Illegal home stays to be penalised

Home stay owners, who are running their units illegally without proper registration and necessary permissions, will be imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh and face disconnection of water and power in case on repeat violations.

Even though the Tourism Department had notified the Himachal Pradesh Home Stay Rules 2025 on June 25, 2025 complaints are being received that many home stays and bread and breakfast (B and B) units are being run illegally all across the state. Even though it is mandatory for the home stays to get themselves registered with the Tourism Department in many rural and remote areas, people are operating home stays illegally.

To check this trend, the department has now made it mandatory that all home stays will have to be registered not only with the Tourism Department but also with the local urban local bodies like municipal corporation, committees and councils and with the respective panchayats. The onus of maintaining record of the home stays and B and B units being run in their jurisdiction will lie with the urban local body or the concerned panchayat.

It is to rein in illegally running home stays that the state government had framed the Himachal Pradesh Home Stay Rules 2025. A Cabinet sub-committee had made the recommendations for the framing of these rules in consultation with stakeholders.

The hotel owners across the state had impressed upon the state government to regulate home stays. They said they were incurring losses as home stays had taken away a major portion of their business. They rued that while they were paying many taxes to the government, the home stay owners were making huge benefit without having to pay any taxes.

There are almost 4,500 home stays and guest houses which are registered with the Tourism Department across the state. The highest number of these home stays are in the districts of Kullu, Kangra, Shimla, Solan and Chamba. However, a large number of these home stays are running illegally.