Trade licence for accommodation services

Where is the line?

Whether you need a trade licence for rental is decided neither by the platform nor by the number of properties, but by additional services and regularity. If you provide guests with anything beyond bare rental — cleaning between stays, changing bed linen, handing over keys, assistance at check-in — and do so repeatedly with the aim of profit, these are accommodation services, that is, business activity requiring a trade licence.

Long-term rental without hotel-type services does not require a trade licence. But even a single flat rented out short-term, repeatedly, and with services meets the hallmarks of regular business activity.

Which licence

For ordinary apartment accommodation without restaurant services, this is standardly a free trade (voľná živnosť) in the field of accommodation services. Notifying a free trade is administratively simple and can also be done online via slovensko.sk. Check the exact wording of the subject of business when you notify it.

Why it does not pay to put it off

Under the DAC7 rules, digital platforms are obliged to report the income of accommodation providers to the tax authority. Relying on nobody finding out about the rental is therefore not a strategy — legalizing in advance costs less than a retroactive assessment with penalties.

Related content

An analysis of the line between rental and an accommodation service can be found in the guide Do I need a trade licence for Airbnb?, and the whole procedure before the first guest in the guide Starting with rentals in Slovakia.