Popular tourist areas such as Barcelona, Málaga, Madrid, and the Balearic and Canary island groups face significant housing shortages.
Nearly 65,000 vacation rentals advertised on the digital platform Airbnb have been ordered taken down by Spanish courts for violating various laws, expanding efforts to curb a popular tourist lodging option that critics say have exacerbated the country’s affordable housing crisis.
Spain’s consumer protection regulators cited violations, including missing license numbers, missing ownership records, and paperwork discrepancies, as reasons for ordering the removal of the listings. They ordered Airbnb to take down the listings, and a court in Madrid affirmed the decision Monday. The government ordered a phased approach to taking down the listings, with properties in Madrid and the region of Catalonia among the first slated for removal. Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, has already set a target of ending licenses for vacation rentals by 2029.
Airbnb has said the ruling is not consistent with E.U. and Spanish law or previous precedents in Spanish courts, and that listings will remain until the company has exhausted its options for appeal with Spanish courts. The company said that the consumer regulator had failed to provide enough evidence that the company’s vacation rental owners had violated the law.
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Airbnb argues that increasing the available housing inventory will alleviate the affordable housing crisis—not limiting how property owners can rent their properties. Regulators in Barcelona have proposed requiring owners of existing vacation rentals to either convert them to rentals for long-term tenants or to sell their properties to owners who would.
Proponents of restrictions on vacation rentals point out that housing supply has dwindled faster in markets popular with tourists, as the conversion of long-term rentals to short-term vacation rentals removes lodging options for residents in favor of tourists. Increasing the supply of homes without limits on vacation rentals would simply create more units that could be added to vacation rental inventories.
In order to help alleviate the housing crisis, Spain has also begun implementing plans to build more affordable residences and has proposed significant taxes on foreign citizens purchasing vacation homes. Skift notes that 321,000 homes in Spain had licenses to rent to short-term visitors, an increase of 15% since 2020, and that total doesn’t include homes typically operated as vacation rentals without a license.
But what do travelers bound for Spain this summer need to do? Nothing, for the moment, while the ruling remains subject to appeal in courts. However, consumers with existing Airbnb reservations in Madrid and Barcelona may wish to review alternative options should their rentals ultimately be removed from the platform. Airbnb typically offers guests alternative accommodations if the host they’ve originally chosen to stay with is unavailable.
It’s worth noting that only vacation rentals available through Airbnb are subject to the ruling. Other vacation rental platforms, and other lodging types, such as hotels, hostels, or timeshares, are not subject to the ruling.
Anti-tourism protests roiled Spain last year and have already taken place again during this spring’s Easter holiday. The price of housing and the public’s perception of vacation rentals’ impact on the cost of housing is one of several themes in the protests. The Bank of Spain estimates the country’s housing shortfall to be some 500,000 units, but it’s only building 120,000 units per year. Popular tourist areas such as Barcelona, Málaga, Madrid, and the Balearic and Canary island groups face even more significant housing shortages, with some tourism industry and other lower-income workers resorting to living in vehicles or caves.
Spain welcomed some 90 million visitors in 2024, making it the second-most visited country in the world after France. Government statisticians in Spain expect the country’s tourism industry to continue posting steady annual growth.
