INE and the IPHH survey: the monthly report your short-term rental must submit
The INE's IPHH survey is mandatory for AL owners selected for the sample. Here's what it asks, when it's due, and how to stay on top of it.
INE doesn't knock on your door — but it does send notifications. Many short-term rental owners only discover the IPHH (Inquérito Permanente sobre Habitação e Habitação) when one of those notifications lands in their inbox. If you have an active AL registration, there's a good chance you're already on the radar.
This article covers what the survey is, who has to respond, what information it asks for, and how to make sure this obligation doesn't slip through the cracks.
What the IPHH is and why it exists
The IPHH is a data-collection instrument run by Portugal's National Statistics Institute (INE) to map the country's housing stock — including the short-term rental segment. The goal is to produce official statistics on occupancy, pricing, and housing market dynamics.
For INE, short-term rentals are a meaningful data source: knowing how many nights were sold, at what average price, and with what occupancy rate helps build an accurate picture of the market. For you, it means one more reporting obligation alongside your SAFT file, your IRS declaration, and your entry in the national AL register (RNAL).
Bottom line: this is not an optional survey. Participation has a legal basis, and not responding carries consequences.
Who has to respond
The obligation falls on AL owners and operators who are selected by INE to be part of the survey sample. It isn't universal in the sense that INE doesn't contact every registered property at the same time — selection is done by sampling. But if you receive a notification, responding is mandatory.
Notifications are typically sent electronically, linked to the NIF of the AL registration holder. It's worth making sure your contact details on the INE portal are current, because a notification you didn't see doesn't exempt you from the obligation.
What the survey actually asks for
The survey collects performance data for your unit over a specific period — typically the previous month. The standard fields include:
- Number of overnight stays during the period
- Number of guests received
- Revenue generated from bookings
- Available capacity (beds or rooms, depending on your unit type)
- Days available for booking during the period
Most of this is information you already have — or should have — recorded for tax and day-to-day management purposes. The challenge isn't the complexity of the data; it's having it organised and accessible when the response deadline arrives.
Deadlines and what happens if you don't respond
INE sets response deadlines that are stated in the notification itself. Those windows are short — typically a few weeks after the end of the reference period — and there's no automatic reminder system to alert you when you're falling behind.
Failing to respond to a mandatory statistical survey is subject to fines under Portuguese statistical legislation. The exact amounts depend on the specific circumstances and whether the respondent is an individual or a legal entity, but the risk isn't purely financial: repeated non-compliance can create further complications with the authority.
The real problem: scattered information
Most AL owners don't miss these deadlines out of bad faith — they miss them because the information is spread across too many places. Bookings are on one platform, invoicing on another, guest records somewhere else entirely. When the IPHH deadline appears, pulling everything together in a hurry is a reliable recipe for errors.
This is where a structured approach makes a real difference. Having your occupancy and revenue data consolidated month by month — not just for INE, but for all your reporting obligations — turns a stressful scramble into a quick lookup.
How ALerta helps you avoid being caught off guard
ALerta brings your compliance obligations together in one place and alerts you when relevant deadlines are approaching — including IPHH deadlines, as requirements evolve and are incorporated into the platform.
The logic is straightforward: instead of having to remember to check whether a survey is pending, ALerta tracks it for you and surfaces the information at the right moment. You stay in control; we do the monitoring work.
What to do now
If you don't yet have a process for recording your AL's monthly occupancy and revenue data, now is the time to build one. You don't need anything sophisticated to start — a simple spreadsheet is already better than nothing.
What you can't afford to do is ignore a notification from INE. If you receive one and aren't sure what to fill in, the INE portal includes completion instructions alongside the survey — and the deadline starts running from the moment the notification is issued, not from the moment you read it.
The IPHH is one more piece in a growing compliance puzzle as Portugal's short-term rental sector matures. Knowing it exists — and having a system to handle it — is the difference between quiet compliance and an unpleasant surprise.