Apartments holding passports?

The apartment we are renting in Italy has already requested a copy of our passports to be provided at check in. I plan on using my drivers license for all "ID hold" requirements to obtian audio guides etc.

I've never shown my passport to any of my airbnb rentals (that I can remember - we did have to read over some papers and sign them for the one in Rome, but I think we just wrote our passport number on the form (I believe it was a short term lease agreement for him to be on the up and up with the tax man)...same in Cinque Terre - the lady renting the room just wrote down our passport number on a form).

But that being said, since airbnb does not have one set of rules and regulations, the owner may chose to do something different. It may help to have a photocopy of your passport you can leave with them...just in case.

Also - we didn't have to show our passports at the Vatican museum, but we went thru with a Walks of Italy tour...maybe that was different...no audio guides required.

We make copies of our passports and use those for providing identification.

You can take photocopies along with you in case they ask for it, or just ask them to take a photo of your passport with their smartphone. There's no need to hand over the real thing.

Most apartments we have stayed in just take a photo or record the info on arrival. We have never had to hand over our passports for more than 5 minutes.

According to an old Italian antiterrorism law, any person hosting a foreign citizen is expected to check the guest ID and file a report to police within 48 hours. I guess nobody on the police side really checks the reports, but if the host gets controlled and is not found to comply, there is a fine from eur 110 to 1160.

My experience is the same as the posters above. In the 1990's, the hotels would take the passports and hold them for a few hours while they recorded the information. Nowadays, they just copy the main page, and hand the passport back. If you bring a copy yourself, they usually just take that (although once when I was buying a SIM card, he copied the copy - I guess out of habit - and gave me back my "original" copy!).

We used vrbo- in Rome we had to
Give a copy of passports. In Venice, they did not ask.

Recent apartment rental in Rome, Only the passport numbers were required so done within minutes.
In two visits to the Vatican Museum we've never needed to show our your passport. You may need ID to recover any online tickets

Thanks to all for the feedback. When ID was mentioned in my Vatican research, I assumed it meant passport. Will a US driver's license be acceptable?

In my experience, some do ask for passports and some don't, but having a photocopy is always useful. I've never been to a place than turned down a US driver's license, or any other for simple registration purposes, but I'd still always have the passport copy ready first.

Never let any hotel or apartment 'hold' your passports. If they can't get the information immediately on registration then give them a copy. Never let them hold it for any length of time. Years ago I came own to the lobby of a small hotel in Siena and found our passports just lying on the counter of an empty lobby where anyone could just have picked them up and walked off with them. The hassles of a lost passport are enormous and no one cares more about this than you do; never let someone else 'hold them' for registration purposes.