Accounting for guesthouses and accommodation facilities. Year One, from certification to the end of the season.

A bed-and-breakfast usually starts with an existing house and two or three spare rooms. It is precisely this ease of getting started that makes bed-and-breakfast accounting more complicated than it appears, because the home, the family, and the business share the same entrance, the same energy bill, and often the same cash register.

From our daily work, we see the same mistake every spring. The owner opens the listing on a platform, books three months, and only asks himself about registration in September, when the season is over and the discrepancy between the listed prices and the declaration is already obvious. This guide lays out the first year in order, from legal form to season closure.

Read also: Tax authorities are monitoring tourism in 2026; what you risk if you receive payments from platforms.

Natural person, LLC, or just an individual declaration

Short answer. If you only provide accommodation without services, you can declare the income as an individual in DIVA using 15%. If you offer services—such as reception, cleaning during the stay, breakfast, or active intermediation—you are engaged in business activity and must register.

The individual's path, when a DIVA is enough

Article 15 of Law No. 29/2023 treats income from renting real estate that is not derived from business as individual income. The rate is 15% on the net amount received, that is, after deducting the commission retained by the platform, and the declaration is made once a year with individual DIVA statement, until March 31 of the following year.

This route is legal and straightforward, but narrow. The law does not provide a numerical threshold separating simple renting from organized activity, so the boundary is determined by content. The more services you offer and the more continuous the activity, the closer you are to a business. Anyone who provides breakfast, daily cleaning, and guest reception is, in practice, engaged in accommodation activities, not rental.

Read also: How to report rental and investment income

Natural person or LLC, when you transition to business

For a family-run guesthouse with two to six rooms, natural person It is the common form. Registration is quick, maintenance costs are low, and profit tax is governed by Article 24 of Law No. 29/2023, namely a 15% tax on up to 1,400,000 lek in taxable profit. The downside is liability, because the individual is responsible with their personal assets.

Limited liability company It's worthwhile when there are co-owners who aren't related by family, when an investment is planned with debt, or when the property will be sold or inherited as a business rather than as a home. The additional obligation is clear: financial statements must be filed annually at the QKB by July 31.

The same ease applies to both formats. With annual gross income of up to 14,000,000 lek, The tax on profit is 0% until December 31, 2029., pursuant to Article 69 of Law No. 29/2023. The assessment is based on turnover, not profit, and the vast majority of guesthouses remain well below this threshold.

The activity code declared at the QKB

The code is not a formality, because from it every subsequent cross-reference of data begins. According to NVE nomenclature, Section I, Class 55.20 covers holiday accommodations and other collective accommodations, while class 55.10 covers hotels and similar structures. The practical difference is the service. When daily cleaning, bed making, and food and beverage service are provided, the classification assigns the activity to 55.10.

If within the inn there is also an establishment open to the public, it is a separate activity with its own code, 56.10 or 56.30. It covers how the cash registers, inventory, and payroll of such an establishment are managed. The Restaurant and Bar Accounting Guide.

The categorization certificate, before the first guest is expected.

The guesthouse is a recognized accommodation category under Law No. 93/2015 “On Tourism,” as amended by Law No. 30/2024. The list of categories includes hotel, motel, hostel, pension, guesthouse, villa, apartment, apartment block, room, agritourism, tourist village, campground, cultural heritage structure, and distributed hotel.

The official website of the responsible ministry supports the categorization under Order No. 267, dated July 24, 2019, “On the approval of the regulation on the manner, criteria, and procedures for the categorization of accommodation facilities.” The documents required there are the application according to the template, the self-declaration, the title deed or right-of-use certificate, the certificate of registration in the Commercial Register, the floor plan, the fire safety and hygiene certificates, photos of the facility, and the certificate of legal status.

The application is submitted through the e-Albania portal. The certificate is displayed in a conspicuous location, and any change to the submitted data is reported within seven days.

The January 2026 regulation: what we know and what we don't.

In January 2026, a new regulation was published for the categorization and certification of accommodation facilities. According to reports from that period, the application is made via self-declaration on e-Albania, and the review is conducted by the Commission for the Standardization of Tourist Activities within 10 days, Deficiencies are notified within 2 days with a 10-day deadline for correction, the field verification report is submitted within 5 days of the visit, and final approval comes from the minister. For the guesthouse, content requirements are specified, namely the traditional local style, information about activities in the area, and food that is predominantly traditional, using local recipes and products.

This information comes from secondary sources. The number and date of the act were not found in any official copy until September 19, 2026, so none of these deadlines are presented here as verified legal obligations. Before applying, request the current regulation number from the counter or the ministry, as your category criteria depend on it.

The relationship between the certificate and the 6% rate

Article 49 of Law No. 92/2014, as amended, links the reduced rate of 6% to the provision of accommodation services. The ministry responsible for tourism, for its part, presents the reduced rate as a benefit for categorized establishments. Thus, the tax text refers to the service, while the sectoral text refers to the certified establishment.

