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Spain: Spain’s housing ministry (MIVAV) is directing short-term rental platforms to take down 86,275 illegal listings across the country under a new registration law.
Those residences applied for a registration number, mandatory since July, but failed to meet legal prerequisites. Now, the Spanish government has ordered online booking platforms to take listings without valid tourist or temporary rental licences off-market.
In establishing the first short-term rental registry in Europe last summer, Madrid hoped to ease a tight rental market, slow gentrification and make housing cheaper — it hopes listings denied registration will return to the larger market.
Those required to register faced a €500,000 fine if they did not apply. Rentals over 12 months, or those made offline, are not subject to MIVAV’s registry. Of the applications, 78 per cent were made for tourist rentals and 22 per cent were for medium-term stay.
Nationwide, Andalusia leads the country with 21,872 illegal listings, followed by Valencia at 14,387 and Canary Islands at 13,726. Both with over 5,000, Madrid and Barcelona were the two municipalities with the most applications denied.
“In this way, the Ministry directed by Isabel Rodríguez seeks to preserve the social function of housing and combat the illegality with which a large number of accommodations with these characteristics currently operate, causing an exaggerated rise in prices and the expulsion of many families from their neighborhoods, as well as greater gentrification and loss of identity in them,” MIVAV said in a statement.
Highlights:
- Spain’s housing ministry has ordered platforms to remove 86,275 illegal short-term rental listings that failed to meet legal requirements after applying for a mandatory registration number.
- This enforcement action is a direct application of the country’s new registration law, aiming to return these properties to the long-term rental market to ease housing shortages and combat price inflation.
- The regions of Andalusia, Valencia, and the Canary Islands account for the highest numbers of delisted properties, each with over 13,000 illegal listings removed.
- The government states the policy’s goal is to preserve housing’s social function, reduce neighborhood gentrification and address the illegal operation of accommodations that drive up prices.
