Short-term rental glossary

Portugal's legal framework for letting a house, flat or room to tourists for short stays. It requires registration with the local council (câmara municipal) and compliance with safety, tax and guest information rules.

Turismo de Portugal's register of tourism businesses. It includes the RNAL, which holds the registration number given to your Alojamento Local after you notify the council. That number must be shown in your listings and other promotional material. Without a valid registration, the property cannot legally operate or be advertised.

To invoice bookings you need a Portuguese tax number (NIF) and must register the activity with the tax authority (Finanças) under the Alojamento Local activity code (CAE). This lets you declare the income and issue invoice-receipts to guests.

A municipal charge per guest per night in some municipalities, paid over to the council. Rates and exemptions vary from one municipality to another. It is usually charged separately from the price of the stay, at check-in or when booking.

An amount held, or pre-authorised on the guest's card, to cover any damage and returned after the stay if everything is in order. On your own website the deposit rules are yours, with no platform policy to follow.

Online travel agencies: platforms such as Booking, Airbnb or Vrbo that list your property and handle the booking in return for a commission. They bring visibility, but usually charge between 10% and 25% per booking.

The percentage an OTA keeps from each booking made through it, usually between 10% and 25%. Added up over a year, commissions are often a short-term rental's biggest cost of winning guests.

Bookings made directly with you (through your website, by phone or by email), without going through an OTA and so without the OTA's commission. They are the most profitable way to fill your calendar and the main reason to have your own website.

The three most widely used OTAs for short-term stays. Booking and Vrbo are strong for houses and villas; Airbnb is strong for apartments and experiences. It pays to be on them while also building up direct bookings.

A calendar format (.ics) for sharing booked dates between platforms through a link. It is the simplest way to avoid double bookings, but it updates with some delay. With many channels, a channel manager is safer.

A tool that keeps prices, availability and bookings in sync across several channels (Booking, Airbnb, your own website) almost in real time. It reduces the risk of overbooking when you sell the same property in several places at once.

When the same dates are sold on two channels because the calendars were out of sync, and one guest's booking has to be cancelled. As well as the disruption, it damages your reputation. Keeping calendars in sync (iCal or a channel manager) is how you avoid it.

The part of your website that shows which dates are free and takes the booking request, with no middleman. The more complete engines, such as those of channel managers, also work out the price and take payment online. It is what turns an attractive website into a source of direct bookings, without OTA commission.

Software for running a property from one place: bookings, calendar, cleaning, guests and invoicing. It usually connects to a channel manager and to the booking engine on your website, so the data matches everywhere.

Platforms that combine a PMS, a channel manager and a booking engine in a monthly subscription. They are a sound option. Compared with a custom-built website, the site starts from a template, gives you less control over design and SEO, and the host sets it up and updates it in the dashboard.

A Portuguese mobile payment service, very widely used in Portugal. It lets you take payment for bookings or deposits on the spot, by phone number or QR code. Useful for Portuguese guests who would rather not pay by card.

A payment method based on a reference (entity, reference and amount) that the guest pays through online banking or at a Multibanco cash machine. It is well known in Portugal and useful for bookings that aren't paid by card at the time.

A Portuguese payment aggregator that connects a website to several payment methods (Multibanco, MB WAY and card) through a single integration. It is a common way to accept Portuguese payment methods without building everything from scratch.

An international card payment platform, well suited to guests from abroad. It works well with a booking engine and supports pre-authorisations for deposits. It is often used alongside a Portuguese method such as MB WAY.

The practices that help your website appear in searches tied to a place, such as 'places to stay in Viana do Castelo'. It combines page content, structured data and your Google Business Profile to reach guests looking at your area.

A free Google listing that shows your property on Maps and in Search, with photos, hours and contact details. A complete profile brings visits and direct enquiries, with no cost per booking.

Lighthouse is Google's tool for measuring the quality of a website; Core Web Vitals are the speed and stability metrics it assesses. A fast site turns more visits into bookings and helps you rank higher on Google.

A technical tag that tells Google which language versions of a page exist (for example PT and EN), so it shows each visitor the right one. Any multilingual site aimed at both Portuguese and foreign guests should have it.

Collecting guests' details and documents online before they arrive. It saves time, makes the mandatory registration of foreign guests on SIBA (the 'boletim de alojamento') easier and, with smart locks, lets guests check themselves in.