The CIN is the national identification code that uniquely identifies every accommodation establishment and every property let for tourist or short-term stays in Italy. It’s issued free of charge by the Ministry of Tourism through the Banca Dati delle Strutture Ricettive, accessible with SPID or an electronic ID card, and it has been mandatory across the whole country since 1 January 2025. It must be displayed outside the building and stated in every listing, printed or online.
The requirement stems from Article 13-ter of decree-law 145/2023, converted into law 191/2023, and has a stated goal: to bring order to a market where dozens of different regional codes coexisted, often unable to talk to each other, and to finally make data on accommodation supply and short-term lets comparable.
Contents
What the CIN is actually for
Before the CIN, every region ran its own register with different criteria and codes: CIR across most of Italy, CITR in Liguria, IUN in Sardinia, CIS in Puglia, CUSR in Campania. A booking portal wanting to check whether a listing was in order had to know twenty different systems. The Banca Dati delle Strutture Ricettive instead brings together in a single national archive every establishment registered by the regions and assigns each one an alphanumeric code recognisable everywhere.
For a hotel operator, the CIN is a relatively simple administrative step, added on top of hotel classification and the municipal authorisations already in place. For anyone letting flats, on the other hand, it’s the linchpin of a whole new control system, tied into tax data flows and booking platforms.
Who has to request it
The requirement covers a very wide range of businesses:
- Hotels in the strict sense, along with tourist residences, hotel villages, motels and albergo diffuso setups.
- The whole non-hotel sector: bed and breakfasts, room lettings, holiday homes and flats, holiday houses, hostels, and farm stays offering accommodation.
- Campsites, tourist villages, stopover areas and glamping.
- Residential units let for tourist or short-term use, with or without additional services, regardless of the length of the contract.
The code is requested for each unit: a hotel has a single CIN, while someone managing five flats let short-term obtains five. Anyone operating as a business must also state the SCIA details and the identifying data of the activity. The subject overlaps with the chosen tax regime, because the rules on flat-rate tax for short-term lets and those on the identification code were built in the same period and with the same logic of traceability.
How to get it: the step-by-step procedure
The application is submitted online through the Ministry of Tourism’s Banca Dati delle Strutture Ricettive portal. There are no stamp duties, administrative fees or mandatory intermediaries: the procedure is free.
- You log in with second-level SPID or an electronic ID card, as the owner, legal representative or an authorised delegate.
- The system checks the regional archive and shows the establishments already registered under the applicant’s name. Regions are the ones that transmit data to the Ministry, so if something isn’t in order locally the portal finds nothing and the application stalls before it can start.
- You fill in the form with the property’s land registry data, the type of establishment, the number of rooms and beds, the operator’s contact details and the regional code, if one already exists.
- You self-certify that the safety requirements are met and that the information entered is accurate.
- The code is issued, normally straight away, once the data matches what the region has already transmitted.
If the establishment doesn’t appear in the database, the problem is almost always upstream: regional data not yet aligned, or a mismatch between the land registry record and the regional file. In these cases the correction has to be requested from the relevant regional office, not the Ministry, and the process takes a few extra weeks.
| Step | Who carries it out | Where | Indicative deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registering the establishment | Region or autonomous province | Regional portal | Before requesting the CIN |
| Requesting the CIN | Owner or delegate | Ministry of Tourism’s BDSR portal | Within 30 days of the regional code being assigned |
| Issuing the code | Ministry of Tourism | Automatic, system-generated | Immediate if the data matches |
| Displaying it outside | Owner or operator | Entrance or façade of the property | Before the business starts trading |
| Stating it in listings | Owner, operator or agent | Every listing and portal | Always |
Where to display it and how to state it in listings
The rule asks for two distinct things. The first is display outside the building, in a visible way, respecting municipal regulations and any restrictions on façades and historic centres: in a hotel, the most common solution is a small plaque next to the sign or the price board, in the same material and graphic style as the other mandatory information. The second is stating the code in every listing published, so on the property’s own website, on booking portals, on flyers and in social media ads.
