How to choose Alojamento Local compliance software in 2026
A neutral feature checklist for comparing AL compliance tools — SIBA web services, tourist tax by municipality, INE WebInq, RNAL verification, pricing models and what to test before you pay.
There are now four broad categories of tool sold to Portuguese AL hosts, and they solve very different problems. Buying the wrong category is the expensive mistake — not paying five euros more per month within the right one.
The four categories
1. Compliance specialists (Portugal-only). SIBA/AIMA submission, municipal tourist tax, INE WebInq, licence records. Narrow, cheap, deep on Portuguese law. Chave AL sits here.
2. International check-in platforms. Guest identity capture and police reporting across many countries, usually with upsells and deposits. Broad geography, shallower on Portuguese municipal quirks like Madeira's per-municipality ecotaxa rules.
3. Full PMS / channel managers. Calendars, rates, channel sync, certified invoicing, with compliance bolted on as a module. Right if you need to run distribution; heavy and costly if you only need to stay legal.
4. Compliance-plus-operations suites. Newer entrants adding tax dashboards, regulatory monitoring and cleaning/ops task management. Broadest scope, highest price, usually monthly per-property.
The checklist that actually separates them
Score any tool you are considering against these. Every line is something hosts have been burned by.
Pricing models, honestly
Most of the market prices per property per month. At €5–10 per property per month, a six-unit building costs €360–720 per year. Suite products at €35–199 per month are priced for agencies running dozens of units, where the ops and tax features earn their keep.
Chave AL prices per year: €54 + VAT for the SIBA plan, €79 + VAT for Complete (tourist tax, statistics, document vault, complaint tracking), with extra properties at €2.99/year each. That is a deliberate bet that most Portuguese owners have one to ten units and want compliance, not a PMS.
Which is cheaper depends entirely on your unit count — do the annual arithmetic before comparing headline numbers.
How to test before you commit
1. Run one real booking end to end: guest form → SIBA submission → tourist tax line → INE row.
2. Use a stay that crosses a month boundary and check both monthly declarations.
3. Use a guest with no passport number and a child under 12 and see whether the validation and the tax exemption behave.
4. Ask for the municipality you actually operate in, not the demo one.
5. Check what happens when a licence is suspended or transferred.
If a tool handles those five, it will handle your year.
FAQ
Do I need compliance software at all?
No — the portals are free. Software buys back time and reduces the error rate on filings that carry fines. Below roughly two units, a careful spreadsheet is defensible.
Can I use a PMS and a compliance tool together?
Yes, and many hosts do. Sync bookings by iCal from the channel manager into the compliance tool so guest data is entered once.
What matters most in 2026?
RNAL accuracy and consistency between platform-reported nights, INE returns and tourist tax declarations, now that EU Regulation 2024/1028 shares that data with the State.
Chave AL — SIBA, tourist tax and INE compliance for Alojamento Local. Pricing · Guides · Glossary