- Thread starter MariaRubia
- Start date
When will Airbnb's need to be licenced
But this is the main issue. Remember that the president is a hotelier. Collada who is tipped to be the next president is a hotelier. The richest families like the Rainieris and the Vicini's are heavily involved in hotels. So there is a huge amount of power in that sector.
And the reality is that hotels have to be licensed. They have to pay 18% ITBIS. They have to have public liability insurance. They have to be owned by someone who is legally resident. They have to pay the Propina Legal. And Airbnb's compete with hotels but are often owned by people who live abroad and don't think of paying any taxes here or doing anything about things like insurance or safety. The association of hotels has been saying for years that Airbnb needs to be regulated and DGII has been saying that it needs to be taxed.
You u can make any amount you like but you pay tax on anything over 416200 a year under the IR2 rules.
The issue is worse because they ask for proof of residency and a bank reference from a local bank. As well as proof of registration with DGII. You can't do any of those if you aren't living here with residency legally
There it is 👆…we used to own and rent out our properties in Spain…way before Airbnb came along ….the new Dominican Airbnb regulations will most likely have the same effect as the Spanish Airbnb regulations did in Spain.….
But first - a quote from an article in Bloomberg yesterday… “ The Airbnb collapse is real. Revenues are down nearly 50% in cities like ……..”
So, you will most likely see a big decrease in Airbnb revenues and listings in DR too…
However ….the possible demise of a sharing economy platform like Airbnb will not necessary kill the sharing economy ….people will know to go back to doing what they did before Airbnb came along … or find new ways to keep their cash flowing…..
The government may find that they ‘ cured the symptoms and not the disease ‘ in their attempts to regulate tech-enabled tourism …pero , ya veremos !
Normally I am not in favor of more business regulation however I believe "sharing economy" businesses are the exception as they should all be held to same licenses, permits, requirements, taxes and operating standards as the businesses they compete with.
It's about the same how
some Uber-drivers operate, cancel the request (with your permission) and take the ride for themselves.And if there are more ways to work around it, for sure Dominicans will figure it out.It's about the same how
If someone uses the company Airbnb anywhere in the country, the result will be the same. That is because Airbnb will be forced to collect and pay the taxes for any such rentals. There would be no way to escape that except to turn the rental into a private agreement excluding Airbnb as I already mentioned above.
Agreed that rentals outside of the company Airbnb will be much harder to regulate even in the larger cities.
(As an aside, If you are a US Citizen living in the DR, Airbnb will also require you to provide your US tax information to them. )
Well so far none of this is happening and I doubt we'll see it any time soon. Time will tell.
I have to say that Ministry of Tourism here is way more slick than other government departments. Their website for applications has been very well written, it's easy, it's fast, it doesn't crash. And when something is out of date they are straight on the phone and won't let it rest. I think this is such a thorny issue for them that as soon as Airbnbs are required to register, they will police it very heavily.
Obviously don't forget Punta Cana / Bavaro, that's where the Rainieri's run the show, and she is head of the association of hotels. I think to be honest that the hotels themselves will help to police it, they'll just let MITUR know when someone is doing Airbnb without a licence.
I agree with your point about the north coast though, I'm always shocked when I'm there by how restaurants don't charge ITBIS and don't pay the propina legal to their staff. It's like another world.
After having credit cards cloned twice here and a third issue at Banreservas where someone ran my wife's Banreserva card in Santiago when we were in the US on vacation and Banreservas would not refund the charges, I have my reasons to not use credit cards here.
I was one of the first people on the north coast to sign up as an Airbnb host. They asked me to be their "ambassador" in the DR.
What that really meant was they wanted me to sign up my competition. I declined. Over time Airbnb has provided far worse clients
along with become far more prone to being anal retentive and are being regulated (and even banned) over time in various locations.
Once again, anyone using Airbnb will "be in the system" however the DR government and Airbnb set that up. Those Airbnb's will be regulated and paying.
They would have to catch people renting directly or via other companies.... Much harder to police that anywhere on the island.
Dominicans will figure out ways around it, just like the north coast people have regarding Itibis, etc. until we reach the totally cashless society where big brother will see every peso. (and then people will switch to something else like, uhm Bitcoin,....)
I think what is collapsing is not specifically Airbnb but the market for apartment rentals rather than hotel stays. I think some of this is because on a short stay, people like having a front desk and someone on-site to deal with problems. All of us have rented an Airbnb and something has gone wrong or is not working and it spoils the trip. And I think people like having their breakfast cooked and having a bit of pampering, which they don't get in an Airbnb. And on top of that, a lot of apartment blocks have been marketed as Airbnb friendly - I have been living in one myself for the last few months, and I can't stand it any more and am moving. Troops of teenagers having parties, trashing the apartments, trashing the pool, immigration raids because there are so many Haitians staying, guns being pulled. The Airbnb's are seriously struggling, so have lowered their prices, attracting trashy guests, this then makes life hell for the permanent residents and they move out. It's happened all over the world, and governments have regulated it pretty much everywhere else.
Who is the best and the worst for you? VRBO, Booking, or Airbnb? I seem to have the most problems with Booking in the DR.
I had a run-in with Airbnb last year, and despite all their coochie coo "we love our community" BS, they are quite a nasty company under the surface. Their commission is non refundable, under any circumstances. They take their cheese and zero responsibility when things go wrong. And when I did a chargeback on my Amex, then Airbnb accused me of not playing fair, and if I did it again they wouldn't want me to be part of their "family".