As it was announced by Prime Minister Edi Rama, only accommodation structures will have priority for beach stations.

A regulation already published specifies the way to proceed for the next tourist season, where the entities must fulfill a series of conditions to benefit from usable space as a beach station.

The main one seems to be related to the fact that they are registered and categorized accommodation structures.

Applications will be made in e-Albania and everything will be done in cooperation with the local units, which will also have specific maps of available spaces.

The Ministry of Tourism has introduced a new regulation allowing private beach areas to be rented exclusively to hotel operators. Previously, businesses of all types were eligible to apply for private beach area rentals. The amended regulation, which aligns with the country’s 2024-2030 tourism strategy, aims to limit private beaches to 70% of the coastline's total linear length, down from the previous 80%, documents published with the country’s Official Gazette on Wednesday show. It also determines the umbrella count by considering the accommodation capacity, using a ratio of 1 room to 2 umbrellas.

Hotel operators must submit applications through the government’s online service portal, e-Albania. Rental contracts are issued on an annual basis.

In cases where the local units have contracts with entities that go until 2025, those contracts continue in the next season, even if they are not accommodation structures but only beach station activities.

In the report of the division of the public and private beach, the regulation defines clear distances from the sea line, between umbrellas as well as the ratio in 1000 m2 where at least 30 percent are public. Beaches where there are currently no mass accommodation structures, such as Divjaka and Fieri, according to the regulation, will pass with beach stations for bar-restaurants, setting conditions for the latter.

Likewise, regarding the division of beach categories, the regulation defines four typologies. "Beaches, based on the line of the sea or lake coast and other natural characteristics, are divided into type A, B, AB, and C beaches: a) type A beach is a beach with mainly sandy composition and a width of significant part of the beach strip, which is not less than 60 (sixty) m perpendicular to the sea or lake shoreline; b) type B beach is the beach mainly composed of rock and gravel and with a width of the beach belt, which is not greater than 60 (sixty) m perpendicular to the sea or lake shoreline; c) type AB beach is the combined beach, which contains characteristics of both types A and B; ç) type C beach is the virgin beach, for free use, in which no activity is allowed for the beach station, except maintenance and cleaning by the local self-government unit that manages it", the regulation states.

For each of the typologies, the conditions that must be provided by the private entity regarding hygiene, integrated services, or security are different.

Albania’s 2024-2030 tourism strategy focuses on increasing accommodation capacity to 477,000 beds by 2030, improving tourism-related employment, and introducing a flat tax for short-term rentals to streamline taxation and boost revenues.