Barcelona to phase out 10,000-plus short-term rental licences by 2028

What Barcelona has committed to

Barcelona has notified Airbnb and other rental platforms that licences will not be renewed once they expire, Euro Weekly News reported. Anyone caught renting without authorisation after 2028 could face fines or lose the property's rental rights. The city will phase out more than 10,000 tourist apartment licences over the next three years, and once 2028 arrives those flats can no longer be rented to tourists.

Collboni said Barcelona could not continue losing homes to tourism while young people and families are pushed out. The Straits Times reported that Barcelona had already announced plans to ban all short-term rental accommodation by 2028.

The economic stake

Tourist rentals generate €1.9 billion for Barcelona's economy, about 1.9 per cent of its GDP, and support more than 40,000 jobs, according to a PwC report cited by Euro Weekly News. PwC puts the split at €331 million for restaurants, €181 million for retail and €134 million for leisure and culture. Barcelona and its surrounding region welcomed 26.1 million visitors in 2025, generating an estimated $15.4 billion in direct tourism spending, the Barcelona Tourism Observatory said, according to Fox News Digital.

Do bans cut rents?

The same PwC report questions whether tourist flats drive rents. Average rents in Barcelona rose 72 per cent between 2014 and 2023, while the number of tourist apartments grew just 2.2 per cent, Euro Weekly News reported. The city had already frozen new licences, so the count barely moved.

The Bruno Leoni Institute reviewed ten years of restrictions from Berlin to New York. It found that bans "almost always succeed in reducing the number of listings", sometimes drastically, but "only rarely" bring properties back onto the mainstream market, Il Sole 24 Ore reported. Where there is an effect on rents, it is minimal. In Berlin, a 2016 ban increased standard rental supply by less than expected. Each additional commercial listing reduced residential supply by between 0.23 and 0.37 units.

The Conversation reported that New York City's strict enforcement cut short-term listings by 90 per cent. Barcelona's 2014 ban on new registrations left an estimated 9,000 fewer Airbnb listings than there would otherwise have been, researchers found. That prevented an estimated 3 per cent of rentals from becoming short-stays.

EU rules and next steps

The European Commission has proposed the Affordable Housing Act. Reuters reported that a draft would set EU-wide criteria for "housing stress" and give authorities legal backing for targeted measures. POLITICO reported that the Commission was due to approve the act that week, and that Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen told it: "Short-term rentals are not the cause of Europe's housing crisis," but in some big cities "they are aggravating the problem."

The act still needs debate by EU countries and the European Parliament before it can become law, Reuters reported. Barcelona's phase-out is due to be complete in 2028.