At today's meeting, the government approved the special status decision for investors who would build 4- and 5-star hotels in Albania.
According to this decision, for obtaining this status, the investor must meet certain criteria while there will be tax incentives for several years.
In order to win this status, the value of the investment for the construction of accommodation structures should be over 8 million euros for 4-star hotels and 15 million euros for 5-star hotels.The government gives importance to the investments in areas with tourism priority.
If applying for a 4-star special status, the subject must have invested in building or manages at least 5 (five) accommodation facilities in the field of tourism, which are licensed with 4 and 5 stars by the licensing authorities of the respective countries and if applying for a special 5 star status, must have built and / or manages at least 5 (five) accommodation facilities in the field of tourism, which are licensed with 5 stars by the competent authorities.
The accommodation facilities must be located in at least 3 EU countries, and in cases where accommodation structures are not located in at least 3 EU countries, the applicant must have invested in building and / or manages at least 8 (eight) accommodation facilities in the area of tourism, which are licensed with 4 or 5 stars (as appropriate) by the competent authorities, which are located in international tourism destinations.
To get this special status, which facilitates taxes for several years, the investor should not have been convicted.
With regard to the economic and financial criteria of qualification, the applicant should have been running at least 40% of the investment value in the last three financial years.
If the applicant is an SPV, then all the qualification criteria set out in this heading will be met by the parent company. In this case, the parent company is jointly and severally liable with the contractual obligations of the SPV arising out of the special status.
If the applicant is a Joint Venture or Consortium then all the qualification criteria given in this heading must be filled out by all Joint Venture or Consortium companies together. In this case, all companies part of the Joint Venture or Consortium are jointly and severally liable with the Joint Venture or Consortium contractual obligations arising from the special status. Investors applying for a 4-star hotel must pay the application fee of Lek 200,000 (two hundred thousand) to the authority, while those for 5-star hotels have to pay the application fee of Lek 300,000 (three hundred thousand).