Home to long beach coastlines, the Catalan language and world-famous Gaudí architecture, the Spanish city of Barcelona attracts millions of visitors with its beauty — a situation, that while vital to the city's economy, has also contributed to significant overtoruism and overcrowding.
While only 1.62 million people call it home, over 12 million visitors came to the city in 2023. In response to local complaints about a worsening housing crisis and changing city demographics, Barcelona recently raised the tourist tax it adds to hotels and other accommodations from €2.75 to €3.25 ($2.95 to $3.45) per night.
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Over the last few years, Barcelona authorities have also been working to crack down on short-term rentals like Airbnb (ABNB) and VRBO. The first anti-tourism protest dates back to 2014 while in 2021 lawmakers passed a law that forbids owners from renting out rooms in their homes for less than 31 days.
'We need housing supply,' city mayor says
The latest and most extreme step fight against short-term rentals aims to ban all tourist rentals by 2028 and revoke the licenses of the more than 10,000 apartments that are currently listed on such platforms. While the legislation would need to be officially voted in by the Generalitat of Catalonia, left-wing mayor Jaume Collboni expressed his commitment to gradually starting to revoke the licenses of apartment owners renting out their spaces and not allowing new ones.
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"We need housing supply to grow so that people do not have to move out of the city and so that housing prices do not rise and start to fall," Colboni said at a meeting of government officials on June 21.
According to statistics shared by the mayor, long-term apartment rental rates have risen by 68% in the last 10 years while the price of buying a home rose by 38%. Multiple lawmakers have repeatedly argued that banning short-term rentals will open up the market for those who want to live in Barcelona long-term — in particular, young and low-income people who are currently being driven out of the city.
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Not everyone is onboard with Barcelona's plans to fully scrap tourist rentals
But the move also faces significant criticism from homeowners who rent out rooms or apartments for an additional source of income. Many also argued that the ban will contribute to the rise of an underground market (many already post illegal rental offers in different tourism social media groups.)
"Collboni is making a mistake that will lead to (higher) poverty and unemployment," APARTUR, which is Barcelona's main association for apartment rentals, said in a statement.
But despite the mayor's provocative statements, the law needs to be voted on and will likely be subject to multiple changes and amendments. A changing political landscape will also impact how future lawmakers choose to move forward with the ban. Until the 2010s, short-term rentals were already part of a "gray market" before city officials caught up with the growing numbers of homeowners renting out their apartments.
"For a long time, tourism was seen as nothing but a positive thing for the city, but now we’re starting to feel all of the impacts," Barcelona-based architect Mar Santamaría Varas told the New York Times in 2021.
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