Issuing invoices for your vacation rental in Greece is not as straightforward as sending a payment receipt to your guest. Since Law 5073/2023 tightened compliance requirements for short-term rental operators, every professional host must issue certified invoices that are transmitted in real time to the Greek tax authority (AADE) through the MyDATA platform. Miss a submission, issue the wrong document type, or get the VAT calculation wrong, and the minimum fine starts at €5,000.
This guide covers exactly how vacation rental invoicing works under AADE rules: what document types you need to issue, how VAT applies, how the invoice price calculation works, how to handle OTA commissions, and how to automate the whole process so you’re not logging into government portals after every checkout.
Who Needs to Issue Certified Vacation Rental Invoices in Greece?
Not every host in Greece is required to issue a certified invoice. The obligation depends on how many properties you manage and your legal classification under Greek tax law.
You need to issue certified AADE invoices if:
- You manage 3 or more short-term rental properties
- You operate through a legal entity (company, agency)
- You provide additional services beyond basic accommodation — cleaning, meals, airport transfers, or any service that goes beyond providing bed linen
- Your rental income is classified as business income rather than real estate income
You do not need certified invoices (but still have a separate declaration obligation) if:
- You are an individual renting 1–2 properties
- You provide no services beyond accommodation and bed linen
- Your income is classified as passive real estate income
For individual hosts with 1–2 properties, the applicable obligation is the Short-Term Stay Declaration (Δήλωση Βραχυχρόνιας Διαμονής), filed through a separate AADE portal. That process is covered in detail in our guide to [Greece Short-Term Rental Declarations]. This article focuses on certified invoicing for professional hosts.
The legal threshold comes from Article 111 of Law 4446/2016, as updated by Law 5073/2023, and is further specified in Circular ΠΟΛ.1187/2017, which establishes that hosts managing three or more properties and providing additional services are subject to VAT registration and full business tax obligations.
What Is a Certified Vacation Rental Invoice Under AADE?
A certified invoice (τιμολόγιο) in the Greek context is a tax document generated in a specific XML format and transmitted directly to the AADE MyDATA platform via a certified e-invoicing provider. It is not a PDF you generate manually or a receipt from your booking platform.
When AADE accepts the submission, it returns a MARK code (Μοναδικός Αριθμός Καταχώρισης — unique registration number), which is the official confirmation that the document has been recorded in the Greek e-bookkeeping system. That MARK code must appear on the invoice and must be stored for at least five years for audit purposes.
The MyDATA platform then updates two electronic books automatically:
- Detailed Entries Book — records every individual transaction
- Summary Book — monthly and annual totals used for tax return filing
Receipt vs. Invoice: What’s the Difference for Vacation Rentals?
This comes up constantly in practice. The default document for most vacation rental transactions is a receipt (απόδειξη), not an invoice.
| Receipt (Απόδειξη) | Invoice (Τιμολόγιο) | |
|---|---|---|
| When to issue | Default — for all guest payments | Only when the guest requests it |
| Guest data required | First and last name only | Full details including VAT number (ΑΦΜ) |
| Guest type | B2C (individual guest) | B2B (guest is a business, requests VAT invoice) |
| VAT treatment | Same — 13% applies | Same — 13% applies |
| AADE submission | Required via MyDATA | Required via MyDATA |
In practice: most vacation rental guests are individuals who don’t need a VAT invoice. You issue a receipt by default. If a guest requests an invoice (typically a business traveler who needs to claim VAT) you issue a formal invoice and require their VAT number. Both documents go through the MyDATA system.
How VAT Works for Vacation Rental Invoices in Greece
The VAT rate for accommodation services in Greece is 13%. This applies to the accommodation fare and any taxable services bundled into the booking.
VAT is calculated on the net amount (base price), not the total. The invoice shows:
Net amount (base): 109.68€
VAT 13%: 14.26€
Total payable: 123.94€Two additional charges often appear in Greek vacation rental invoices and are treated differently from the accommodation fare:
Environmental fee (Τέλος διαμονής παρεπιδημούντων): A per-night charge that varies by property category and season. This fee is not subject to VAT and must be reported separately on the invoice, outside the VAT calculation base.
City tax (Δημοτικό τέλος): Similarly excluded from the VAT base and reported as a separate line item.
