‘Our largest problem’ – Barcelona to ban tourist holiday apartments by 2028

The city's leftist mayor, Jaume Collboni, said on Friday that by November 2028, Barcelona will scrap the licences of the 10,101 apartments currently approved as short-term rentals.

The decision comes amid soaring housing costs in Barcelona - Spain’s most visited city by foreign holidaymakers.

"We are confronting what we believe is Barcelona's largest problem," Mr Collboni told a city government event on Friday.

The boom in short-term rentals means some residents cannot afford an apartment. Rents rose 68pc in the past 10 years and the cost of buying a house rose by 38pc, Mr Collboni said. Access to housing has become a driver of inequality, particularly for young people, he added.

National governments relish the economic benefits of tourism, and Spain ranks among the top-three most visited countries in the world.

But with local residents priced out in some places, gentrification and owner preference for lucrative tourist rentals are increasingly a hot topic across Europe.

Local governments have announced restrictions on short-term rentals in places such as Spain's Canary Islands, Lisbon and Berlin in the past decade, and there have been protests against tourism models in the Canary Islands and Mallorca, among other destinations, this year.

Cities around the world are facing similar problems, and earlier this year, Venice rolled out a pilot “tourist tax” scheme that means day-trippers must purchase €5 tickets to enter the city.

Florence announced in October that it was banning new short-term residential lets on platforms such as Airbnb in its historic centre. It also offered three years of tax breaks to landlords of short-term holiday lets if they start offering ordinary leases for residents.

But Barcelona’s move may mark a freshly aggressive stance toward such short-stay apartments, which tourists often book through online platforms like Airbnb.

Airbnb has been approached with a request for comment.

Spain's Socialist housing minister, Isabel Rodriguez, said she supported Barcelona's decision.

"It's about making all the necessary efforts to guarantee access to affordable housing," she posted on X.

"Collboni is making a mistake that will lead to (higher) poverty and unemployment," Barcelona's tourist apartments association APARTUR said in a statement, adding the ban would trigger a rise in illegal tourist apartments.

Hotels stand to benefit from the move. The opening of new hotels in the city's most popular areas was banned by a far-left party governing Barcelona between 2015 and 2023, but Mr Collboni has signalled he could relax the restriction.

Barcelona's hotel association declined to comment on Friday's announcement.

"Those 10,000 apartments will be used by the city's residents or will go on the market for rent or sale," said Mr Collboni said of the measure.

Barcelona's local government said in a statement that it would maintain its "strong" inspection regime to detect potential illegal tourist apartments once the ban comes into force.

No new tourist apartments have been allowed in the city in recent years.

The local government has ordered the shutting of 9,700 illegal tourist apartments since 2016 and close to 3,500 apartments have been recovered to be used as primary housing for local residents, it said.