Alojamento Local vs Hotels: 14.6% of Nights, 8.8% of Revenue and the 42% Claim That Does Not Reproduce

Four universes, four shares

INE’s AL figure is the one most often quoted and the narrowest. Its Estatísticas do Turismo 2025, published on 9 July 2026, covers AL establishments with 10 or more beds under the EU regulation on tourism statistics, and everything smaller is outside the survey. On that scope AL had 11,977,521 nights in 2025, 5.07 million guests and an average stay of 2.36 nights, against 2.58 for hotelaria. Its share of nights was 14.14% in 2022, 14.79% in 2023, 15.05% in 2024 and 14.60% in 2025 (annual sums of INE monthly values, derived). In 2019 INE reported 10.2 million AL nights out of 70.2 million in tourist accommodation, 14.5%.

Eurostat’s classification gives a second view. Its holiday and other short-stay category (I552) had 14.8 million nights in 2025, 16.6% of the 89.4 million nights in hotels, short-stay accommodation and campsites. That category includes rural tourism and other units, so it sits close to INE’s AL plus rural tourism (15.3 million) without being the same set. It rose 38.4% between 2019 and 2025, against 12.9% for hotels and similar, and fell 4.2% in 2025.

Platform data are the third universe. Eurostat’s experimental series counts nights spent in accommodation offered through Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia, with Tripadvisor contributing until it left the business in late 2024. Portugal recorded 31.1 million such nights in 2019 and 49.5 million in 2025, a rise of 59.4%. Eurostat states that these data cannot be added to the other tourism statistics, because the platforms list units that INE’s survey also covers. Platform nights equal 55.4% of survey nights in 2025, which is a ratio and not a share.

The fourth universe is the industry model. NOVA SBE presented a study at ALEP’s first national congress in October 2024, with slides marked for ALEP’s restricted use, claiming AL was 42% of Portugal’s nights in 2023. The arithmetic reproduces: 11.4 million INE AL nights plus 36.3 million estimated for smaller units gives 47.7 million, and 77.1 million INE nights plus the same 36.3 million gives a 113.4 million total, so 42.0%. The slides say more than 90% of AL nights fall in units under 10 beds and show no table for how the 36.3 million was reached. The earlier 2019 version, 38.4 million nights and “about 40%”, does not reproduce from its own components: 10.2 million plus 28.2 million over 77.8 million plus 28.2 million is 36.2%.

A defensible statement of the national share is therefore a range with named ends. INE’s 14.6% is the floor for registered units of 10 beds or more. If platform nights and survey nights did not overlap at all, platforms would be 35.6% of the two combined. Overlap is certain, so that figure is an upper-bound illustration and not a measurement, and it leaves out AL that is not listed on these three platforms. Published data cannot narrow the range. Every figure in this article that is labelled AL without qualification uses INE’s definition.

Supply: a fifth of surveyed beds and 120,000 registrations behind them

INE’s bed counts by type, republished by Pordata, show how stable AL’s weight has been inside the survey. AL with 10 or more beds had 87,997 beds in 2019 and 99,594 in 2025, a rise of 13.2%. Hotéis rose 15.8% to 260,190 beds. AL was 19.9% of surveyed beds in 2019 and 19.8% in 2025, and supplied 19.5% of the net growth in beds over the six years (derived). Counting campsites, INE’s 2025 total of 703,886 beds makes AL 14.2%.

Eurostat’s capacity series shows a larger move in the broader category. Holiday and other short-stay bed places rose 30.1% from 112,134 in 2019 to 145,852 in 2025, and establishments in that category rose from 4,546 to 6,102, while hotels and similar rose 8.0% to 391,246 beds. Eurostat’s 2025 total including campsites, 734,437 beds, is 30,551 above INE’s, a gap neither source explains.

The register is the only count that includes small units. RNAL entries were 14,127 at the end of 2014, 35,606 in 2016, 77,053 in October 2018 and about 92,000 at the end of 2019. They reached 120,719 in December 2023, of which only 74,972 had filed a valid declaration of activity, then 124,700 in August 2025 according to Público, and about 126,000 at the end of 2025. DN counted 119,147 in June 2026 after municipalities cancelled 10,324. “Active” in that count means registered and not cancelled. It does not mean trading.

