FURS has obtained data on income from Airbnb and Booking, and threatened those who profit with fines.
In a press release earlier this month, the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia (FURS) stated that at the beginning of 2018 they will implement tightened control of income received by renting real estate on a tourist lease (and also via online portals such as Booking, Airbnb, etc.). FURS has obtained data on the income derived from renting out property on a tourist lease, and suggests that Slovenian citizens check again whether or not they have reported all the income generated by letting out a property in this manner.
The deadline has been prolonged, and people still have until January 31, 2018 to do this, thus avoiding high fines for later or not payment.
In order to clarify and help you avoid fines, we have translated published FURS’ detailed press release from December 4, 2017. Check and see if you can lease property legally, and if you have fulfilled all the obligations.
1. Do you have a rental property on a tourist rental properly registered?
An individual can lease and advertise the distribution of free capacity for tourist purposes (e.g. via Airbnb or Booking) only if this activity is properly registered. Physical persons who advertise or lease real estate in a tourist lease and are not registered or declared the activity are doing illegal work (i.e. work on the black market).
Natural persons who would like to lease a room, part of a dwelling space or the whole space for housing tourists for a short period of time can carry out this activity in two ways:
a) if you are a registered lease owner, i.e. a natural person who engages in business only occasionally (in total no more than five months in a calendar year) and offer beds for up to 15 guests and are registered in the Business Register of Slovenia (AJPES). For more information about hosts you are natural persons,, please see the details in this PDF.
b) if you are a sole proprietor, you have an S.P. company. More information about a sole proprietor-beginner, who starts performing such activities, is explained in this brochure, in Slovenian.
2. How can I register "for the past period" and "for the future period" if I want to continue leasing real estate on a tourist rental?
Take the following steps:
a) In AJPES, you shall register your activity accordingly. So, register at the Business Register of Slovenia (PRS) and regulate your status ''for the future''.
b) If you want your company to have normalised expenses, you shall notify this within eight days of your registering in the PRS financial office.
c) Since the registration of AJPES activities cannot be done for the past period, you shall register at FURS with the DR-03 form for “retroactively” in the tax register.
d) If you want to be lease as registered company with normalised expenses you shall do this within a period of eight days after signing in the PRS and notify FURS.
e) You shall acquire a digital certificate (SIGEN-CA, SIGOV-CA, POSTA®CA, HALOCOM CA, AC NLB) and register in the e-tax system. You can get digital certificate SIGEN-CA for free. Read more about this at the e-Government website.
f) On the basis of self-application, via the e-taxes portal you can submit a balance sheet of personal income tax and the income tax from the past period when you leased a tourist rental (separately per period).
3. What if I do not intend to rent a property on a tourist lease in the future?
In case you earned this income only in the past years and also in 2017, and in the future you no longer have the intention to pursue the activities in question, you shall act in the same way as explained in point 2, so that you do not need to register activities and arrange your AJPES status “for the future period.” In this case, in the calculation of advance payment of income tax and income tax on income from the activities you shall predict the achieved income(s) from the real estate leased as a tourist rental for previous years and part of 2017 separately, and for individual tax periods.
In this case, too, you can, exceptionally, “retrospectively” determine the tax base with consideration of the standardized expenses if you decide on this, and if you notify FURS about this method of determining the tax base no later than eight days after the registration of the activity in the tax register “retrospectively”.
4. What if I rented real estate on a tourist lease as a legal entity or as a physical person with activity?
a) Check that you have included your earned income from the real estate rental on a tourist lease in your total income in the submitted calculation of advance payment of personal income tax and tax on income from activities for individual periods. All legal persons shall check that the income derived from the rental of real estate on a tourist lease has been included in their income in the submitted corporate income tax return. If you have not done this, you can submit a tax return for a tax period on the basis of self-application or as a correction to the earlier tax return.
b) If you are a natural person, check that you have a real estate rental activity registered for tourist leases (i.e. whether you have an appropriate SKD), or if you are not a legal person check that you have this activity listed in the founding act. If you do not have this you need to arrange this "for the future", otherwise you are doing an illegal activity.
5. What can you do to avoid fines?
If you fulfil the statutory obligations regarding the leasing of real estate as a tourist rental, and submit an advance payment of personal income tax and personal income tax on income and apply for this by 31 January 2018 at FURS, then you will avoid a misdemeanour charge and fines according to the related tax regulations. In this case, you will pay only 3% of the interest from underpaid or unpaid tax. This also applies to the calculation of corporation tax.
However, if you do not fulfil your tax liabilities regarding letting out real estate as a tourist rental and you continue renting in an illegal manner, FURS can start misdemeanour procedures against you and you risk paying a fine from 400 to 30,000 EUR.
In the context of tightened controls, more attention will be paid to the appropriate registration of services providers, as well as to the fulfilment of tax obligations.
So end this year and start 2018 legally, and avoid paying huge fines. You still have time until January 31, 2018, before the taxman starts getting ugly.
Source: FURS' press release PDF
