Which pays more, long-term or short-term rental?

There is no general answer: it depends on the place, the season and how full the calendar is. Compare what is left: take the platform fee, cleaning and empty nights off the short-term price, empty months between tenants off the long-term rent, and the tax off both.

Do I need a business certificate for long-term rental?

No: you can declare the rental income and pay the tax by 1 May of the following year. A business certificate for renting out residential premises is an option while rental income stays under €50,000 a year (GPMĮ art. 6(5)).

How soon must guest data be reported?

Within 24 hours of the day the guest is accommodated, electronically to the National Tourism Information System (Tourism Law art. 32(1)(3)). Children under 18 arriving with them are not reported, and rural tourism providers follow a different rule.

Is there a tourist fee everywhere in Lithuania?

No: each municipal council decides whether to charge it and how much (Law on Fees, art. 11(1)(11)). In Vilnius it is €2 per person per night.

Long-Term or Short-Term Rental in Lithuania?

Law checked on 8 November 2026 · Written by the AxiRent team

How do long-term and short-term rental differ?

A long-term let is a flat rented to someone who lives in it and pays monthly. A fixed-term residential lease must be in writing (Civil Code art. 6.579(3)). A short-term let is nights sold to guests, usually through Airbnb or Booking.com.

No law sets one number of nights at which a let becomes long-term. The Civil Code speaks of short-term residential leases for holidays and rest of no more than two months (art. 6.626(4)), and the Vilnius tourist fee, for example, does not apply to stays of 30 days or more.

What work does each one bring?

A long-term let is less work, but it repeats every month: the lease and the handover report at move-in, an invoice and meter readings each month, reminders when rent is late, a rent review once a year and the deposit settled at move-out.

A short-term let brings work with every guest: a calendar across several channels so no night is sold twice, replies to guest messages, arrival details, cleaning between guests, guest data for the state and the tourist fee.

What do you have to report to the state?

A long-term lease does not have to be registered, but only a lease registered in a public register holds against third parties: if the flat is sold, the lease binds the new owner only if it was registered (Civil Code art. 6.579(4) and 6.585).

Short stays for guests fall under the Tourism Law, which defines accommodation services as an activity that „provides the conditions to meet overnight and hygiene needs for purposes other than permanent residence“ (art. 2(2)). Whoever wants to provide unclassified accommodation services, private accommodation among them, notifies the authority named by the Government before starting (art. 31(1) and 34(1)).

Guests' data must be sent electronically to the National Tourism Information System within 24 hours of the day they are accommodated (art. 32(1)(3)). That part of the system is called „E. turistas“.

The tourist fee is set by each municipal council (Law on Fees, art. 11(1)(11)). In Vilnius it is €2 per person per night, not charged for under-18s or stays of 30 days or more, and declared by the 10th of the month. Airbnb adds it to the guest's price and pays the municipality itself. Since 15 June 2026 Booking.com collects it from guests and passes it to you with the booking's payout, and declaring and paying it to the municipality stays with you.

EU Regulation 2024/1028 on short-term rental data applies from May 2026. It requires registration numbers only in a country that has platforms send data to its authorities (art. 4(2)). We found no Lithuanian act that sets up such a registration when we checked.

How is rental income taxed in 2026?

Income from renting out a flat is not individual activity under Lithuanian income tax law (GPMĮ art. 2(7)(1)). From 2026, the yearly share of non-employment income up to 12 average wages (VDU) is taxed at 15% (art. 6(2)); the 2026 VDU is €2,312.15, so 12 VDU is €27,745.80. Above that the general 20, 25 and 32% scale applies (art. 6(1)). How these parts add up with your other income is for the tax authority (VMI) to explain.

When a private person pays the rent, you declare the income and pay the tax yourself by 1 May of the following year (art. 25(1), 27(1) and 27(5)): for 2026, by 1 May 2027.

Instead, you can buy a business certificate (verslo liudijimas) for renting out residential premises. It covers rental income of up to €50,000 a year, the fixed tax is set by the municipal council, and it is paid for each flat separately (art. 6(3) and 6(5); Government Resolution No. 1797).

That certificate does not cover guests: it allows renting „without providing accommodation services“, and accommodation services need the certificate for private accommodation services (the list in Resolution No. 1797). Whether your short-term let counts as renting or as accommodation services, and how income paid out by platforms is taxed, check with VMI.

Do neighbours have to agree to short-term rental in a block of flats?

The Civil Code has no such rule: articles 4.83 and 4.85, on flat owners' rights and decisions, do not mention short-term rental. Government Resolution No. 1178 names short-term accommodation only for one and two-flat houses in villages and homesteads (point 3²), and in a two-flat house it needs the other flat's owners' written consent (point 10).

For blocks of flats the resolution neither clearly allows nor forbids short-term accommodation, so before you start, ask the municipality and find out whether the building's owners have made decisions on its common parts (Civil Code art. 4.85).

Can you rent long-term and short-term at the same time?

Yes, as long as the nights do not overlap: one flat let long-term and another to guests, or one flat let short-term between two long leases. What matters is that the long-term tenant's nights are taken on Airbnb and Booking.com too, and that guest data and the tourist fee are handled for the short stays only.

How does AxiRent do it?

AxiRent keeps long-term tenants and short-term guests in one system. Long-term tenancies go out in the same calendar link, so Airbnb and Booking.com stop selling the nights while a tenant lives there, and the guest card prepares the guest registration file (E. turistas). More on long and short-term rental software.

Sources

This is general information, not legal advice. For a specific dispute, talk to a lawyer. The official texts of the law are in Lithuanian.

Long-term or short-term rental in Lithuania: what differs, and how to run both?