brought by the extra-hotel federation FARE, annulled twelve provisions of Allegato A, and D.A. 1920/2026 wrote the deletions in.

Out went the fire-retardant mattresses, the 32-inch television in every unit, the requirement that reception staff speak English, the four-bed-per-room cap as applied to ordinary dwellings, the bathroom-per-four-beds rule, the copy of the condominium regulation with an administrator's attestation, and the defibrillator. Keep in mind that guidance written in late 2025 still lists every one of those.

Catania Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through the paperwork and are able to start hosting, there's still the tax layer, and it splits neatly into what your guest pays and what you pay.

Your guest pays the imposta di soggiorno. Catania's current tariff schedule took effect on 1 February 2026 under Delibera di Giunta Municipale n. 218 of 26 November 2025, and it charges per person per night:

Accommodation type	Rate per person, per night	Nights charged
Apartments let for tourism, case e appartamenti per vacanze	€3.00	first 4
Agriturismi, residence, case per ferie, villaggi turistici	€3.00	first 4
Bed & breakfast, affittacamere, 1 to 3 star hotels	€3.50	first 4
4 star hotels	€4.00	first 4
5 star and 5 star luxury hotels	€5.00	first 4

Article 5 caps the charge at four consecutive nights in a calendar year, so a week-long booking generates €12 per adult and not €21. Article 4 exempts residents of Catania, anyone under 16, police and armed forces staying on public-order duty, and one companion per hospital patient, with the last group needing a certificate from the hospital. Everyone else pays, and you're the one who has to collect it.

The mechanics sit in articles 6 and 7 of the same regulation, and there are four dates to diarise:

• Report each stay through the portal within 5 days of arrival, including guest counts, nights taxed and exemptions claimed.
• Pay quarterly, within 15 days of the month following each calendar quarter, through PagoPA only, with a separate payment per property.
• File a zero return even when nobody stayed, and tell the Ufficio Turismo when the property closes or ceases.
• Keep every document for 5 years, and file the conto giudiziale on ministerial Mod. 21 by 30 January each year, digitally signed, through the portal.

Don't assume your platform handles the tourist tax for you here. Article 3 of the municipal regulation lets a booking platform take over collection and payment, but only after signing a specific convenzione with the Comune, and I found no published convenzione for Catania. Airbnb's own help page doesn't publish a municipality list either, and tells hosts to check the Taxes section of the listing instead. Until yours shows Catania tourist tax being collected, work on the basis that you remit it yourself.

What you pay is national. Rental income from a locazione breve can go under the cedolare secca, a flat substitute tax that the Agenzia delle Entrate sets at 26%, dropping to 21% on income from a single property nominated in your return. It replaces IRPEF, the regional and municipal surtaxes and registration duty, and a lease of 30 days or less needs no registration at all.

Where a platform collects the rent it withholds 21% as an advance, pays it over by the 16th of the following month, certifies it to you, and reports your contract data including the CIN by 30 June of the following year. Non-business letting sits outside VAT entirely, though crossing into business form brings a VAT number with it.

Italy Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Those national tax rules travel with you anywhere in Italy, and so do four other obligations that have nothing to do with Sicily.

The CIN is the big one. Operating without a code carries €800 to €8,000, failing to display it costs €500 to €5,000 per unit plus removal of the advert, and missing safety devices runs €600 to €6,000, all under article 13-ter. Sicily then stacks its own penalty on the display failure: article 38 of L.R. 6/2025 adds €500 to €2,500 for not showing the CIN on the sign and outside the property.

Guest reporting is separate from everything else and catches people out. Within 24 hours of arrival, every guest's identity data goes to the Questura through Alloggiati Web, under article 109 of the TULPS. Self check-in doesn't excuse it. In November 2025 the Consiglio di Stato upheld the Interior Ministry circular requiring identification in person, so a key box with a code and no identity check doesn't comply, while real-time video verification at the door does.

Sicily adds a daily statistical return on top. Article 12 of L.R. 6/2025 requires anyone letting for tourism to record each guest's arrival and departure through Turist@t every day, including days with no movement, and the Osservatorio expects the month consolidated by the 5th of the following month. Miss it more than three times in a calendar year and a non-business host faces €100 to €600 per omission, doubled if it happens again within two years.

One more change is already live. Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 has applied since 20 May 2026, requiring registration numbers in listings, a single national digital entry point, and monthly data reporting from platforms to public authorities. In practice that means the data trail behind your listing now reaches the Comune whether or not anyone asks you for it.

Does Catania Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

That data trail is the honest answer to the enforcement question, because the Comune gets your booking data whether or not anyone knocks on your door.

