Greece's national economy and finance ministry is planning a series of sweeping changes to laws regulating the market for short-term property rentals via online platforms, such as Airbnb, which will soon introduce the new measures, ANA reports.
These will even play the playing field as regards the taxation of such properties relative to hotels and rented rooms, abolish the use of cash for property purchases, and impose stricter penalties on owners and managers who fail to declare properties as short-term rentals to the tax office.
Another important measure is the new requirement to pay VAT and open books for those who own or manage more than two short-term rentals, as well as the imposition of a visitor tax and climate-crisis tax on 170,000 properties, as charged in hotels and rented rooms.
Some measures aim to correct the shortage of long-term rental accommodation that has arisen from the switch to short-term rentals, while others seek to eliminate unfair competition for hotels and rented rooms.
