Getting a hotel license for Airbnb type rental villa?

[MalcolmB]

I was just told that if I have pool villas I rent out to guests for less than one month that I will need to obtain a “ Hotel license” 

Obviously since most people don’t holiday for more than a month at a time to make a good profit it will be essential to have.

 

Someone on this forum will have done this I am sure. 

 

1) How much are they?

2) Which department gives them? 
3) Is there much waiting time for them to be issued? 

4) If I buy a villa that has already been rented out do I have to transfer it over and is there any cost to that?

5) any other pitfalls to be wary of?

 

Thank you in advance. 

[Liverpool Lou]

2 hours ago, MalcolmB said:

I was just told that if I have pool villas I rent out to guests for less than one month that I will need to obtain a “ Hotel license” 

The internet is a very useful thing. 

Apparently, if the building has less than four bedrooms and can occupy a maximum of 20 people, a hotel licence is exempted.    The district office is the place to apply.

[MalcolmB]

8 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

The internet is a very useful thing. 
 

 

sure is, that is why I asked on the Internet.

 

8 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Apparently, if the building has less than four bedrooms and can occupy a maximum of 20 people, a hotel licence is exempted.    The district office is the place to apply.

so 3 bedroom villas not required.

4 bedroom and up license required.

 

District office

2) answered

[simon43]

It also depends on the rules of your local Tessabahn office.  A hotel licence has a lot of regulations that are enforced.  But if you are not a 'hotel', then you still need an operating permit from your local Tessabahn, and that comes with regulations.

 

When I operated 4 small 'hotels' in Phuket, none of them were actually 'hotels'.  But they all still needed operating permits and the properties were inspected every year and permit fees paid.

[MalcolmB]

3 minutes ago, simon43 said:

It also depends on the rules of your local Tessabahn office.  A hotel licence has a lot of regulations that are enforced.  But if you are not a 'hotel', then you still need an operating permit from your local Tessabahn, and that comes with regulations.

 

When I operated 4 small 'hotels' in Phuket, none of them were actually 'hotels'.  But they all still needed operating permits and the properties were inspected every year and permit fees paid.

Thank you.
where the “hotels” villas?

[BoganInParasite]

The wife runs a three bedroom homestay out of our home in Nan province near Pua. We required an operating license and were subject to a four person inspection. They were happy based on her installing a fire extinguisher on the second level and security cameras inside the home trained on the front and back entrances. Recall she paid a fee and the process took a couple of weeks. We did install the equipment but they never came to check nor have there been subsequent inspections over the past five years.

[MalcolmB]

1 minute ago, BoganInParasite said:

The wife runs a three bedroom homestay out of our home in Nan province near Pua. We required an operating license and were subject to a four person inspection. They were happy based on her installing a fire extinguisher on the second level and security cameras inside the home trained on the front and back entrances. Recall she paid a fee and the process took a couple of weeks. We did install the equipment but they never came to check nor have there been subsequent inspections over the past five years.

Thanks for the real life information 

 

Sounds fairly simple and straight forward.

 

Good luck with it.

[itsari]

It appears that the hotel registration law has changed in 2023.

Excemption from requiring a hotel license has increased to eight rooms and 30 guests

[JBChiangRai]

In some places hotel licenses are rationed.

 

My friend opened a new hotel in Chiang Rai about 8 years ago and was told no hotel licence possible as too many hotels already.

 

I took that to mean the uber wealthy owners of the big hotels here had probably applied influence or the enforcement team wanted it that way for tea-money.

 

I have another friend running a few airbnb’s on the same housing estate, they list them separately even though they are all identical, perhaps it’s related to hotel licenses, I don’t know.

[MalcolmB]

1 minute ago, JBChiangRai said:

In some places hotel licenses are rationed.

 

My friend opened a new hotel in Chiang Rai about 8 years ago and was told no hotel licence possible as too many hotels already.

 

I took that to mean the uber wealthy owners of the big hotels here had probably applied influence or the enforcement team wanted it that way for tea-money.

 

I have another friend running a few airbnb’s on the same housing estate, they list them separately even though they are all identical, perhaps it’s related to hotel licenses, I don’t know.