In practice, this means one thing for you. The certificate isn't decorative paper; it's the document that proves your service is accommodation. If you enter the VAT regime without the certificate and invoice at 6%, your position in an audit is weak. Getting the certificate in order before VAT registration costs far less than recalculating the difference at 20%.

Electronic guest registration, mandatory as of July 2026.

Law No. 83/2026, adopted on July 23 and promulgated on July 29, 2026, amended Law No. 93/2015. Every accommodation establishment is now required to carry out electronic registration of guests. The required data are the number of visitors, nights stayed, nationality, residence, gender, and age.

The obligation does not differentiate by size. It applies to a three-room inn just as it does to a hotel. The paper register is no longer sufficient, and the processing and storage of this data are subject to personal data protection legislation, so the system you use must not expose it to third parties.

There is also a practical consequence that often goes unnoticed. The electronic night log automatically becomes the second source of data for your facility's occupancy, alongside listings on platforms and the annual capacity declaration. All three sources should tell the same story.

Read also: New tourism law: five changes and the corresponding fines

Fiscalization, the cash register, and the POS at a guesthouse

Every payment requires a fiscalized invoice, regardless of whether the guest pays in cash, by card, or if the money comes from the platform. Taxation and invoicing They are a requirement of the booking, not of the payment method, and this is the most common misunderstanding among inns that work exclusively with Booking.

Accommodation establishments had until May 30, 2026 to equip themselves with a POS terminal, in accordance with Article 59/3 of Law No. 9920/2008, as added by Law No. 79/2025 of December 11, 2025. The remaining businesses have the deadline on December 31, 2026. Exemptions are narrow: areas without internet coverage and entities exempt from invoicing.

The cash payment limits, effective January 30, 2026, are 500,000 lek for a transaction with an individual and 100,000 lek between two businesses. Exceeding the limit is punishable by a 10.1% penalty on the transaction value. For a farm, this mainly affects payments to suppliers, while the cash register limit is 150,000 lekë for an annual turnover up to 2,000,000 lekë.

Read also: Mandatory POS, deadlines and exemptions

VAT: 6% for lodging, 20% for everything else.

The 61% rate applies only to the accommodation service. Breakfast, dinner, beverages, airport transportation, and any other services are billed at 20% on separate lines of the same invoice. The accommodation line description begins with the word "Room" and specifies the number of nights.

The classic seasonal mistake is the mixed package, namely bed-and-breakfast on a single line at 6%. At inspection the difference is recalculated at 20% and is accompanied by a fine for inaccurate declaration. Separating the lines is the cheapest protection available, and it costs only a little attention at the time of invoicing.

The threshold for mandatory VAT registration is 10,000,000 lek annual turnover, according to Article 117 of Law No. 92/2014, and the registration application must be submitted within 15 days of exceeding the threshold, pursuant to Government Decree No. 953/2014. Voluntary registration It is permitted for amounts over 5,000,000 lek and must be maintained for at least two years. For a guesthouse with several rooms, the threshold is rarely met, so most operate outside the VAT regime.

Read also: Accommodation facilities and taxes, VAT 6%, capacity and amenities

Profit tax, lodging tax, and capacity declaration

The profit tax for most guesthouses is 0% until December 31, 2029, because their turnover does not exceed 14,000,000 lekë. This does not eliminate the obligation to file. The annual return is filed by March 31 even if the tax is zero, and failure to file on time incurs a penalty of 10,000 lekë for VAT or profit tax payers, and 5,000 lekë for others.

The 5% standard for agritourism does not apply automatically just because the guesthouse is located in a village. It requires official certification as an agritourism operator, which is a separate procedure from the guesthouse categorization. Without that certification, the standard cannot be enforced.

The lodging tax is a municipal tax, not yours.

The sleeping tax is local tax According to Law No. 9632 of October 30, 2006, as amended. The basis is the accommodation rate, per room or per person, for one night. The guest collects the fee and remits it to the municipality, so it passes through your cash register without being your income.

The level is set by the municipal council, so there is no national figure and one should not be sought. Read your municipality's fiscal package for the coming year, because that's where you'll find the rate, the payment method, and the deadline. This tax is often forgotten by small inns, and when it's remembered two seasons later, the oversight has turned into a debt with late-payment interest.

Capacity declaration by January

Government Decree No. 160, dated March 12, 2025, requires every accommodation facility to declare its annual occupancy capacity by January of the following year in e-Filing. The reference levels are 651 TP3T for the high season, from May 1 to September 30, and 301 TP3T for the rest of the year.

A structure that fails to report at all puts itself in the weakest position, because the administration assesses utilization itself based on minimum levels. Disclosure on time, even with modest figures, is always a better position than silence. Actual variances, such as a shutdown for repairs or a weak season, are documented as they occur, not a year later.

