SEF does not exist any more. The obligation it policed still does.
Every foreign guest who pays to stay in your property has to be reported within three working days. Miss it and the fine is charged per guest, not per season. Here is who you report, who you can skip, and what it costs when it goes wrong.
Same obligation, same portal, different agency on the letterhead
Almost every owner we take on asks the same question in the first week. Do I still send guest details to SEF, and if SEF is gone, who am I sending them to now.
The confusion is fair. The agency changed, the portal did not, and most of the advice still online uses the old name.
SEF was wound down
Decreto-Lei 41/2023 of 2 June closed the Servico de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras, and its work was split across several bodies from October 2023.
AIMA took the foreign nationals side
The Agencia para a Integracao, Migracoes e Asilo inherited the part that applies to you. PSP and GNR handle enforcement on the ground, with ASAE also competent on local accommodation.
The portal did not change
You still submit a boletim de alojamento electronically through the SIBA portal. When somebody says "report to AIMA", that is what they mean. [VERIFICAR: some sources now call it SIBAplus.]
Who, when, and what it costs
Most of the trouble we see comes from one of these three being misunderstood rather than ignored.
If the guest is foreign and paying, they go in
The rule people miss is the second row of this table. A Spanish or a German guest is a foreign national for this purpose. Being inside the EU exempts nobody, and on this coast EU guests are most of the bookings.
Portuguese nationals never enter the system at all, which surprises owners who assume every guest gets logged.
| Guest | Report them? | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Portuguese national | No | Outside the system entirely |
| Citizen of another EU country | Yes | The one that catches people out |
| Non-EU foreign national | Yes | Passport details required |
| Foreign national resident in Portugal | Yes | If they are paying to stay [VERIFICAR] |
| Children travelling with reported adults | Yes | Each guest is reported [VERIFICAR] |
Three working days from arrival
Working days, so weekends and public holidays do not count against you. A Monday check-in in an ordinary week gives you until Thursday. Three working days across the Easter weekend is more room than it sounds.
That is generous enough that there is no good excuse for being late, which is roughly the view an inspector takes as well.
The failure we actually see is not one forgotten bulletin. It is an owner who did not know the obligation existed, ran a full season without filing anything, and found out all at once.
Charged per bulletin, which is what makes it expensive
Reported ranges are roughly 100 to 1,500 euros for an individual and 500 to 10,000 euros for a company, per missing, late or incorrect bulletin, with the possibility of doubling for repeat offences.
Multiply the lower end by a summer of bookings and the problem is obvious. Ten unreported stays is not a hundred euro mistake.
[VERIFICAR: confirm the current penalty bands against Diario da Republica or a Portuguese lawyer before this page goes live. These figures come from secondary sources and the amounts matter.]
Four steps, and only the first one takes any time
Register the property
Once, on the SIBA portal. The accommodation unit has to be registered before you can file anything against it.
Collect ID at check-in
Passport or national ID card. You need the details rather than the photocopy, and be careful how long you keep any copy under RGPD.
Submit inside three working days
One at a time through the portal, or as a batch upload if you are running volume across several properties.
Keep the confirmation
The confirmation is your proof at inspection. "I submitted it" with no record is treated the same as not submitting it.
Your booking platform does not do this for you
Not Airbnb, not Booking.com, not any of them. The obligation sits with whoever operates the accommodation, and platform guest data is not a substitute for a submitted bulletin. This is the single most common assumption we have to correct with new owners.
The mistakes that actually cost owners money
Assuming EU guests are exempt
They are not, and on the Lisbon coast they are the bulk of the bookings. This one error can put an entire season out of compliance.
Filing a whole month at month end
The deadline runs per guest from their arrival, not from your accounting cycle. A tidy monthly routine can still be systematically late.
Reporting the booker, not the guests
The people who slept there are the people who get reported. The person whose card paid may not be one of them.
Losing weeks during a manager handover
Changing manager is where bulletins quietly go missing. If you are switching, ask in writing who is filing during the transition.
It is never hard. It just has to happen on time, every time, forever.
This is one of the least interesting parts of letting a property and one of the easiest to get quietly wrong for a whole season. It does not announce itself. You find out at inspection.
When we manage a property, guest reporting is part of the job rather than an extra line on an invoice.
- Check-in collects exactly what the bulletin needs
- Filed inside the three working day window, per guest
- Confirmations kept on file for when somebody asks
- Handled the same way in Cascais, Lisbon, Sintra, Margem Sul, the Algarve and Madeira
- Licensing and the rest of the paperwork handled alongside it
The obligation is national. The team is local.
The rule is the same in every municipality. What differs is who is on the ground when a guest arrives at eleven at night with a passport that needs recording.
Cascais and Estoril
Our densest cluster, and the highest share of EU guests, which is exactly the group owners wrongly assume they can skip.
Lisbon
Short stays, high turnover, and the most bulletins per property per month of anywhere we operate.
Sintra
Longer stays and a heavier international mix, so almost every booking generates a bulletin.
Margem Sul
The south bank, from Almada down. Growing fast with owners who are new to letting and new to the paperwork.
Algarve
Seasonal peaks that turn a manageable admin task into a genuine volume problem across July and August.
Madeira
Year-round occupancy, so the filing never gets an off season the way the mainland coast does.
Not sure whether you are compliant?
Tell us where the property is and how you are handling guest reporting today, and we will tell you what is missing. No charge, and no obligation to move your management.
Frequently asked
Do I still report guests to SEF?
Do I have to report EU citizens?
How long do I have to submit a boletim de alojamento?
What is the fine for not reporting guests in Portugal?
Does Airbnb or Booking.com file the bulletin for me?
Who inspects this?
I have not been reporting guests at all. What now?
Do you handle this if you manage my property?
This page is general information about a legal obligation, not legal advice. Rules and penalty amounts change. Confirm your own position with a Portuguese accountant or lawyer before relying on anything here.
Compliance that happens without you chasing it
We manage homes across Cascais, Lisbon, Sintra, Margem Sul, the Algarve and Madeira. Guest reporting, licensing and the paperwork that comes with letting a property here are part of the job. You get the confirmations, we do the filing.