Ok, good to know.

 

I think it will be best that I ask sellers to apply and obtain a license before I buy just to be safe.

[JoseThailand]

56 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

I have another friend running a few airbnb’s on the same housing estate, they list them separately even though they are all identical, perhaps it’s related to hotel licenses, I don’t know.

 

Even a single Airbnb room, if rented on a daily basis, requires a hotel license!

[Tropicalevo]

The rules vary slightly by location.

Here on Koh Samui, hotels complained about unfair competition from private villa rentals and so we were all told that we must have villa licences plus separate pool licences.

My accountant told me that there is no such thing as a 'Villa Licence'.

When we received the licences, the word Hotel was crossed out and Villa was stamped on it.

You need a list of things eg, fire alarms, fire extinguishers, pool sign of rules, depths, a safety ring for the pool and so on.

Most owners ask their accountants to do the grunt work.

[MalcolmB]

36 minutes ago, Tropicalevo said:

The rules vary slightly by location.

Here on Koh Samui, hotels complained about unfair competition from private villa rentals and so we were all told that we must have villa licences plus separate pool licences.

My accountant told me that there is no such thing as a 'Villa Licence'.

When we received the licences, the word Hotel was crossed out and Villa was stamped on it.

You need a list of things eg, fire alarms, fire extinguishers, pool sign of rules, depths, a safety ring for the pool and so on.

Most owners ask their accountants to do the grunt work.

Ok, great.

thankyou

[MalcolmB]

8 hours ago, itsari said:

It appears that the hotel registration law has changed in 2023.

Excemption from requiring a hotel license has increased to eight rooms and 30 guests

That is great news.

i was thinking 5-6 bedroom villas would be the most profitable.

So I won’t even need a license.

[simon43]

10 hours ago, MalcolmB said:

Thank you.
where the “hotels” villas?

No - they were purpose-built buildings with 5 guest rooms.

[simon43]

1 hour ago, MalcolmB said:

That is great news.

i was thinking 5-6 bedroom villas would be the most profitable.

So I won’t even need a license.

You won't need a hotel licence, but you will need licences/permits from your Tessabahn

[simon43]

[quote]

I have another friend running a few airbnb’s on the same housing estate, they list them separately even though they are all identical, perhaps it’s related to hotel licenses, I don’t know.

[/quote]

 

Actually, this is because the Airbnb 'system' was set up to rent out single properties or rooms. With other 'channels', such as Agoda and Booking.com, their booking system can manage multiple rooms and will interface correctly with the hotel's 'channel manager'application, which allows the property owner to place all available rooms on as many channels as they like, safe in the knowledge that if a customer books a room on one channel, the channel manager software will automatically deduct one room from the number of rooms that are advertised on all the other channels.

 

Airbnb cannot do this!  Their system interface to channel managers is .... krap!  So the only way that the owner of several rooms can advertise on Airbnb is to list each room separately, and then manually manage the channel manager room quantities for the other channels.

 

So... it's a technical problem, because Airbnb was not set up to list multiple, similar rooms by the property owner.

[MalcolmB]

20 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

The internet is a very useful thing. 

Apparently, if the building has less than four bedrooms and can occupy a maximum of 20 people, a hotel licence is exempted.    The district office is the place to apply.

 

Looks like you got it wrong again Lou.

Dont believe everything you read on the Internet.

 

 

10 hours ago, itsari said:

It appears that the hotel registration law has changed in 2023.

Excemption from requiring a hotel license has increased to eight rooms and 30 guests

 

[JoseThailand]

13 hours ago, itsari said:

It appears that the hotel registration law has changed in 2023.

Excemption from requiring a hotel license has increased to eight rooms and 30 guests

 

That makes daily Airbnb legal?

[itsari]

16 minutes ago, JoseThailand said:

 

That makes daily Airbnb legal?

I believe that Airbnb short term rentals are legal  

However in some condos they are not allowed.

That has nothing to do with what the original post was about.

[MalcolmB]

16 minutes ago, itsari said:

I believe that Airbnb short term rentals are legal  

However in some condos they are not allowed.

That has nothing to do with what the original post was about.