Inn accounting, commissions, and equipment

Here the well-kept notebook stands out from the one kept in haste, and this is where most of the corrections we make at the end of the year come in.

The revenue is the guest's price, not the amount that arrives in the account.

This is the most common and costly mistake. When a guest pays 10,000 lek through the platform and the platform keeps 1,500 lek in commission, 8,500 lek arrive in your account. Your income is not 8,500 lek; it is 10,000 lek. The 1,500 lek commission is a separate expense and is recorded as such.

The tax outcome is the same in the end, but the documentation isn't. Whoever reports only the net amount ends up with lower revenue than what the platform reports to the authorities, and this discrepancy is precisely what the matching systems look for. Note that this rule changes for individuals reporting through DIVA, where the 15% rate is applied to the net amount collected, i.e., after the commission.

There is also a second consequence that few people know about. The commission on a foreign platform is a service received from a non-resident supplier. Article 24, paragraph 1, of Law No. Article 24(1) of Law No. 92/2014 provides that the place of supply of the service is in the Republic of Albania if the recipient, a taxable person acting as such, has here its seat of activity or a fixed establishment for which the services are performed. Therefore, the commission is considered supplied in Albania and is self-assessed for VAT by the recipient.

For a VAT-registered entity, this is usually neutral, because the self-assessed VAT is deducted in the same period. For a structure that is not registered, the treatment must be confirmed on a case-by-case basis, because we couldn't find the article naming the person liable for payment in the consolidated text we have on hand. If you work with Booking or Airbnb and you're not VAT-registered, ask them explicitly.

Equipment, rent, and household expenses

Furniture, air conditioners, the water heater, and kitchen equipment are long-term assets and are depreciated, not expensed in a single year. Linens, towels, cleaning supplies, and breakfast items are consumables, and the unexpended portion as of December 31 is recorded as inventory.

The most sensitive part is the allocation of expenses shared with family. The energy, water, internet, and heating of a house where two rooms are rented out are not 100% business expenses. Article 48 of Law No. 29/2023 recognizes as deductible the expense incurred for business purposes, so the allocation must have a written and consistent basis, for example the area ratio or the number of rooms. Choose a criterion, document it, and do not change it from year to year. A reasonable and consistent criterion is easy to defend. An ad hoc percentage at an audit will not be defended at all.

Also keep a simple record of nights sold by room. You'll need it for the capacity declaration in January, for the electronic guest register, and as your first line of evidence when someone asks why your turnover doesn't match the listed rates.

Seasonal staff, contract and contributions

The farm employs few people and only for a few months, so the temptation to work without a contract is great. The cost of that temptation is 200,000 lekë for each undeclared employee of VAT and profit tax payers, according to Article 119 of Law No. 9920/2008, and 50,000 lekë for others.

The proper form for the season is a fixed-term contract, tied to the season period and ending at its conclusion. Types of contracts They define when a fixed-term contract is valid and what happens when the relationship continues after the term.

Contributions are calculated on gross pay, with a minimum wage of 50,000 lek per month as of January 1, 2026. For a standard contract exceeding 87 hours per month, contributions total 27.91%, of which 16.71% is paid by the employer and 11.21% by the employee. For contracts under 87 hours per month, common for seasonal weekend work, the rate is 26.7%. Details are on the website. Salary and contributions.

The practical rule we apply with clients is simple. The employee must register before the first day of work, not after it, because an inspection can occur on that very first day. The exact procedural deadline is not specified in the current act, so we make it clear that this is a practical rule, not a statutory citation. The declaration is made to Electronic filing and the payroll is submitted by the 20th of the following month.

An issue that always comes up with family farms. If a family member works regularly, with a schedule and assigned duties, he is an employee even when he doesn't receive a paycheck. Treating him as a family helper doesn't protect the business during an inspection, whereas a minimum-wage contract for the seasonal months does.

The deadlines of the year for a dormitory

A farm year has its own rhythm. The season lasts only a few months, while the obligations continue all year, and it's precisely during the quiet months that deadlines are forgotten.

Read also: Tax calendar, deadlines of the year

Inspection and fines at a guesthouse

Tourism is no longer monitored solely by visits. The 2026 sectoral tourism plan compares invoiced bills with declarations on a week-by-week basis, scans public photos to see if the bills bear a QR code, and compares the prices listed on Booking and Airbnb with the reported revenue. A structure with passive status but active listings on platforms is classified as high risk.

Therefore, an inspection at a guesthouse begins with three discrepancies, not with documents. The discrepancy between the listed price and the declared revenue. The discrepancy between the recorded nights and the capacity declared in January. And the discrepancy between the cash receipts in the account and the invoices issued.

