Does a Short-Term Rental License Transfer When the Property Is Sold?

Published on: August 28, 2026

Last verified: 28 August 2026. Short-term rental rules are among the fastest-changing areas of property law and vary by country, region and municipality. Verify the current position with the issuing authority before committing money.

Quick answer:

• There are three models. The license is attached to the property, attached to the person, or a routine annual registration. Only the first one is worth a premium.
• The Balearics transfer, Croatia does not. An ETV license runs with the dwelling; a Croatian categorization decision belongs to the operator and the buyer starts over.
• Greece can delete the registration at the moment you buy. In the designated restricted zones a sale wipes the existing entry and no replacement is available.
• Portugal reversed itself. AL registrations became non-transferable in 2023 and transferable again from November 2024, subject to municipal containment areas.
• Protect the money with a condition, not a hope. Make valid transfer, or successful issuance to you, a written condition with the deposit refundable in full if it fails.

"Comes with a tourist license" has become one of the most valuable phrases in European property listings. In markets where new licenses are frozen, a valid short-term rental permit can add a five or six figure premium to an otherwise ordinary apartment, because the license, not the flat, is the scarce asset.

Which makes one question worth more than any other in these deals: does the license actually survive the sale? The honest answer is that it depends entirely on the country, sometimes on the city, and increasingly on rules written in the last two years. In some markets the license is welded to the property and transfers cleanly. In others it is welded to the person and dies at the notary's desk. In at least one market it is now deliberately deleted the moment ownership changes.

This guide walks through the three models, the current rules market by market, and the contract clause that stops you from paying a premium for a license you will never hold.

Three models of license, three very different purchases

Attached to the property. The authorization belongs to the dwelling. A new owner steps into it, usually subject to notifying the authority and continuing to meet the original conditions. This is the buyer-friendly model, and the premium for a licensed property is at least defensible.

Attached to the person. The authorization was issued to the operator. It cannot be sold with the walls. The buyer must apply fresh, under whatever rules exist on the day of application, which in restricted zones may mean no license at all. Here the "licensed" premium is paying for the seller's paperwork, not yours.

Annual and administrative. The permit is a routine yearly registration that anyone compliant can obtain. It neither transfers nor needs to; the buyer simply applies. No scarcity, no premium, no drama.

The danger zone is markets that moved from the first model toward the second, or that froze new issuance, because that is where sellers advertise a transferability that no longer exists.

Market by market in 2026

Balearic Islands, Spain: attached to the property, but count the conditions

The Balearic ETV license attaches to the dwelling, and when a licensed property is sold the license transfers with it, provided the new owner keeps meeting the conditions it was granted under, notifies the authorities of the change, and the transfer is dealt with expressly in the sale documents. Because the islands have had a moratorium on new licenses since February 2022 (Decree-Law 3/2022), reinforced in April 2025 by a decree that permanently bans new tourist places in multi-family buildings across the archipelago, buying a licensed property is effectively the only way in; only small, quickly exhausted quota releases (654 places in September 2025, a lottery of roughly a thousand in early 2026) have interrupted the freeze, and Palma bans new licenses outright.

The diligence points: confirm the license is active and matches the advertised guest capacity, that the annual obligations and tourist places (plazas) are paid up, that no sanction proceedings are open, and that the deed expressly transfers the license. Spain has also required a national short-term rental registration number for advertising on platforms since July 2025, so check the property's registration status there too.

Barcelona and Catalonia: transfers today, expires in 2028

Catalonia's tourist apartment license (HUT) historically ran with the property. Then Decree-Law 3/2023 put tourist flats in high-pressure municipalities on five-year urban-planning authorizations, and Barcelona's city council announced in June 2024 that it will not renew the roughly 10,100 existing licenses when the transitional period ends in November 2028. Spain's Constitutional Court upheld the Catalan decree in March 2025.

So a licensed Barcelona flat can still change hands with its license, but what the buyer acquires is a countdown, not a permanent income stream, and the city's stated intention is elimination. Any price premium should be measured against the remaining months of legal operation and the fallback of stays over 31 days, which fall outside the tourist regime. Our Barcelona and Catalonia buying guide and our piece on mid-term rentals of 30 to 180 days cover that fallback in detail.

Portugal: transferable again, with a municipal asterisk

Portugal's AL (alojamento local) regime produced the sharpest reversal in Europe. The 2023 Mais Habitacao package made AL registrations non-transferable, lapsing on any change of ownership. Decree-Law 76/2024, in force since 1 November 2024, reversed that: AL registrations are transferable again nationwide when a property is sold, the five-year renewal cycle and expiry rules were scrapped, and the national freeze on new registrations ended.

The asterisk is local power. Municipalities can declare containment areas and impose their own limits, and cities such as Lisbon and Porto actively use these tools, so effective transferability in a specific street depends on the current municipal regulation, and condominiums retain the ability to act against an AL on evidence of serious disturbance. National law now favors the buyer; verify that the city does too before pricing the registration into your offer.

Greece: the registration can be deleted at the moment you buy

Greece registers each short-term rental with an AMA number on the tax authority's platform. Two layers of restriction now define the market. New registrations have been banned in the three central municipal districts of Athens since 1 January 2025, a freeze extended through 31 December 2026, with Thessaloniki added from March 2026 and other hotspots under discussion. And in these designated high-pressure zones the rules attach the registration to the current ownership: if the property changes hands by sale, parental transfer or inheritance, the existing registry entry is deleted and the new owner cannot obtain a fresh AMA while the restrictions last.

