Digital infrastructure for better tourism governance.
Connecting accommodation registration, compliance, tourism tax and reliable statistics through one modular GovTech ecosystem.
Stronger cities. Fairer tourism. Real data.
Connecting accommodation registration, compliance, tourism tax and reliable statistics through one modular GovTech ecosystem.
Stronger cities. Fairer tourism. Real data.
About citytax
citytax is a Lithuania-based GovTech company developing digital infrastructure for public authorities responsible for tourism management. Our Unified Tourism Ecosystem Modules (UTEM) connect accommodation providers, government authorities and booking platforms through digital registration, regulatory compliance, tourist-tax administration and data-driven reporting. Rather than replacing existing systems, our modular approach enables integration with national, regional and municipal infrastructure.
One ecosystem
Integrated modules for the full tourism governance workflow.
Flexible integration
Works with national, regional or municipal systems.
Built for compliance
Aligned with Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 and national requirements.
Better decisions
Reliable data for a sustainable tourism economy.
The challenges
The rapid growth of short-term rentals, new European requirements and increasing pressure on local housing markets demand better tools for tourism governance. Yet public authorities often lack the connected data infrastructure needed to respond.
EU Regulation 2024/1028
The EU framework establishes common data-collection and sharing requirements for short-term rentals. Where registration schemes apply, authorities need reliable verification and interoperable reporting infrastructure.
Fragmented administrative systems
Tourism responsibilities are often distributed among national, regional and municipal authorities. Disconnected registers and inconsistent reporting processes make coordination difficult.
Short-term rentals and housing pressure
In some destinations, the expansion of short-term rentals increases pressure on housing markets. Authorities need reliable information to identify unregistered accommodation and develop proportionate policies.
Uncollected tourism revenue
Undeclared stays, manual procedures and disconnected systems can create gaps in tourist-tax collection and place compliant accommodation providers at a disadvantage.
Incomplete tourism statistics
When accommodation registers, mandatory statistical returns and platform data are disconnected, governments struggle to understand the size, structure and development of their tourism markets.
You cannot govern what you cannot see.
Case study
From fragmented reporting to a unified national approach.
In 2026, citytax was selected as the winner of the Data-Driven Tourism Management Challenge under GovTech Lab Ukraine. Working with the State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine, citytax is developing a government-focused digital platform that connects accommodation registration, mandatory statistical reporting and tourist-tax governance.
Unlike solutions focused exclusively on short-term rentals, the Ukrainian approach is designed to cover all types of tourist accommodation. The project is developed with national, regional and municipal administrative requirements in mind.
Read more about the project →
Government pilot in development. A working MVP demonstration is planned for November 2026 in Kyiv.
What UTEM covers
UTEM connects the essential functions of digital tourism governance. Public authorities can deploy the modules they need and integrate them with existing infrastructure.
Registration & Governance
Digital accommodation registration, property identification (UPN), public verification and administrative workflows.
Tourist Tax Administration
Digital tourist-tax registration, collection and reporting for authorities, hosts and tax agents.
Compliance Intelligence
AI-supported monitoring of accommodation listings and geographic analysis of potential registration gaps.
Platform Connectivity
A technical integration layer for online booking platforms and national reporting infrastructure.
Tourism Intelligence
Dashboards, statistical reporting, geographic insights and forecasting based on tourism data.
Accommodation Management
Property and channel-management tools connecting accommodation operations with the ecosystem.
Inside UTEM
How the UTEM registry works for authorities and hosts, what Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 requires, and the registration number citytax recommends.
Registration and UPN
Hosts register online. Property and business data are pre-filled from state registers, and an approved unit receives a machine-readable Unique Property Number.
Review and compliance
Officers work through a municipality-scoped queue with SLA tracking. They can return applications for correction and suspend or revoke registrations. Final decisions are signed with a qualified e-signature.
Tourist tax
Municipalities set tourist-tax rates and tax agents per accommodation category and year, backed by the council decision.
Monthly statistics
Hosts and booking platforms report arrivals, overnight stays and guests' countries of origin by web form, CSV or API, with validation and duplicate checks.
Analytics and map
Dashboards and an interactive map at national, regional and community level. Analysts see the detail; the public sees anonymised figures.
Public verification and platform API
Anyone can check whether a registration number is valid. Booking platforms verify numbers and submit activity data machine-to-machine.
Sign in with electronic ID
Data from state registers
Application and review
Registration number issued
Monthly reporting
Analytics and public verification
Regulation (EU) 2024/1028
Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 on data collection and sharing for short-term accommodation rental services sets one framework across the EU: how hosts and their units are registered, and how online platforms share activity data with public authorities.
01
Registration
Where registration applies, it must be online and simple, and issue a registration number immediately. Each unit gets its own number, which contains no personal data.
02
Platforms
Online platforms must show the registration number on each listing, randomly check numbers, and remove listings when an authority orders it.
03
Data sharing
Platforms send activity data every month, including nights rented and number of guests, through a national single digital entry point. Small platforms may report quarterly.
04
Verification and enforcement
Authorities can request corrections and suspend or withdraw registration numbers. Anonymised data feeds official tourism statistics.
UTEM gives a country or region the tools on the authority side of the regulation.
Our recommendation
The regulation requires a unique registration number for every unit: issued immediately, free of personal data, and verifiable by platforms and the public. It leaves the format to each Member State. citytax recommends the UPN (Unique Property Number), a fixed 21-character number built on EU standards, which UTEM issues and verifies.
Anatomy of a UPN
Example: a holiday apartment in Dublin, Ireland.
Fixed length
Always 21 characters in four groups. Easy to read aloud, copy into a listing and validate with a single pattern.
Built on EU standards
ISO country codes, NUTS regions and NACE activity codes: the number itself shows where the unit is and what kind of accommodation it is.
No personal data
Nothing in the number identifies the host or the exact address, as the regulation requires.
Cannot be guessed
The unique part comes from a cryptographically secure random source, not a sequence, so numbers cannot be enumerated or scraped.
No look-alike characters
0/O and 1/I are left out of the unique part, so numbers are not mistyped when copied by hand.
Verifiable by anyone
A free, public, machine-readable check. Platforms run it automatically; guests can check a listing themselves.
Shown on the listing
The host receives the number on registration and displays it in every advertisement.
Checked in the registry
A platform checks it through the API, or a guest on the public website.
A clear answer
The registry says whether the number is valid, suspended or withdrawn, without revealing personal data.
A public check returns
Never shown publicly
Machine-readable by design
One regular expression validates any UPN, so a platform can reject a mistyped number before it even queries the registry.
^[A-Z]{2}-[A-Z0-9]{3}-[0-9]{4}-[2-9A-HJ-NP-Z]{9}$The UPN is citytax's recommendation. Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 leaves the format of registration numbers to each Member State; it requires only that each number is unique, contains no personal data and can be verified.
This summary is for information only and is not legal advice.
Read the regulation on EUR-Lex →Built to integrate, not replace
No two countries manage tourism in exactly the same way. Some operate centralised national registries; others distribute responsibilities across regions, federal states or municipalities. UTEM is designed to work within both approaches, offering complete workflows where new infrastructure is required and integration layers where existing systems need to be connected.
For Regulation (EU) 2024/1028, this can include connecting regional registration systems with a national interface for the required platform data exchange, without requiring regional registries themselves to be replaced.
Contact
Whether you are modernising accommodation registration, preparing digital reporting infrastructure, improving compliance or looking for more reliable tourism data, we would be happy to explore how our solutions could support you.