I will be doing pool villas, less than 8 rooms on individual land plots.

So totally legal.

Thanks everyone for your information.

[Peterw42]

10 hours ago, MalcolmB said:

I will be doing pool villas, less than 8 rooms on individual land plots.

So totally legal.

Thanks everyone for your information.

It appears you may have misinterpreted the laws. You will still need a license if you want to do short term rental.

It wont be a hotel license as the building is to small to qualify, but it will be either a hostel, guesthouse or homestay license.

 

The size of the building or number of rooms doesn't give you an exemption from getting a license, it just means smaller places (are exempt) don't qualify for a hotel license.

[itsari]

8 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

It appears you may have misinterpreted the laws. You will still need a license if you want to do short term rental.

It wont be a hotel license as the building is to small to qualify, but it will be either a hostel, guesthouse or homestay license.

 

The size of the building or number of rooms doesn't give you an exemption from getting a license, it just means smaller places (are exempt) don't qualify for a hotel license.

Is the homestay license mandatory all over Thailand?

Has there been any convictions for not having the license ?

Nobody seems to of heard of it in our area .

Thank you for making the homestay license known to use.

[itsari]

7 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

It appears you may have misinterpreted the laws. You will still need a license if you want to do short term rental.

It wont be a hotel license as the building is to small to qualify, but it will be either a hostel, guesthouse or homestay license.

 

The size of the building or number of rooms doesn't give you an exemption from getting a license, it just means smaller places (are exempt) don't qualify for a hotel license.

It seems as though the homestay license is run by the tourist board. You need to of been operating for at least 6 months before applying.

This is not looking mandatory.

[Tropicalevo]

On 6/4/2024 at 7:14 PM, MalcolmB said:

1) How much are they?

One owner has just renewed the villa licence.

The property has been rented out on AirBnb since 2015.

It is a three bedroom private villa.

This is the current licence from the Tessabaan here on Koh Samui.

Other places may be different.

Villa licence cost 500 baht

Pool licence Cost, 2,000 baht.

 

[itsari]

On 6/6/2024 at 6:49 AM, Peterw42 said:

It appears you may have misinterpreted the laws. You will still need a license if you want to do short term rental.

It wont be a hotel license as the building is to small to qualify, but it will be either a hostel, guesthouse or homestay license.

 

The size of the building or number of rooms doesn't give you an exemption from getting a license, it just means smaller places (are exempt) don't qualify for a hotel license.

It appears you are the one misinterpreted the short term rentals laws after much time looking into the subject.

Look forward to a reply that I am sadly not going to receive.

All the best Peter

[Peterw42]

53 minutes ago, itsari said:

It appears you are the one misinterpreted the short term rentals laws after much time looking into the subject.

Look forward to a reply that I am sadly not going to receive.

All the best Peter

 

I haven't misinterpreted any short term rental laws, its illegal without a license, end of story.

One person in Thailand says its not illegal, and that's you. 

 

 

[itsari]

12 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

 

I haven't misinterpreted any short term rental laws, its illegal without a license, end of story.

One person in Thailand says its not illegal, and that's you. 

 

 

Only me? Where do you get your misinformation from?

Short term rentals are not allowed in flats  for less than 30 days unless there is a hotel license applied to the building .

After that i find nothing that comes close to your statement that short term rentals are illegal in Thailand . 

Perhaps you could find some evidence of your claims such as a conviction for example. 

 

[MalcolmB]

On 6/7/2024 at 10:29 AM, Tropicalevo said:

One owner has just renewed the villa licence.

The property has been rented out on AirBnb since 2015.

It is a three bedroom private villa.

This is the current licence from the Tessabaan here on Koh Samui.

Other places may be different.

Villa licence cost 500 baht

Pool licence Cost, 2,000 baht.

 

Thanks

[Beachcomber]

Usually, the licensing department or the local business licensing authority handles this. Waiting times can range from a few weeks to a few months, so plan accordingly.

If you buy a villa that’s already been used as a rental, you’ll typically need to transfer the license, which may involve some fees.
 

One potential pitfall is ensuring that your property complies with local regulations and safety standards. I recently stayed at this place and found that good communication with property management can make a big difference in your experience.