A House bill filed in October would force Puerto Rico's short-term rental market into a single mandatory registry - and the numbers behind it explain why hosts, platforms, and the Tourism Company all have something to gain. ^[1] Start with the collections. Puerto Rico's Tourism Company recorded $142.5 million in room occupancy tax revenue in 2024, up 87 percent from pre-pandemic 2019. ^[2] Short-term rentals supplied $38.8 million of that. ^[3] The gap is concentrated where automation is weakest: of the $27 million in outstanding occupancy-tax debt owed by guests, $9.3 million traces to hosts registered directly with the Tourism Company rather than through platforms. ^{[4] [5]} The market itself has outgrown the 2003 law that was supposed to govern it. Short-term rentals grew from 28 percent of total lodging demand in January 2019 to 48 percent in January 2025, contributing nearly $77 million of the $207 million in lodging revenue that month. ^[6] Yet a 2026 study by Estudios Técnicos estimates roughly 33,000 short-term rental units on the island - and no official count exists, because the registration requirement on the books since 2003 has never been broadly complied with. ^[7] House Bill 1518, filed October 15 by House President Carlos Méndez Núñez and Rep. Axel Roque, would amend Law 272-2003 to create a uniform, mandatory island-wide registry and bar municipalities from banning short-term rentals outright. ^[8] It would also standardize responsibilities for digital rental platforms. ^[9] The host alliance Viva Puerto Rico backs the measure. ^[10] The bill awaits consideration in the January 2027 session. ^[11] And the split inside 2024's collection data is the tell behind all of it: 85 percent of the short-term-rental take - $32.8 million - was remitted through platforms with collection agreements with the Tourism Company, while individually registered hosts contributed just $5.8 million. ^{[12] [13]} The design choice worth watching is what the bill does NOT do: it creates no new tax. The occupancy tax already exists; what's missing is universal registration that makes compliance the default and collection verifiable. For hosts, a working registry means legal clarity and an end to the unfair competition of unregistered operators. For the 78 municipalities, it means finally knowing where the units are - and collecting the occupancy tax their visitors already owe. The gap the bill targets is not a broken market. It is a broken registry.