This means the invoice calculation for a typical booking works like this:
- Take the total payment received from the guest (e.g., 125.49€)
- Subtract the environmental fee (e.g., 1.00€)
- Subtract other applicable fees (e.g., 0.55€)
- Calculate 13% VAT on the remaining amount → this gives you the VAT amount (e.g., 14.26€)
- The net base is the remaining amount minus VAT (e.g., 109.68€)
The guest pays 125.49€ total. The certified invoice shows the base, the VAT, the environmental fee, and any other fees as separate line items — even though the guest typically sees a single total at payment time.
How OTA Commissions Affect Your Vacation Rental Invoice
When you receive bookings through Airbnb, Booking.com, or Expedia, the commission structure matters for invoicing, and getting it wrong means you’re either over-declaring income or under-declaring it.
There are two scenarios:
Scenario 1: Commission embedded in guest price (most common with Booking.com)
The guest pays €150. Booking.com takes 15% (22.50€) and pays you 127.50€. But the total guest payment that appears in your records is 150€.
If you issue a certified invoice for 150€ without adjusting for the commission, you’re declaring 22.50€ in income you never actually received, and paying VAT on it.
The correct approach is to use Commission Rules to reduce the invoice base. Setting “Commission is included: Yes” for Booking.com at 15% means:
- Invoice base for accommodation: 150€ × (1 – 0.15) = 127.50€
- VAT 13% calculated on 127.50€: 16.58€
- Your declared taxable revenue: 127.50€
Scenario 2: Commission invoiced separately (less common)
The guest pays you directly. Booking.com invoices you separately for the commission. In this case, the full guest payment is your revenue, and the commission is a deductible business expense, it does not reduce your invoice base. Setting “Commission is included: No” means the commission is tracked for cash-flow reporting but doesn’t affect the certified invoice total.
The key variable is whether the commission is embedded in the price paid by the guest or billed to you separately. This varies by platform and contract type, confirm with each OTA before configuring your Commission Rules.
Credit Notes and Invoice Corrections
If a certified invoice is issued with an error, or if a booking is cancelled after the invoice has been submitted to MyDATA, you cannot simply delete or edit it. The MyDATA system records are immutable once a MARK code has been assigned.
There are two correction mechanisms:
- Credit note (πιστωτικό τιμολόγιο): Used to correct a partial amount. If a guest received a partial refund or a line item was invoiced incorrectly, a credit note linked to the original invoice adjusts the outstanding balance. The credit note also goes through MyDATA and receives its own MARK code.
- Annulment (ακύρωση): Only available on the same day the invoice was issued. If you catch an error the same day, you can annul the document entirely and reissue it correctly. After the same day, annulment is not possible — only credit notes.
This is one of the reasons real-time automated submission matters: the sooner you catch a data error, the more correction options you have.
The Manual Invoicing Process (And Why Most Managers Abandon It)
Without automation, issuing certified vacation rental invoices in Greece means working across two platforms:
Platform 1 — MyDATA Timologio (mydata.aade.gr/timologio): The AADE-operated platform where you issue receipts and invoices manually. Free to use, but requires manual data entry for every booking.
Platform 2 — Guesty or your PMS: Where your actual booking and financial data lives.
The manual process for each booking:
- Open Guesty, verify the financial data (the documents note that Guesty data is “not always correct” and requires manual verification before invoicing)
- Log into the MyDATA Timologio portal
- Enter guest first name, last name, and reservation date
- Enter the environmental fee based on the property category and stay duration
- Select document type (receipt by default; invoice only if requested)
- If invoice: collect and enter the guest’s VAT number
- Calculate the invoice total, confirm VAT split
- Submit — the system auto-calculates VAT percentage
- Receive and store the MARK code
For bookings over €1,000, MyDATA submission is specifically required. For smaller bookings, the portal is still the compliant path. There is no threshold below which invoicing is optional for professional hosts.
A typical property manager handling 20–30 bookings per month is doing this 20–30 times. Per month. Every month.
Automated Vacation Rental Invoicing with Chekin
Chekin’s Certified Invoices feature handles the full invoicing workflow for Greek vacation rental managers through its integration with Invopop, an AADE-certified e-invoicing provider.
Prerequisites before setup:
- Authorize ILYDA as your e-invoicing provider in your Taxisnet account
- Provide your company data for the service contract with Invopop
- Have your property active in Chekin with the correct country set to Greece
Setup process:
- Go to Certified Invoices in your Chekin property settings
- Activate Certified Invoices and select “Professional Host” from the connection dropdown
- Enter your company data: legal name, VAT number, address, invoice series prefix
- Configure sending settings: manual or automatic submission, schedule, default line items
- Set up Commission Rules for each booking source (Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, Direct, etc.)