That combination makes "licensed Airbnb in Plaka" one of the most misleading phrases in European listings right now. The license is real, the income is real, and both can evaporate at completion. Outside the restricted zones, a new owner registers normally, so the first diligence question in Greece is simply which side of the zone line the property sits on. Fines for operating unregistered in ban zones start from 20,000 euros.

Croatia: issued to the operator, so the buyer starts over

Croatian holiday rentals run on a categorization decision issued by the county administrative office to the person providing the service, not to the property. It does not transfer with a sale; the buyer applies for their own decision under the rules in force at that moment. Since January 2025 that includes a significant hurdle for apartments in residential buildings: written consent from co-owners holding at least two thirds of the building, including the immediately adjacent neighbors, with existing operators given until the end of 2029 to gather the same consents. Croatia is also rolling out registration numbers for every rental unit in line with the EU's short-term rental regulation, applicable from mid-2026, and further reforms to the hospitality framework are in draft.

The practical read: in Croatia you are never buying a license, you are buying a property whose characteristics make your own application likely to succeed, and in an apartment building that likelihood now depends on your future neighbors. Our Croatia buying guide covers the wider process.

France: assume the authorization is yours to obtain

France layers a simple registration for furnished tourist lets over, in the big cities, a change-of-use authorization that is granted under municipal quotas and compensation rules and is generally personal to the applicant rather than a right that travels with the flat. National rules tightened again in late 2024, giving mayors more room to cut the rental-day cap for primary residences, adding energy-performance requirements and trimming the tax allowances. Buyers in Paris, Nice, Lyon and similar markets should assume they will need their own authorization under today's quotas, and price the property as if the seller's permission does not exist, because in most cases, for them, it does not.

Dubai: nothing transfers, and it barely matters

Dubai's holiday home permit, issued per unit by the Department of Economy and Tourism (formerly DTCM) to the owner or a licensed operator, is an annual registration rather than a scarce license. It does not transfer with a sale, and no one prices it as if it would: the new owner simply applies, meets the unit and safety standards, and operates. DET is the sole licensing authority and has made clear that developers and community managers cannot ban compliant holiday homes from their buildings. The diligence here is about service charges, community rules on guest access, and the operator contract you inherit or terminate, not about license scarcity.

Thailand: the "license" usually never existed

Renting for under 30 nights in Thailand requires a hotel license, and ordinary condominium units in practice cannot obtain one; hotel licensing attaches to buildings that meet specific structural and zoning requirements, and most condo juristic persons prohibit daily letting anyway. So a resale condo marketed as a "licensed" short-term rental deserves hard questions: licensed as what, in whose name, and for which building. Stays of 30 nights and longer sit outside the hotel regime and are the realistic model for individual condo owners. Purpose-built, hotel-licensed investment projects exist, but there the license belongs to the operating structure, and your rights come from the management agreement, which is the document to lawyer, not the brochure.

The comparison at a glance

The clause that protects your money

If any part of the price reflects the rental license, the contract should say so and defend it. Four elements do the work:

1. Verification before commitment. Get the license or registration number and confirm it directly with the issuing authority: that it exists, is active, matches the unit and capacity advertised, and has no open sanction file. Do this before the reservation deposit, not after.
2. A condition, not a hope. Make the valid transfer of the license, or where the regime requires it, the successful issuance of a new one to you, a written condition of the purchase, with the deposit refundable in full if the condition fails. In the Balearics, put the express transfer of the ETV into the deed itself.
3. A price that reflects remaining life. Where the license has a legal expiry or a political countdown, as in Barcelona, price the remaining months, not the historic income.
4. A fallback you have actually checked. If the tourist license fails, what does the property earn on stays over 30 days, or as a long-term let under local rent rules? If that number does not support the price, the license premium was the whole investment case, and it deserves proportionate scrutiny.

Alongside the license itself, remember the operating stack that comes with it: platform registration numbers, tourist taxes, guest reporting, and the tax and reporting obligations on the income, which we cover in our guides to holiday-let licensing, tourist taxes by country, non-resident rental income tax and DAC7 reporting for foreign owners.

Frequently asked questions

Is a property with a tourist license worth a premium?
Only where the license genuinely transfers and new ones are restricted, as in the Balearics, and even then only after the authority confirms it is active and compliant. In operator-tied regimes like Croatia, or deletion regimes like central Athens, the premium can be paying for nothing.

Can the seller just put the license in my name?
Only if the local regime allows transfers at all. Where the authorization is personal or zone-restricted, no clause between buyer and seller can bind the authority. That is exactly why the deposit-refund condition matters.

What happens to my booking calendar if the license lapses at completion?
Bookings made for dates after you lose the right to operate are your legal risk, not the platform's. Do not take over forward bookings until the license position is confirmed in writing.

Are long stays a reliable fallback everywhere?
Stays above the local threshold (31 days in Barcelona, 30 in Croatia and Thailand, 60 in Greece's framework) generally fall outside tourist-license regimes, but they bring their own tenancy and rent-regulation rules. Check both sides before relying on the fallback.

Keep reading on JanusHermes

One habit prevents almost every problem in this article: verify the license number with the issuing authority before the reservation deposit, and make its transfer or re-issuance a written condition of the purchase. JanusHermes lists property from local agencies in 11 languages, with the local agency's own contact details on every listing.

Related reading: Holiday-Let Licensing, Airbnb-Hostile Cities, Mid-Term Rentals After Short-Term Bans, Airbnb Income by City, Short-Term Rental Investment and How to Hire a Real Estate Lawyer Abroad.

This article is general information as of 2026 and not legal advice. Short-term rental rules are among the fastest-changing areas of property law; always verify the current position with the issuing authority and an independent local lawyer before buying, and treat any listing's license claims as unverified until documented.