Article 8 of the tourist-tax regulation is unusually explicit about the toolkit. Where a declaration is missing or looks unreliable, the Comune may assess the tax from objective data instead of from what you filed.

What it can draw on is spelled out: the property's capacity, the average occupancy of comparable structures in the same period, records from the Polizia di Stato's Alloggiati Web system, the local police, the SUAP, the Guardia di Finanza, and specialist data-analysis firms. Read that as it's written. The city can estimate what you should have collected and bill you for it.

The penalties then do the work. Article 9 of the tourist-tax regulation puts late, partial or missing payment at 30% of the unpaid tax, and an omitted or false declaration at 100% to 200% of the amount due. Failing to tell guests about the tax costs €100 to €500, and never signing up to the portal costs the same again.

Above all of that sit the CIN penalties of €800 to €8,000 and €500 to €5,000. Watch out for the compounding, since these attach per structure and per quarter rather than once.

The Region carries the heavier stick. Article 37 of L.R. 6/2025 lets the department shut an activity that's operating without the required filing, or suspend it and hand over up to 90 days to fix a missing requirement before closure follows. Refuse an inspection and the same powers apply.

Article 38 puts operating without a SCIA at €1,032 to €6,000, and doubles every penalty in the article on a repeat within two years. Then there's the Allegato B mechanism, which is sharper than any fine, because losing the CIR and CIN removes the listing rather than taxing it.

The scale of the register tells you how visible all this is. Catania's municipal tourist-tax portal currently shows 3,813 active accommodation structures and just over 1.15 million guest nights recorded for 2026. That's a live, cross-referenced list of who is trading, sitting in the same office that assesses the tax.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Catania

Given how much of that enforcement runs off a single register, the order below matters: each step feeds the next, and doing them out of sequence is what leaves people with a code they can't use.

1. Check the property before the paperwork. Confirm the cadastral registration, the abitabilità or agibilità certificate, the energy performance certificate, and the declarations of conformity for the electrical, gas and water systems. A unit under an unresolved building amnesty is a dead end.
2. Decide whether you're a business. One or two units run by the same manager is non-business. A third makes it entrepreneurial for both the Region and the Agenzia delle Entrate, which means a SCIA, a VAT number and classification.
3. Fit the safety kit. Carbon monoxide detector, combustible gas detector, and a compliant extinguisher at one per 200 square metres per floor, minimum one per floor.
4. Request the CIR on Turist@t. It's free. Expect to print, sign and upload the generated form with your ID, then wait for the password and username emails.
5. Get the CIN on the ministry's BDSR portal with SPID or CIE, once the CIR exists.
6. File the start-of-activity communication with the Comune's SUAP, or the SCIA if you're operating as a business.
7. Send Allegato B to the regional tourism department at [email protected], with the floor plan, cadastral certificate, habitability proof and system reports attached.
8. Register on the municipal tourist-tax portal as the activity starts, entering the CIR and CIN, then put both codes in every listing and on a sign outside.
9. Set up the two reporting rhythms on day one: guests to Alloggiati Web within 24 hours, and the daily statistical return to Turist@t.
10. Diarise the tax dates. Five days from arrival to declare on the portal, 15 days after each quarter to pay by PagoPA, and 30 January for the Mod. 21 conto giudiziale.

Who to Contact in Catania about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever of those ten steps goes wrong, three different offices own the answer, and picking the right one saves an astonishing amount of time.

The tourist tax, the portal and the quarterly returns

The Comune di Catania, Direzione Ragioneria Generale runs the tourist tax, including registration, declarations and payment. Its details are published on the municipal tourist-tax portal's contacts page.

• Address: Piazza Duomo 3, Palazzo dei Chierici, Catania
• Phone: +39 095 742 3623, +39 095 742 3523, +39 095 742 3506
• Email: [email protected]
• PEC: [email protected]
• Counter hours: Tuesdays, 09:00 to 12:00

The portal's notice of 15 July 2026 made that address the only one accepted for tourist-tax correspondence, so don't forget to update whatever your accountant has on file.

For a technical fault on the portal itself rather than a tax question, PayTourist support answers at [email protected] and on +39 02 4795 1605, Monday to Friday, 09:30 to 12:30 and 16:00 to 18:00.

The CIR, Allegato B and anything regional

The Servizio 3 Osservatorio Turistico e dello Sport, inside the regional tourism department, issues the CIR, runs Turist@t and receives the statistical returns. Its contact page lists dott.ssa Rosalia Giambrone as the responsible director.