- Configure VAT rates per catalog item (Accommodation: 13%, Environmental fee: 0%, etc.)
Once active, Chekin pulls booking data from your PMS, generates the XML document in the required AADE format, submits it to MyDATA via the Invopop integration, and receives and stores the MARK code, all without manual intervention.
The system handles:
- Automatic VAT calculation per item type
- Environmental fee extraction and separate reporting
- OTA commission extraction from the invoice base
- Receipt vs. invoice selection based on guest type
- Credit note generation for corrections
- City tax handling as a separate non-VAT line
Key Invoice Data Points Required by AADE
Every certified vacation rental invoice submitted to MyDATA must include:
| Field | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Guest first and last name | Guest check-in form | Required for receipts and invoices |
| Guest VAT number (ΑΦΜ) | Guest check-in form | Required for invoices only (B2B) |
| Reservation date | PMS / booking data | Date of stay, not date of booking |
| Accommodation amount (net) | PMS / booking data | Excluding fees and VAT |
| VAT amount (13%) | Calculated | On accommodation net amount only |
| Environmental fee | Property configuration | Per night × number of nights, by category |
| City tax (if applicable) | Property configuration | Separate line, non-VAT |
| Booking source / platform | PMS / booking data | Airbnb, Booking.com, Direct, etc. |
| Document type | Determined per transaction | Receipt (default) or Invoice (on request) |
| Submission category | Configured per item | e.g., “Accommodation Services” |
MyDATA Penalties for Invoicing Non-Compliance
The penalties under Law 5073/2023 for professional hosts who fail to comply with certified invoicing requirements:
- Failure to issue or submit certified invoices: Fine equal to 50% of gross annual revenue, minimum 5,000€
- Failure to take corrective action within 15 days of AADE notification: fine doubles
- Incorrect invoice data (wrong VAT, missing items, incorrect amounts): treated as non-compliance
AADE has been actively cross-referencing OTA platform data (Airbnb, Booking.com) with tax declarations since 2023. If the rental income reported on your tax return doesn’t match what the platforms report to AADE, you are flagged for inspection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Professional hosts, those managing 3+ properties or operating through a legal entity, must issue certified invoices (or receipts) for every booking and submit them to AADE’s MyDATA platform in real time. Hosts with 1–2 properties as individuals use a separate Short-Term Stay Declaration system instead.
Yes. Chekin’s Certified Invoices feature covers the full invoicing workflow for professional hosts in Greece — generating XML documents in the required AADE format, submitting them to MyDATA via Invopop (an AADE-certified provider), and storing the MARK confirmation code. It works for both receipts and invoices, and handles VAT, environmental fees, and OTA commission extraction automatically.
Through Commission Rules: you configure the commission percentage per booking source and specify whether it’s embedded in the guest price or billed separately. For embedded commissions (most common with Booking.com), Chekin reduces the invoice base accordingly before submitting to MyDATA, so you don’t over-declare income or over-pay VAT.
Guest data is collected automatically at online check-in. For Greek guests, Chekin’s check-in form requests the Tax Identification Number (ΑΦΜ). For foreign guests, it collects full name and passport number. Both are required fields when the Non Prohost / Short-Term Stay Declaration integration is active.
Conclusion
Issuing certified invoices for vacation rentals in Greece is not just an administrative task, it’s a legal obligation with teeth. The calculation is specific (environmental fees out, 13% VAT on the net, OTA commissions accounted for), the document types matter (receipt by default, invoice on request), and corrections after the same day are restricted to credit notes.
The manual process is doable for a small portfolio. For anyone managing more than a handful of properties across multiple booking channels, automating the submission through a certified provider is the only way to keep up with real-time submission requirements without building a part-time job around tax compliance.
The data AADE collects from Airbnb and Booking.com directly is increasingly detailed. The question isn’t whether your submissions will ever be checked, it’s whether they’ll match when they are.
Discover how Chekin can help you automate check-in, stay compliant, protect your property, and boost revenue saving 87% of your time and earning more from every booking.
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Read more about: MyDATA Greece: Guide for Vacation Rental & Hotel Managers
