Barcelona bans Airbnbs

Barcelona is to ban all short-term rentals in the city by 2029.

Barcelona’s Mayor, Jaume Collboni has announced that the city will immediately cease renewing existing short-term rental licences and stop issuing new ones, according to Bloomberg.

“More supply of housing is needed, and the measures we’re presenting today are to provide more supply so that the working middle class does not have to leave the city because they can’t afford housing,” said Collboni at a press conference.

Short-term rentals have been an ongoing point of dispute in Barcelona, prompting civilian protests.

New York City took a similar approach to short-term rentals with its Local Law 18, which created a supply crunch for the city’s hotels.

Data from Spanish analytics company Mabrian suggests that the 10 000-unit target of the city council likely underestimates the size of the short-term rental market, which the company places at over 15 800 units, adding up to 67,6% of the total capacity in hotels in the city. Many of these are not licensed.

“Controlling the non-licensed units still poses a challenge. That is why we insist on the need for measuring the lodging pressure or density as well as the actual tourist activity, using indicators that monitor all the accommodation availability in all online platforms, whether they are operating with a licence or not,” said Carlos Cendra, Partner and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mabrian.