In February 2026 Dinheiro Vivo split the register by region: Algarve above 45,000, Norte about 27,000, Lisbon’s metropolitan area about 25,000, Centro 10,800, Madeira above 8,000 and Alentejo about 3,000. The Algarve’s “about 40%” is stable and not stale. Faro district held 48.8% in July 2016, then 38.5% in October 2018, 39.2% in July 2023 and 37.5% in February 2026 (derived). It is the Algarve’s share of registrations, not a share of anything physical. The regional tourism board says about 143,000 Algarve AL beds, 90.5% of the total, sit outside INE, and its own counts imply 97.9% of the region’s registrations are for units under 10 beds. The register itself counted 159,759 Algarve AL beds in July 2023, against 22,490 holiday and short-stay beds in Eurostat’s 2025 regional data.

No national count of registered AL beds is published. Lisbon is the one city with a recent figure: 11,704 registrations with 69,070 beds in October 2026, an average of 5.9 beds per registration (derived). Applying the Algarve or Lisbon average nationally gives anything from 430,000 to 700,000 beds, a range too wide to publish as an estimate, and we do not publish it. It does show that registered capacity is probably a multiple of INE’s 99,594.

Revenue: 14.6% of nights, 8.8% of revenue

On INE’s scope AL earned €627.9 million in 2025, out of €7,133.2 million for all tourist accommodation. Room revenue was €572.7 million, 91.2% of the AL total. Hotelaria earned €6,214 million, 87.1% (derived as the total minus AL minus rural tourism). The gap between AL’s share of nights and its share of revenue has widened every year since 2022, from 5.4 to 5.8 points.

Per guest-night AL earned €52.4 in 2025 and hotelaria €93.1. The ratio fell from 0.58 in 2022 to 0.56. Per available bed AL earned €6,304 and all tourist accommodation €14,190, while hotelaria earned at least €15,415, which puts AL at no more than 0.41 of the hotel figure (derived; the bound exists because INE publishes no bed count for hotelaria alone). INE’s own yield measures agree: RevPAR of €43.8 for AL against €81.4 for hotelaria, ADR of €95.7 against €128.9, and net bed occupancy of 36.9% against 52.8%. Our RevPAR and ADR article gives the full segment table.

Two caveats apply. INE’s AL covers only the larger units, which are probably closer to hotels than the average registration, so the yield of small AL is unmeasured. And the platform vendors do not fill the gap. For Lisbon, AirDNA reports occupancy of 70%, Airbtics 76% and AirROI 51%, with listings of 15,385, 12,984 and 13,800. If every platform night in Portugal earned INE’s AL revenue per night the total would be €2.6 billion, four times the measured €0.63 billion. That sum shows the size of the unknown and is not an estimate of it.

Who stays differs by market, though not by residence. Residents account for 28.7% of AL nights and 29.8% of hotelaria nights, so AL is no more foreign than hotels. Eurostat’s origin data show AL taking 26.0% of Italians’ nights in hotels and short-stay accommodation, 22.3% for the French, 22.2% for the Dutch, 20.2% for Spaniards, 15.2% for Americans and 9.5% for the British. The UK is the most hotel-bound of the large markets.

Where AL is large

INE’s regional shares for 2025 run from 9.9% in the Algarve to 18.5% in the Azores. Grande Lisboa is 18.1%, with Lisbon city at 17.5% (2.80 million of 15.96 million nights) and Porto at 22.6% in 2024, the last year INE published it before treating the 2025 value as confidential. AL nights fell in Grande Lisboa (−4.0%), Centro (−1.7%), Norte (−1.8%) and Oeste e Vale do Tejo (−4.4%) and rose in the Azores (+6.6%), Setúbal (+7.4%), Alentejo (+3.1%) and the Algarve (+2.8%). Hotelaria grew in every region except the Algarve, where it was flat.

The regions where INE sees the least AL are those where other sources see the most. Platform nights in 2025 were 13.37 million in the Algarve against 2.05 million INE AL nights, 6.5 times, and 5.42 million in Madeira against 1.00 million, 5.4 times. Madeira’s regional statistics office, which counts AL of every size, reports 3.8 million AL nights in 2025, up 18.7%, beside INE’s 1.00 million, up 0.2%. Hotel nights are identical in both at 8.6 million. The Azores follow the same pattern: the regional statistics service counts about 1.99 million AL nights, 43.3% of its 4.60 million, against INE’s 575,614 and 18.5%.

Platform growth since 2019 makes the same point. Madeira’s platform nights rose 302.9% between 2019 and 2025, the Azores’ 113.5% and the Algarve’s 67.5%. In the broader Eurostat category, the holiday and short-stay share of nights in hotels and short-stay accommodation rose from 6.9% to 11.2% in the Algarve, from 6.8% to 11.8% in Madeira and from 17.0% to 25.0% in the Azores. Nothing in the national average shows this, which is why the regional articles in this series each carry their own scope warning.

