Where an alojamento local is actually registered in Madeira

Who receives the filing

The opening of an alojamento local establishment is done by mera comunicação prévia com prazo, addressed to the president of the câmara municipal in whose area the property sits, and submitted through the national Balcão Único Eletrónico, the Balcão do Empreendedor within ePortugal.

Decreto Legislativo Regional n.º 13/2015/M does not transfer municipal competences to the Region. Madeira operates no separate AL registration portal of its own. Someone who goes looking for a regional equivalent of the national counter is looking for something that does not exist, and will eventually find their way to the same national form as everyone else, later.

What the regional diploma actually transfers

Article 2.º n.º 1 of the regional diploma reads, in the original: “As competências atribuídas ao Turismo de Portugal IP são, na Região Autónoma da Madeira, exercidas pela Direção Regional do Turismo.” Those are the registration-administration and RNAL-side functions that Turismo de Portugal, I.P. holds nationally.

Article 2.º n.º 2 transfers the competences of the Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica to the Inspeção Regional das Atividades Económicas. The IRAE is the body that inspects and enforces in Madeira.

Article 5.º adds a detail that explains why the Region cares: the proceeds of fines applied constitute revenue of the Autonomous Region of Madeira.

Read the operative article closely and note what is missing from it. There is no mention of municipal competences, and the comunicação do registo is not named in it. The article moves two national bodies' functions to two regional ones. It leaves the câmara municipal exactly where the national law put it.

Why both popular answers are half the story

The first reading says the registration goes to the Direção Regional do Turismo, because the diploma transfers Turismo de Portugal's competences and some summaries describe those as including the registration communication itself. The second reading says the filing goes to the câmara municipal through the national counter, exactly as on the mainland, because the diploma transfers only the competences of Turismo de Portugal and of ASAE and never touches the municipal competence to receive a prior communication.

Both are partly right, and the correct description is the split rather than a winner. The filing goes to the câmara municipal via ePortugal. The DRT exercises the Turismo de Portugal functions behind it. The IRAE inspects. Picking one of the two camps is how a guide ends up telling a reader to file with a body that does not receive filings, or telling them the regional authorities are irrelevant to a business those authorities inspect.

That split is the single most useful sentence on this page, and it is also the sentence that no English-language source states in full.

The fire-safety rule that is genuinely Madeiran

Here the Region does depart from the mainland text, and it was read verbatim. Under art. 4.º n.º 1, AL establishments must comply with the fire-safety rules of Decreto-Lei n.º 220/2008 as adapted to the Region by Decreto Legislativo Regional n.º 11/2010/M, de 25 de junho, and with the technical regulation in Portaria n.º 1532/2008 as adapted by Portaria n.º 29/2013, de 22 de abril.

Under art. 4.º n.º 2, establishments with a capacity of 10 users or fewer*, source: Diário da República, Região Autónoma da Madeira, read August 26, 2026 are exempt from that regime. In its place they must have:

• a fire extinguisher and a fire blanket accessible to users;
• a first-aid kit accessible to users;
• the national emergency number displayed where users can see it.

Anyone applying the mainland fire-safety adaptation to a small Madeira unit is applying the wrong Portaria. The requirements happen to be modest, which is exactly why nobody notices the citation is wrong until an inspection.

The categories, and the cap per building

The categories are national. A moradia is an autonomous building of a unifamiliar nature. An apartamento is an autonomous fraction of a building, or a part of an urban building susceptible of independent use. An estabelecimento de hospedagem is an establishment whose accommodation units are rooms; where the majority of the units are dormitories, the establishment may use the designation hostel, subject to the specific requirements introduced by Decreto-Lei n.º 63/2015. Quartos are rooms within the operator's own permanent residence, subject to a numerical cap, and were added by a later national amendment.

The preamble of the regional diploma records that the three original typologies were maintained by Decreto-Lei n.º 128/2014, and that each operator may run a maximum of 9 units*, source: Diário da República, Região Autónoma da Madeira, read August 26, 2026 unless operating under the tourist-apartment regime instead.

The category is not cosmetic. It decides the applicable requirements and it decides the tax coefficient, which is set out in the obligations and tax guide.

How the filing is actually made

Authentication is with Chave Móvel Digital or Cartão de Cidadão. The Balcão do Empreendedor within ePortugal is then used to submit the mera comunicação prévia com prazo for alojamento local to the relevant municipality.

The filing records the holder and NIF, the address, the establishment name, the category, the capacity, the opening date and an emergency contact, with supporting documents uploaded. A registration number is then issued in the Registo Nacional de Alojamento Local.