It’s worth taking more care over the plaque than might seem necessary. Alongside the classification, the maximum prices and the other information that falls under an innkeeper’s obligations, the CIN ends up in the first thing an arriving guest sees. A mismatched set of plaques, fitted at different times and in different materials, signals carelessness before the guest has even walked in. When we design the entrance and reception of a property, the surface set aside for mandatory notices is designed together with everything else: same finish, same typographic hierarchy, same alignment.
CIN and regional codes: they coexist
The national code doesn’t replace the regional one. Where the region has its own identifier, both must be kept, and both must be displayed and stated in listings, unless local rules say otherwise. Nor does the CIN replace the other obligations: reporting guests to the police station through the Alloggiati Web portal, submitting statistical data, and managing the tourist tax where the municipality has introduced one. These are parallel tracks that keep running side by side.
Penalties: what forgetting it costs
The penalty regime has been in force since 2 January 2025, and the amounts are not symbolic.
| Violation | Administrative penalty |
|---|---|
| Listing or advertisement without a CIN | €800 to €8,000 |
| Failure to display the CIN outside | €500 to €5,000 |
| Absence of the required safety features | €600 to €6,000 |
The amount varies according to the size of the establishment and the seriousness of the breach. Penalties on listings apply to each irregular advertisement, so anyone who posts the same flat on four portals without a code risks four separate fines.
The related safety requirements
Alongside the CIN, the law introduced minimum safety requirements for units let short-term or for tourist use and for non-hotel establishments: working detectors for combustible gas and carbon monoxide, and compliant portable fire extinguishers, at a rate of at least one per 200 square metres of floor area, with a minimum of one per floor. Hotels remain governed by their own, stricter fire safety rules, so for them this isn’t an additional obligation but a requirement they already meet comfortably.
Anyone setting up an establishment from scratch would do well to treat the CIN as one of the final boxes to tick on the road to opening a hotel: it comes after the SCIA at the SUAP and after regional registration, and without those two steps the national portal has nothing to show. The same logic applies to anyone considering opening a B&B, where the sequence of obligations is shorter but the order stays the same.
What changes with the EU regulation
From 20 May 2026, the EU regulation on the collection and sharing of data on short-term accommodation rental services is fully in effect. Booking platforms are required to check that listings carry a valid registration code and to remove those that lack one or that display a code that doesn’t match. In Italy the recognised registration code is the CIN, which therefore moves from a formal requirement to a technical condition for staying visible on sales channels.
That’s why it’s worth checking now that the code stated in listings is exactly the one assigned, with no spaces, typos or old regional codes used in its place. By January 2026, the codes issued in Italy had passed six hundred thousand, a sign that the system is now fully operational and that cross-checks between the database, platforms and municipal authorities are technically possible.
Frequently asked questions
Where can you look up your establishment’s CIN?
The code can be viewed in the reserved area of the Ministry of Tourism’s Banca Dati delle Strutture Ricettive portal, logging in with SPID or an electronic ID card: it appears on the establishment’s record together with the data registered by the region. Once assigned, it stays linked to the property and doesn’t need to be requested again each season. If the operator changes, the record has to be updated in the database.
How long does it take to get the CIN code?
When the establishment is already correctly registered by the region and the land registry data matches, issuing is immediate once the online form is completed. The process only takes longer if the regional registration needs sorting out upstream or mismatched data needs correcting, and in that case it takes a few weeks. The application must in any case be filed within thirty days of the regional identification code being assigned.
Who issues the CIN and what’s the difference with the CIR?
The CIN is issued by the Ministry of Tourism through the national database and is valid across the whole of Italy. The CIR, and its regional variants, is instead assigned by the region or autonomous province under local rules. The two codes coexist: the national one doesn’t cancel out the regional one, which remains necessary for administrative and statistical purposes with the local authority.
Where must the CIN be displayed?
Outside the building where the establishment is located, in a visible position and in line with municipal regulations on signage and street appearance, as well as in every listing published on any channel. In practice you need a physical plaque at the entrance and the code stated on the website, on booking portals and in promotional materials.