Violation	Mass
Failure to file on time	10,000 lekë for VAT or corporate income tax payers, 5,000 lekë for others.
Late payment	0.06% per day, up to 365 days
Inaccurate statement	20% of the difference
Undeclared employee	200,000 lek, or 50,000 lek depending on the taxpayer category.
Cash payment over the counter	10% of the transaction value

The above figures come from Law No. 9920/2008, Articles 113, 114, 115, 119, 120, and 121, and are the same ones that apply in every sector. The details and cases for reducing the amount are on the page. Major tax fines and interest charges. When the correction is made within 30 days of the audit notification, the fine is applied at a rate of 50%.

A separate provision comes from the new tourism law. If a guesthouse offers food or drink, the waste is collected and treated according to the new rules for tourist areas. We do not provide food safety sanctions in figures, because the chapter on penalties of Law No. 9863 of January 28, 2008, could not be read in any official copy.

Read also: Digital platform reporting: what's coming with DAC7

Innkeeping Accounting in Practice: Three Steps for Today

If you have a working farm and don't know where to start, start with these three things. Each takes less than an hour.

1. Compare the price displayed today on your listing with the average invoice you've issued this season. If they differ, you've found exactly what the comparison system is looking for.
2. Check whether you have the categorization certificate and whether its information matches what the QKB currently holds. Changes must be reported within seven days, and most entities are unaware of this.
3. Write on a single sheet the criterion you use to separate household expenses from boarding-house expenses, and keep it. This sheet is worth more than any verbal explanation during an inspection.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to register a business if I rent out two rooms on Airbnb?

If you only provide the accommodation without services, you can declare it as individual income in DIVA under 15%. If you offer breakfast, cleaning during the stay, or reception, you are engaged in accommodation activities and must register. The law does not set a numerical threshold, so the determination is made based on the nature of the service.

What is the VAT for a guesthouse?

61% for the accommodation service and 20% for breakfast, beverages, and other services, shown on separate lines. If your annual turnover does not exceed 10,000,000 lek, you are not required to register for VAT.

Does a small guesthouse pay income tax?

For gross income up to 14,000,000 lek per year, the rate is 0.3% until December 31, 2029. The annual declaration must be filed by March 31.

Is the Booking commission deducted from the revenue?

For a registered business, no. The revenue is the full price paid by the guest, and the commission is recorded as a separate expense. For an individual reporting on DIVA, the 15% rate applies to the net amount collected, i.e., after commission.

When is the utilization capacity declared?

By January of the following year, via e-Filing, in accordance with Government Decree No. 160 of March 12, 2025. If not declared, the administration will assess it itself at the minimum levels: 651 TP3T for the high season and 301 TP3T for the rest.

Is an invoice required if the payment comes from the platform?

Yes. The fiscalized invoice is tied to the transaction, not to the payment method. Collecting payment through the platform does not replace the invoice.

Does my farm qualify for the 5% agritourism rate?

Only if it is officially certified as an agritourism operation. Being located in the countryside is not enough, and being classified as a guesthouse does not substitute for that certification.

The legal basis and limits of this text

• Law No. 93/2015 “On Tourism,” as amended by Law No. 30/2024 and Law No. 83/2026, adopted on July 23 and promulgated on July 29, 2026. Categories of accommodation facilities, electronic registration of guests, and preliminary categorization certificate.
• Order No. 267, dated July 24, 2019, “On the approval of the regulation on the manner, criteria, and procedures for the categorization of accommodation facilities,” cited from the official website of the responsible ministry.
• Law No. 92/2014 “On Value Added Tax,” Article 24 on the place of service supply, Article 49 on the reduced rate of 6.1% VAT, and Article 117 on the registration threshold.
• Law No. 29/2023 “On Income Tax,” Article 15 on rental income, Article 24 on rates, Article 48 on deductible expenses, and Article 69 on the zero regime until December 31, 2029.
• Law No. 9920/2008 “On Tax Procedures,” Article 59 on limits for cash payments, Article 59/3 on POS terminals added by Law No. 79/2025 of December 11, 2025, and Articles 113 through 121 on sanctions.
• Law No. 9632 of October 30, 2006, “On the Local Tax System,” as amended, on the occupancy tax.
• Government Decree No. 160, dated March 12, 2025, on the annual declaration of utilization capacity.

Three boundaries of this text, stated openly. First, the new categorization regulation published in January 2026 could not be found with a number and date in any official copy; therefore, its deadlines and criteria are presented as secondary reporting and not as verified obligations. Second, the article designating the person required to pay VAT by self-assessment could not be found in the consolidated text we had on hand; therefore, for entities outside the VAT regime, the treatment of the platform commission must be confirmed on a case-by-case basis. Third, the chapter on infringements of Law No. 9863 of January 28, 2008, “On Food,” could not be read, so no food safety penalty amount is provided here.