Bologna, 11 February 2026 – The law on short-term rentalsthe Emilia-Romagna Region had adopted it on 17 December, after 48 hours of debates.
Today the Council of Ministers, according to what we understand, decided to challenge the law, resorting to the Consulta. Always in December the Council had rejected a similar appeal from the Government on the regional law of Tuscany.
What is it about? According to the regional law, made up of four titles and thirteen articles in total, the municipal administrations could intervene with their own urban planning tools and regulations, regarding properties intended for short-term rental, with the aim of differentiate the tourist market from the residential onebut maintaining the possibility of returning to ordinary use.
With the approved law, the Region, leveraging the urban classifications and powers for the Municipalities, has set itself the objective of bringing order to a sector which, in recent years, especially in urban centres, has developed exponentially and without a precise direction.
De Pascale: “Poor institutional culture of the Government”
“It is about – said the President of the Region Michele de Pascale – theyet another sign of poor institutional and constitutional culture of the Meloni Government. The Constitutional Court has already well argued the Regions’ full right to legislate on short-term rentals in the case of the Tuscany Region, but the Government continues to use the challenge, opposing it, as a political tool and not as a constitutional prerogative. If instead of boycotting regional initiatives they put in place something concrete on the right to housing or on incentives for hotel redevelopment, perhaps it would be better”.
Bignami (FdI): “Surprising statements from de Pascale. Always mutual institutional respect from Meloni, as he well knows”
“Surprise than a regional president you accuse the Prime Minister of having a poor institutional culture for having exercised ordinary prerogatives aimed at guaranteeing a certain and clear legal framework of our legislative system. An objective, moreover, foreseen by our legal system. It is surprising and saddening if Michele de Pascale does it who, beyond the merits of the matter on which I have a different opinion from his, exceeds in judgments, involving above all those who, like the Prime Minister, have always inspired institutional relations with mutual respect. Whichprecisely, de Pascale knows well and which I believe he was able to directly observe in his first year of regional government”. This was declared by the group leader of the Brothers of Italy in the Chamber of Deputies, Galeazzo Bignami.
The Democratic Party: “Disastrous policy”
“The government’s housing policy continues to be disastrous. Not only has no real act been produced regarding short-term rentals, but we learn that the government intends to challenge the regional law of Emilia-Romagna which acts as a barrier against the unruly spread of a phenomenon that Giorgia Meloni continues not to address. A serious and absolutely coherent choice”. This was declared in a note by Pierfrancesco Majorino of the Democratic Party secretariat, responsible for Housing Rights.
Rules also differ from city to city
With the regional law, therefore, the Municipalities would have the possibility of adopting more stringent rules, with the result that the owner who wants to rent a property for a short time must face a more complex urban planning process and comply with more stringent requirements than national legislation. Such as changing the intended use to ‘short-term rental’.
Learn more:
De Pascale on the CPR in Emilia Romagna continues: anger from the CGIL and pressure from the Brothers of Italy
The new intended use
The introduction of the ‘short-term rental’ urban planning use is the main innovation of the law approved by Emilia-Romagna.
To this new intended use all real estate units used for short-term rentals will have to adaptreserving to the Municipalities the power to limit percentages of short-term rentals in sensitive areas and prohibit subdivisions or demolitions for new short-term uses.
The other rules
Properties intended for short-term rentals will then have to comply with rigorous standards of safety, hygiene, energy efficiency and compliance of the systemswhile municipal administrations will be able to introduce further criteria of building quality, to qualify the offer and improve the liveability of the neighborhoods. Finally, another element concerns the tax lever: the Municipalities, in fact, will have the possibility to modulate the construction contributions linked to changes in intended use, increasing or reducing them by up to 30% to orient the market.
date:2026-02-12 00:45:00