• Address: Via Emanuele Notarbartolo 9, 4th floor, 90142 Palermo
• Phone: +39 091 707 8192
• Email: [email protected]
• Allegato B, by certified mail only: [email protected]

That last address is the one the decree names, and Catania's portal notice adds the Comune's own PEC, [email protected], as a copy recipient.

Building status, zoning and the SUAP filing

The start-of-activity communication and any SCIA go to the Sportello Unico per le Attività Produttive of the Comune di Catania, under article 35 of L.R. 6/2025. Questions about whether a specific address holds valid agibilità, or what its planning status is, belong there too rather than with the tax office. I couldn't reach the Comune's own web servers while researching this guide, so treat the SUAP counter or the Comune's PEC as the reliable route in rather than any page you find cached in a search result.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Catania on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

Since the offices themselves are hard to reach, hosts have spent 2026 comparing notes with each other, and the tone is easy to characterise. What follows is my read of the public record rather than a survey, and I couldn't reach Reddit at all while researching this, so weigh it accordingly.

• The Allegato B deadline dominated everything. It's the only Sicilian rule that can pull a listing off the market rather than fine it, and it landed in the middle of high season.
• The asymmetry is the specific grievance. B&Bs and case vacanze were given until 30 June 2027 to adapt, tourist rentals were not. AIGAB's Sicilian delegate Maurizio Giambalvo told the Giornale di Sicilia in June 2026 that the split was "generating profound confusion among operators and owners", and the association asked the regional assembly for an extension. It didn't come.
• Some of the anger produced results. The extra-hotel federation FARE took the implementing decree to the TAR and won twelve annulments in May 2026, which is why nobody is buying fire-retardant mattresses or 32-inch televisions today. That's recorded inside D.A. 1920/2026 itself, not just in press coverage.
• The two-unit cut worried the small multi-property owners most. Going from four units to two in a single amendment moved a lot of people from non-business to business without their plans changing at all.
• Nobody argues the rules are unenforced. The register, the daily returns and the tax portal make the activity visible by design, which is a different conversation from whether the rules are fair.

None of that makes Catania a hard place to operate once you're through the setup. Etna, the baroque centre and the airport keep demand running across a long season, and the numbers behind the Catania market will show you what that looks like per night before you take on any of the paperwork.

Weigh the cost of getting compliant against a full year of bookings rather than against the afternoon it takes to file. Rules like Sicily's look worst in the month a deadline lands and unremarkable by the following spring, and the owners who quietly do the filing are the ones still listed when it does.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Catania in 2026?

Yes. Catania has no cap on short-term rentals, no night limit and no historic-centre ban. You need a Sicilian CIR code from the Turist@t portal, a national CIN from the Ministry of Tourism's database, a start-of-activity communication filed with the Comune's SUAP, and an account on the municipal tourist-tax portal. Run more than two units as the same manager and Sicilian law treats the activity as a business, which means a SCIA and classification instead.

How much is the tourist tax in Catania?

An apartment let for tourism, or a casa e appartamento per vacanze, charges €3.00 per person per night. Bed and breakfasts, affittacamere and one to three star hotels charge €3.50, four star hotels €4.00, and five star hotels €5.00. The tax applies to a maximum of four consecutive nights per calendar year, and children under 16 and residents of Catania are exempt. These rates took effect on 1 February 2026.

What was the 30 June 2026 Allegato B deadline in Sicily?

Sicily's regional decree required every tourist rental already trading to send Allegato B, a detailed property form, to the regional tourism department's certified mailbox by 30 June 2026. Where an issuing office had delayed a host's paperwork, the supporting technical documents can follow by 30 December 2026. The stated consequence of missing it is the activity ceasing and the CIR and CIN codes being revoked, which removes the listing rather than fining it.

Does Airbnb collect Catania's tourist tax for hosts?

Not automatically. Catania's regulation allows a booking platform to collect and remit the tax, but only after it signs a specific agreement with the Comune, and no such agreement has been published. Airbnb's Italian tourist tax page publishes no municipality list and directs hosts to the Taxes section of their own listing instead. Until that section shows Catania tourist tax being collected, the host declares and pays it through the municipal portal.

What tax do you pay on short-term rental income in Italy?

Income from a lease of 30 days or less can go under the cedolare secca, a flat substitute tax of 26%, reduced to 21% on income from one property nominated in the annual return. It replaces income tax, regional and municipal surtaxes and registration duty. Booking platforms that collect rent withhold 21% as an advance and report the contract data, including the CIN, by 30 June of the following year. From 2026 the regime covers a maximum of two apartments per tax period.

Last verified: July 2026. Every ordinance, tax rate, state law, and contact detail in this guide links to or comes from its official source.