Letting your house on the lake: the rules, in the order you need them

The framework is regional law no. 13 of 3 August 2017 and its implementing regulation, Regional Decree (D.P.G.R.) no. 4/R of 8 June 2018, whose art. 14 governs those who let for tourist purposes for consecutive periods of up to 30 days¹. It is not an accommodation business: neither a change of use nor the requirements of a hotel or a B&B are needed.

Accommodation businesses (hotels, guest rooms, holiday homes run as a business) follow other rules and have a CIR in a different format, for example 001272-ALB-00282². Here we deal only with a private house let to tourists.

A 2023 ruling of the Piedmont Regional Administrative Court (TAR) reportedly annulled some provisions of the regulation: we saw it only cited in a search and do not know which articles it affects. Ask the municipality which version it applies.

Within 10 days of the first let you send the municipality the form in annex H of the regulation¹. The municipality assigns the CIR, the regional identification code, of 11 digits: 6 for the municipality's ISTAT code and 5 sequential.

The CIR must also be shown on booking portals. Since regional law no. 3 of 9 March 2023 (art. 124) the obligation applies to every promotional communication, online and in print; the penalty is €500 to €5,000, doubled for repeat offences².

The lake lies across two provinces (Novara and Verbano-Cusio-Ossola), but the region is one: the CIR rule is the same in Orta San Giulio and in Omegna. What changes is the municipal office you write to.

Since 1 January 2025 every unit let for tourist purposes must also have the CIN, the national identification code (art. 13-ter of Decree-Law 145/2023), which you apply for from the Ministry of Tourism's database of accommodation facilities³.

According to the specialist press the penalties are €800 to €8,000 for failing to apply for it and €500 to €5,000 for failing to display it³. We have not read the text of the law directly: take these figures as indicative.

Hosts must report their guests' details to the police headquarters (Questura) through the Polizia di Stato's Alloggiati Web portal, under art. 109 of the consolidated public security law; specialist sources indicate 24 hours from arrival, 6 for shorter stays⁶.

We have read this rule only in a secondary source, in summary: check timescales and procedures with the relevant Questura before your first guest.

On short lets (up to 30 days) an owner who is a private individual can choose the flat-rate tax (cedolare secca): 21% on the rent of a single property, of their choice, and 26% on the others⁴⁵.

From 2026 the budget law (Law no. 199 of 30 December 2025, art. 1 para. 17) applies the short-let regime only to those who let no more than 2 flats in the tax period: beyond that, the activity is presumed to be a business⁴⁵. What the threshold was before, we have not checked.

If the let goes through a portal or an intermediary that collects the rent, it withholds 21% as an advance payment⁴.

This whole section comes from secondary sources (tax journals, May 2026): the Agenzia delle Entrate's guide and the text on Normattiva did not load when we looked for them. A proposal from autumn 2025 that reserved the 21% rate for those not using platforms did not make it into the final text, according to the same sources.

If you are resident abroad, how these taxes interact with those of your own country depends on double taxation treaties: it is a matter for an accountant, and we do not summarise it here.

Some municipalities charge guests a tourist tax (imposta di soggiorno), which the owner collects and pays over. For Orta San Giulio we have found neither the resolution nor the rates, either on the municipality's website or on the Ministry of Economy's portal: we cannot say whether it applies or how much it is. The same goes for the other lake municipalities.

A return calculated by multiplying a nightly rate by 365 nights is fiction: the lake has a season, and empty nights appear in no rate. We do not publish yields because we have no reliable occupancy data for the lake.

If you are still choosing where to buy, the times from Milan, Malpensa and Switzerland are in the guide Getting here; the purchase taxes in Purchase costs compared.