SIBA deadlines 2026 — when you must file each guest

The exact SIBA filing windows for check-in and check-out, what counts as a working day, what happens if you file late, and how to stay inside the deadline every time.

Most SIBA fines are not caused by hosts refusing to file. They are caused by hosts filing a few days late, usually because they thought the clock started somewhere else. Here is exactly when the clock starts, when it stops, and what to do if you have already missed it.

The core rule

Every accommodation provider in Portugal must communicate each foreign guest's stay to the authorities (AIMA, formerly SEF) within three working days of check-in.

The clock starts on the day of arrival, not the day of booking and not the day the guest sends their documents.
"Working days" excludes Saturdays, Sundays and national public holidays. To check which dates count — including Madeira's own regional days — the Portugal public holiday calendar at Days Off Atlas lists them year by year.
The obligation is per guest, not per booking. Four adults arriving together are four separate records.

Worked examples

If you file on the day of arrival — which is what an automated guest form gives you — you never need to count at all.

Check-out: do you need to file it?

For the standard AL boletim de alojamento, the arrival communication is the legal obligation. There is no separate check-out filing to AIMA.

Do not confuse this with two other obligations that do use stay dates:

Tourist tax (municipal) — calculated on nights stayed, declared monthly.
INE / IPHH (WebInq) — monthly statistical return using arrivals, departures and overnight stays.

Filing SIBA on time does not discharge either of those.

Portuguese and resident guests

The SIBA obligation applies to foreign nationals. Portuguese citizens do not need a boletim de alojamento. However:

If in doubt about the guest's nationality, file. An unnecessary filing carries no penalty; a missing one does.
Keep the identification record for your own AL register regardless of nationality — that is a separate Turismo de Portugal requirement.

Late filing — what to do

If you realise you are past the three working days:

1. File immediately anyway. A late communication is still a communication, and the record shows you complied, if imperfectly.

2. Do not backdate the check-in to make the window look correct. That turns an administrative lateness into a false declaration.

3. Note the reason internally. If an inspection follows, a documented one-off failure with a fixed process behind it reads very differently from a pattern.

Fines for failure to communicate run per guest, so a single missed booking of six people is six breaches, not one. See the AL fines schedule for 2026 for current ranges.

Making the deadline impossible to miss

The practical answer is to stop treating filing as a task you remember and make it a by-product of check-in:

Send the guest form at booking, not at arrival.
Collect every mandatory field up front so nothing blocks submission on the day.
File on the arrival date automatically, well inside the three-day window.

That is exactly what Chave AL does: one guest link per booking, all SIBA fields validated as the guest types, and the filing sent on the check-in date.