2025 and 2026: hotels are growing and AL is not

AL nights grew 15.8% in 2023 and 5.9% in 2024, then fell 0.9% in 2025. In January to August 2026 they are down 1.27% at 8.27 million, against hotelaria up 1.86% and rural tourism up 3.49%. AL revenue is down 0.23% and hotelaria revenue up 5.55%. AL’s share of nights is 14.43% for the period, against 14.83% a year earlier and 15.22% in 2024, and its share of revenue 8.59% against 9.05% and 9.51%. In the second quarter INE reported AL nights down 1.2% and hotel nights up 1.6%.

AL nights were below the previous year in six of the eight months. AL’s revenue per night rose 1.1% to €53.3 while hotelaria’s rose 3.5% to €95.8, so AL is losing ground on price as well as volume. INE’s later vintages also revise the picture: AL nights for the fourth quarter of 2025 were reported as down 2.3% in the February flash and are down 3.6% in the September database.

Portugal’s platform growth is also the slowest in its peer group. Platform nights rose 59.4% between 2019 and 2025, against 63.6% in Croatia, 79.4% in Spain, 82.4% in Italy and 114.6% in Greece. In the first quarter of 2026 Portugal’s growth was 4.9%, against 6.5% in Spain and 14.7% to 15.6% in Italy, Greece and Croatia. Portugal also has the highest ratio of platform nights to survey nights, 55.4%, so the market is both the most platform-dependent and the slowest growing of the five.

Is AL taking guests from hotels? On national data the answer is no. Hotelaria’s 2025 gains of 2.4% in nights and 7.4% in revenue came while AL shrank. The pipeline points the same way. JLL counts 70 hotels and 7,520 beds under construction for completion by 2028, about half in the Lisbon area, and Eurostat’s hotels-and-similar beds rose 8.0% from 2019 to 2025. In Lisbon the purge removed about 39,000 AL beds (derived, from about 108,000 to 69,070), while hotel and similar beds in Grande Lisboa rose by 5,462 between 2023 and 2025. No data show hotels replacing AL beds one for one.

Lisbon is where both segments weaken together, so causes are hard to read. Grande Lisboa’s all-accommodation RevPAR was €98.8 in January to July 2026, down 3.7%. The hotel association’s October survey described a plateau, with 57% of surveyed members reporting worse revenue than in summer 2025 and the association pointing to border queues at the airport. The capital behind the pipeline is covered in our hotel investment article.

The purge and the nights that did not move

The register is the number that changed most. It peaked at about 126,000 and stood at 119,147 in June 2026, a net fall of about 7,000. The 10,324 cancellations come from four councils, Lisbon 6,765, Lagos 1,548, Porto 1,413 and Lagoa 598, which sum exactly to the national total. That makes it DN’s tally from councils and not an RNAL statistic, and no national update has appeared since June. Most cancellations are for missing proof of mandatory liability insurance. Our licence purge article follows Lisbon’s case in detail, and the capital’s containment thresholds are set out in the companion piece on its rules.

If Lisbon’s register fell by more than a third, INE’s nights should show it. They show less. Lisbon city’s AL nights fell 4.0% in 2025 and 5.7% in January to August 2026, while the register fell 37%, to 11,704 registrations with 69,070 beds on the count of Vizinhos em Lisboa, a residents’ association. Our reading, which is an inference and not a published statement, is that the cancelled registrations were mostly inactive or small. Vizinhos found that only 11% of cancelled-AL buildings in a Santa Maria Maior sample, and 6% to 8% in Ajuda, were listed for sale or rent in the following year, and that at least 4% of cancelled units still accepted booking requests.

ALEP’s forecasts show how far the register sits from activity. In November 2025 it projected 40,000 to 45,000 cancellations and 85,000 to 90,000 registrations left. The count has fallen by about 7,000. Its Lisbon forecast of about 7,000 was close to the 6,765 actual. In June 2026 it said up to 30,000 more would go, which is a projection and not a count. A further deadline applies. Decree-Law 151/2026, in force from 31 July to 31 December 2026, gives municipalities that had at least 1,000 registrations at the end of 2025 until year-end to adopt AL regulations and lets existing freezes be extended once.

Housing, tax and what the studies show

The housing question draws the strongest claims and the weakest numbers. Nationally AL registrations equal 2.0% of the 5,970,677 dwellings in Census 2021, or 2.9% of the 4,142,581 main residences (derived, mixing 2026 registrations with 2021 dwellings). In Lisbon the ratio is 5 AL per 100 occupied homes, and in Santa Maria Maior 69. The average hides the distribution, and the distribution is what containment rules act on.

