Italy's Constitutional Court Strikes Down Emilia-Romagna's Short-Term Rental Zoning Law

Italy’s Constitutional Court has struck down the two core provisions of Emilia-Romagna’s short-term rental law, ruling that a region-wide change-of-use requirement, and the municipal zone rules built on it, breach the constitutional guarantees of equality and economic freedom. Judgment no. 164/2026 was filed on October 9 and published in the Official Gazette on October 14. The rest of Regional Law 10/2025 stays in force, and the Court confirmed that regions may regulate short lets through planning tools, provided the measures are proportionate and targeted.

The ruling at a glance

Item	Detail
Judgment	Sentenza n. 164/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:164)
Decided	July 7, 2026 (public hearing)
Filed	October 9, 2026
Official Gazette	October 14, 2026
Bench	President Giovanni Amoroso, rapporteur Giovanni Pitruzzella
Law struck down	Emilia-Romagna Regional Law 10/2025 of December 19, 2025, Articles 4 and 5
Challenger	Prime Minister, appeal filed February 16, 2026
Grounds upheld	Constitution Articles 3 (equality) and 41 (economic initiative)
Ground rejected	State exclusive competence over competition (Article 117(2)(e))

What was struck down

Provision	What it did	Outcome
Article 4	Created a specific planning use called locazione breve inside the tourist-accommodation category, so converting a home from residential use required building titles (a SCIA where no works were involved). It covered rentals of up to 30 days, including occasional ones.	Struck down as unreasonable and disproportionate
Article 5	Let municipalities designate areas where short lets were allowed or conditional, with options such as a maximum share of residential units, a three-year bar on change of use without works after renovation, extra quality requirements and service or parking conditions.	Struck down because it depended on Article 4

Why the Court found the rules disproportionate

Test	Court finding
Legitimate aim	Limiting overtourism is a worthy goal, because it shrinks the housing available to workers and out-of-town students.
Suitability and necessity	A uniform obligation across the whole region cannot target overtourism, which is concentrated in specific areas.
Equal treatment	Extra-hotel accommodation such as affittacamere and holiday homes can keep residential use even when run commercially, while short lets could not, with no protectable purpose behind the difference.
Scope	The obligation had no minimum usage threshold, so it also caught sporadic rentals, and it could not be justified as aligning planning use with actual use.

What regions can still do

The Court said regions may set quantitative limits on tourist rentals in defined zones, because a quota is not an absolute ban and ties short lets to the ratio of residential units in an area. It also kept in place the national Salva Casa rule (Article 23-ter of Presidential Decree 380/2001), under which a change of use cannot trigger extra requirements for service areas or parking in the cases it covers. The government’s other claims, including those on civil-rights standards and subsidiarity, were not examined.

What happens next in Emilia-Romagna

Every other provision of the law remains in force, so national obligations such as the CIN are unaffected. Regional housing assessor Giovanni Paglia said the Region will study the reasoning and adjust the law together with municipalities, adding that when the Constitutional Court rules, the Region adapts. The law has applied since December 19, 2025, in a region that logged more than 44.1 million overnight stays (+3.9%) and 13.2 million arrivals (+7.8%) in 2025.

Other regions and market context

Area	Status	Detail
Tuscany	Regime upheld	Judgment 186/2025 (filed December 16, 2025) cleared the challenged short-let provisions of its tourism code. High-density municipalities and provincial capitals can introduce five-year authorizations per unit, and units already let in 2024 are exempt for three to five years.
Puglia	Bill pending, not yet law	Approved by the regional government in May 2026 and by the council committee in July, it awaits a floor vote. Municipalities with high tourist pressure would set zones and caps, individuals renting up to two properties are excluded from restrictions, and a SCIA or CIA is required depending on whether the activity is entrepreneurial.
Puglia market	44,883 active units	Short lets represented 18.7% of 2025 arrivals and 17.1% of overnight stays.
Italy, CIN	89.48% coverage	As of January 14, 2026, 621,262 of 694,287 registered tourist accommodation structures held a CIN.

Why it matters

The judgment gives regions and municipalities a clear test for zone rules: a legitimate housing aim, measures aimed at the areas under pressure rather than a whole territory, no unjustified disparity with comparable operators, and attention to how intensively a unit is actually used. Puglia’s draft already differs from Emilia-Romagna’s on two of these points, since zones are set by municipalities and small owners are carved out, while Tuscany’s municipal authorization model has been cleared by the same Court.

Cover photo: Joshua Kettle on Unsplash.