The records every Alojamento Local must keep — and for how long

Guest records, SIBA confirmations, tourist tax declarations, INE WebInq receipts, invoices, insurance and safety documents — what to archive, how long to keep it, and the GDPR limits on guest data.

An inspection is rarely about what you did last week. It is about whether you can prove what you did two years ago. This is the archive an AL should be able to produce on demand.

The compliance file, per property

The operating archive, per month

SIBA submission confirmations for every foreign guest.
Tourist tax declarations and payment receipts, per municipality.
INE WebInq submission receipts.
Invoices issued through certified software.
OTA payout statements, showing tax collected and commission charged.
Occupancy records: arrivals, departures, nights, per unit.

Tax and accounting records generally follow the standard statutory retention period for business records; keep them for the full period your accountant specifies, not the period you find convenient.

Guest personal data is different

Compliance data and marketing data are not the same thing, and GDPR treats them differently.

Identity data collected for SIBA is processed under a legal obligation. Keep it only as long as that obligation and any audit window require.
Marketing consent (newsletters, review requests beyond the transaction) needs its own lawful basis and can be withdrawn.
Passport scans and document numbers are sensitive. Do not keep them in an email inbox or a shared drive.

Chave AL applies an automatic anonymisation policy to guest personal data after the retention window, keeping the aggregate statistics needed for reporting while removing the identifying fields.

Practical filing rules

1. One folder per property, one subfolder per year, one per month inside it.

2. Name files with the date first: 2026-07-tourist-tax-santa-cruz.pdf.

3. Store the proof of submission, not just your own calculation.

4. Photograph the physical requirements annually — plate, extinguisher tag, guest information panel.

5. Back it up somewhere that survives a laptop failure.

The Document Vault in Chave AL does items 1–4 per property with expiry reminders, and the statistics module regenerates historic monthly figures if a council asks for a period again.