Peer-reviewed evidence is narrow. A study of Lisbon’s 2018 ban on new registrations in nine central neighbourhoods found prices about 8% lower in treated areas, concentrated in two-bedroom flats, from only five treated and 37 control neighbourhoods. A study of Airbnb’s share found house prices 3.2% higher for each percentage point of Airbnb share in Lisbon and Porto parishes, and 3.7% at municipality level, and its abstract reports no rent result. The Banco de Portugal’s 2026 housing studies treat tourism as one demand driver among several and do not attribute price or rent growth to AL. An FFMS survey of 1,072 mainland residents found 64.4% agreeing that AL should be reduced because of housing.

The tax debate has fewer numbers still. AL income is category B income under IRS. Under the simplified regime 35% of gross income is taxable, rising to 50% for moradia and apartamento AL in containment areas, and the 35% is a presumed-cost rule and not an exemption. From 1 July 2025 non-resident sole-trader owners lose the VAT exemption and charge 6%. No published table compares tax paid by AL and by hotels, no Autoridade Tributária aggregate for AL income appears in public sources, and the €176 million of municipal tourist tax collected in 2025 is not split by accommodation type. Our tourist taxes article covers those receipts.

The table below tests ten of the claims that circulate on these subjects, with the figure that holds for each.

The rules that shape both sides

Lei 56/2023, known as Mais Habitação and in force from 7 October 2023, suspended new registrations of apartments, set five-year registration terms and required condominium approval. Decree-Law 76/2024, in force from 1 November 2024, revoked those articles (arts. 18 to 21 and 52, by the summaries of AHRESP and imojuris), and the extraordinary contribution was revoked separately by Decree-Law 57/2024. The 2030 reassessment that still appears in press is superseded. What remains is municipal: containment areas reviewed every three years, AL regulations for every municipality, and condominium opposition by owners holding more than half of a building’s permilagem for repeated, proven disturbance.

Lisbon’s regulation has set containment at 10% absolute and 5% to under 10% relative of permanent dwellings since 6 December 2025. Porto’s 15% parish threshold took effect in May 2023, was revoked by the executive on 6 November 2023 and returned by the assembly in December 2024. Funchal has extended its freeze and prepared a regulation, and Seixal has a draft with 3% and 2% thresholds. On the hotel side, Lisbon’s assembly rejected a hotel licensing freeze on 20 January 2026 and Porto’s council rejected a 12-month hotel moratorium on 24 March 2025. EU Regulation 2024/1028, applying since 20 May 2026, requires registration numbers on listings and platform data reporting to national authorities.

Ownership has professionalised. In August 2025 Público reported that companies held 47,299 of 124,700 registrations, 37.9%, with 273 companies holding almost 13,000 units. Registrations held by companies include managers who do not own the property, and directly company-owned units are 11% of the total.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers. In INE’s survey an AL night averages €95.7 per room against €128.9 in hotelaria, and AL beds are filled 36.9% of the time, so there is room outside summer. In the first quarter of 2026 INE’s AL ADR was €71.1. Italians, French, Dutch and Spanish visitors use AL most and British and American visitors least. In the central parishes of Lisbon and Porto the supply of AL is capped by containment rules and registrations are being removed for missing insurance, so check that a listing shows its RNAL number, which EU rules have required on listings since 20 May 2026. Our where to stay in Lisbon guide covers neighbourhoods and hotels.

Tourism businesses and investors. INE-measured AL is 8.8% of accommodation revenue and earns about 56% of what a hotel night earns. Platform nights are not a revenue base: the €2.6 billion that arithmetic gives is four times the measured figure and has no published basis. Four developments would change the assessment: a published national count of registered AL beds, AL’s share of nights falling below 14% in INE’s September flash due around 30 October, Grande Lisboa RevPAR ending its decline, and the 70-hotel pipeline arriving on schedule. An underwriter using the 42% claim to size AL competition is using an association’s model.

Journalists and analysts. Safe to cite: AL with 10 or more beds at 14.60% of nights, 8.80% of revenue and 19.8% of surveyed beds in 2025 (INE); RevPAR of €43.8 against €81.4; 119,147 registrations in June 2026 (DN, from councils); Lisbon’s 11,704 registrations and 69,070 beds in October 2026 (Vizinhos em Lisboa). Do not repeat: AL as 40% or 42% of nights without naming the ALEP model, €9.9 billion as AL revenue, the Algarve’s 40% as a bed share, or Lisbon’s 40% cancellation rate. The series finding this article adds is that the scope gap documented for Madeira, the Azores, Porto and the Algarve is national. Still unpublished: a national count of registered AL beds, any modality split after 2018, Autoridade Tributária aggregates on AL income, a tax comparison with hotels, and INE’s 2025 Porto AL value.