"A DGII identifier is required even for properties exempt from the luxury housing tax, opening the door for the tourist registry to end up being used as an indirect tax collection mechanism," the entity points out
SANTO DOMINGO.- After analyzing the proposal, the Dominican Association of Short-Term Rental Companies (ADORECO) warns of multiple gaps in the proposal prepared by the Ministry of Tourism (MITUR), highlighting that it could affect the country's legal security and impose obligations, administrative burdens and procedures that do not correspond to the nature of this activity or the diversity of the actors that comprise it.
The entity confirmed that last Friday, July 31, it submitted to the Ministry of Tourism an administrative document accompanied by a Risk Matrix and Legal Analysis on the draft resolutions that create the National Registry of Tourist Accommodation (RENATUR) and regulate short-stay accommodation services.
The document, prepared by the Association's Legal Technical Team as part of the public consultation process convened by MITUR, argues that regulation is necessary, but its current design needs technical adjustments before becoming a standard.
According to the analysis of short-term rental business owners, the draft resolutions are based on a legal premise that needs to be reviewed: they regulate short-term rentals with the same logic as traditional hotel, whose approach, they warn, could impose obligations, administrative burdens and procedures that do not correspond to the nature of this activity or to the diversity of actors that comprise it, from the small host to the professional operator.
The identified cracks
In what the entity calls the average host, it cites the following gaps:
▪ Triplicate procedure: the same property could be forced to register two or three times, on different portals, with different names for what is theoretically a single registration.
▪ Nobody knows who is responsible: owner, administrator and host appear mixed together in the text, without it being clear who is ultimately responsible to MITUR for each property.
▪ The same requirements apply to small businesses as to large ones: there is no category of "occasional host"; those who rent out their own homes sporadically are subject to the same documentary burdens as an operator with a commercial portfolio of dozens of units.
▪ A type of insurance that the market still lacks: a civil liability policy is required without verifying whether there is, today, a certified and accessible product for the small host.
For the legal security of the country
▪ The tax authorities' back door: an DGII identifier is required even for properties exempt from the luxury housing tax, opening the door for the tourist registry to end up being used as an indirect tax collection mechanism.
▪ Entire areas outside the system: requiring a definitive property title, without exception, would leave hosts in tourist areas such as Samaná and Pedernales out of the formal registry, where numerous properties are in active sanitation or demarcation processes before the Real Estate Jurisdiction and do not yet have a clean title.
▪ Double penalty for the same act: the project gives MITUR the power to sanction misleading advertising, a power already exercised by Pro Consumidor, which opens the door for the same host to be judged twice for the same thing.
▪ Guest and host data without clear protection: personal information would circulate between MITUR, digital platforms and the DGII without the text defining guarantees of consent or use of that data.
▪ A self-revising regulation: the project foresees a review every two years without opening, at that time, a new space for consultation with the regulated sectors.
The Matrix also proposes to protect bookings already made before the new rules come into effect, so that no host or guest gets caught in a rule change mid-way.
Progress meetings
According to the ADORECO statement, on July 20th there was a conversation with MITUR's legal consultant, Brenda Morales, in which the advisability of enabling a Technical Working Group before the final approval of the resolutions was discussed, and that from that exchange they sent her the Risk Matrix and Legal Analysis.
In the submitted document, the organization representing short-term renters requests that its observations be incorporated into the administrative file, evaluated before the regulation is signed, and discussed in a Multisectoral Technical Committee with representatives from the State, academia, specialists, business associations, and technological platforms.
“Our analysis does not question the need to regulate short-term rentals. On the contrary, it demonstrates that a technically better-designed regulation protects both the public interest and the legal certainty of those who carry out this activity,” highlighted Yajaira Sosa, president of the association.
To protect the process
ADORECO argued that the purpose of the Technical Committee is not to delay the process, but to safeguard it, maintaining that a resolution that does not incorporate these observations is exposed to being challenged before both the Constitutional Court and the Superior Administrative Court, and could end up being annulled after months or years of application, after insisting that it is preferable to correct the text before signing it than to litigate it afterwards.
He reiterated his support for modern regulation of the short-term rental sector, tailored to the country's legal, geographical, and cadastral reality, and reaffirmed his willingness to collaborate with the authorities in building a balanced, proportionate, and sustainable frameworkwith clear rules for all actors in the ecosystem: hosts, platforms, operators, and tourists.
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