The chain of reasoning behind the national counter is in the regional diploma's own preamble, which records that Portaria n.º 517/2008, following the Services Directive as transposed by Decreto-Lei n.º 92/2010, established registration through the Balcão Único Eletrónico. The Region did not build a parallel one, and the preamble is the evidence.

A holder without a Portuguese tax number cannot start any of this, see the NIF and the fiscal-representative rule.

Mais Habitação, and why the Madeira argument is now moot

Lei n.º 56/2023 suspended new AL registrations for apartamentos and for estabelecimentos de hospedagem within an autonomous fraction. Whether that suspension ever reached Madeira is genuinely contested, and this page carries both readings rather than resolving them.

On the first reading it did apply. The suspension article says em todo o território nacional, with an express carve-out only for the interior territories listed in the annex to Portaria n.º 208/2017 and no carve-out for the Autonomous Regions — even though other articles of the same law do expressly exclude them. That drafting asymmetry is the strongest textual argument that the omission was deliberate, and it is corroborated indirectly by the CEAL contribution regime, which expressly contemplated the Madeira and Azores legislative assemblies defining their own exclusions, something the Azores in fact legislated for.

On the second reading it did not apply in practice. The suspension operated through municipal containment zones and municipal opposition mechanisms designed around mainland urban pressure, and Madeira's municipalities did not operate them, so the suspension was inoperative in the Region whatever the wording said.

The first reading is textually stronger. The second may describe what actually happened administratively. The sources conflict and this page does not pretend otherwise.

What settles it for anyone acting now is that none of it is in force anywhere. Decreto-Lei n.º 76/2024, de 23 de outubro revoked the suspension of new AL registrations, the five-year term and mandatory renewal of registrations, the 2030 mandatory reappraisal of existing registrations, the automatic lapse of inactive registrations, and the general requirement of condominium authorisation for AL in a residential fraction, retaining that requirement only for hostels. The CEAL extraordinary contribution was separately revoked by Decreto-Lei n.º 57/2024, de 10 de setembro, with effects backdated to 31 December 2023.

So the dispute is now historical. It characterises the 2023 to 2024 window and nothing after it. What replaced the national blanket ban is municipal power to restrict through local planning instruments, exercised by each câmara municipal, which means the question worth asking in 2026 is about one municipality, not about the Region. Which municipality a property sits in therefore stops being a matter of postcode and becomes a matter of planning policy, and how the towns actually compare is worth reading with that in mind.

What this page infers rather than confirms

No regional diploma revoking or replacing Decreto Legislativo Regional n.º 13/2015/M was found. That it remains in force is inferred from the absence of a revoking act, not confirmed by an affirmative statement on a recent source. Because the national amendments operate on the base Decreto-Lei n.º 128/2014, Madeira applies the updated national regime through this adaptation.

The category definitions above were not read from the consolidated Decreto-Lei n.º 128/2014, so the wording is reported rather than quoted; the existence of the categories is not in doubt, only the phrasing.

Both of those are the kind of caveat a competitor would leave out. They are here because the difference between this page and the others is that the reader can see exactly how far the research got.

The condominium can no longer refuse, and can now object

Decreto-Lei n.º 76/2024 removed the general requirement to obtain the condominium’s authorisation before registering an Alojamento Local, keeping it only for hostels. It did not leave the condominium without a say. It replaced a permission with an objection, and the objection reaches an apartment and not a house.

Where the activity is carried on in an autonomous fraction of a building, or a part of a building capable of independent use, the assembly of condóminos may oppose it. That takes a reasoned deliberation approved by more than half*, source: Diário da República, Alojamento Local in an autonomous fraction of a building, read August 29, 2026 of the building’s permilage — by share of the building, not by counting owners — and it has to rest on proven, repeated acts that disturb the normal use of the building or that cause nuisance and affect the other owners’ rest. Dislike of short-term letting is not a ground.

The deliberation does not end the activity by itself. The assembly asks the president of the territorially competent câmara municipal for a decision, and the decision is the council’s.

A council may also write an AL regulation of its own, and a municipality that reaches 1,000*, source: Diário da República, Alojamento Local in an autonomous fraction of a building, read August 29, 2026 registered establishments has to decide expressly, within twelve months, whether to exercise that power. Such a regulation may — not must — designate a provedor do alojamento local to hear complaints and issue recommendations between residents, operators and condóminos. There is no national ombudsman, and how many councils have used that power is not published anywhere. Funchal has its own AL regulation, adopted in 2026, but whether it designates a provedor is not stated here and is unconfirmed.

For anyone choosing between a moradia and an apartamento with letting in mind, this is the whole of the difference. A standalone house has no assembly that can object. An apartment does, and the objection turns on how the flat is run rather than on whether the neighbours like the idea.