What the checks found
The Comando provinciale of the Guardia di Finanza in Sassari ran the checks during the 2026 summer season from the Costa Smeralda to inland towns across northern Sardinia, with particular attention to Gallura, Gallura Oggi and Olbia.it reported. Officers checked booking-platform listings against the national accommodation database and made «numerosi sopralluoghi» (numerous on-site inspections). The administrative fines, over €116,000 in total, were for:
Running accommodation without authorisation
Not displaying the CIN, the national identification code, or the IUN, Sardinia's regional code
Safety irregularities in the properties
The command said several parties were fined but did not say how many properties it checked or how the fines break down, GrNet reported.
The Olmedo case
In Olmedo, between Sassari and Alghero, the owner of a short-term rental had no CIN or IUN and rented cars to guests at €50 a day without a VAT number or licence. Investigators estimated more than €60,000 in rental income had not been taxed. The owner, who also managed the property, was flagged to the authorities for running unauthorised accommodation and reported to prosecutors for not registering guests through Alloggiati Web, the police guest-reporting portal, Sassari Oggi reported.
The rules
According to the Ministry of Tourism:
Every short-term or tourist rental needs a CIN, shown outside the building and in every listing. Fines: €800 to €8,000 without one, €500 to €5,000 if it is not displayed.
Short-term rentals need working gas and carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers. Fines: €600 to €6,000 per violation.
Guest registration with the police is required by public security law, and failing to do it is a criminal offence, which is why the Olmedo owner was reported rather than fined.
The scale
Gallura Nord-Est had 15,926 registered private rentals with 76,471 beds in 2025, against 47,841 hotel beds, according to the regional tourism observatory. Across Sardinia, registered private rentals rose by more than a third in a year. Nationally, 506,296 of 590,291 rentals in the ministry's database have a CIN, the tourism minister told the Senate in October, ItaliaOggi reported.
The same Sassari command found irregularities in more than 90% of 72 rentals it checked in 2023, L'Unione Sarda reported.
Yachts in Porto Cervo's old harbour below the village. Photo: Klaus Bärwinkel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Sources: Gallura Oggi, 5 November 2026 · Olbia.it, 5 November 2026 · Sassari Oggi, 5 November 2026 · GrNet, 5 November 2026 · Ministero del Turismo, BDSR and CIN FAQ · Osservatorio Turismo Sardegna, capacity 2025 · ItaliaOggi, 9 October 2026 · L'Unione Sarda, 2023
Related reading
Elsewhere on Sardinia Blog: how Sardinia's tourism nights crowd into three summer months; Gallura's 35% share of the island's 21.9 million overnight stays; and La Maddalena park's plans for 2027.
Sardinia Blog is published within the Rental12 ecosystem, an owner-operator letting homes it owns in Olbia and Golfo Aranci. Its own tourism statistics page and its press archive are company statements, not independent evidence.
