Mexico: Fresh legislation affecting digital short-term rental platform activity has been proposed by the government in Mexico City.
The move comes as Martí Batres, the mayor of Mexico City, is seeking to require short-term rental hosts to register their listings on an online database, in a bid to limit the proliferation of rentals in the capital and relieve local residents’ concerns over affordable housing shortages and surging house prices.
Under the proposed regulations, each host would be required to inform their neighbours about their intention to rent out a property, as well as to submit their rental data to Mexico City’s Tourism Ministry [Sectur] twice a year. The hosts would also be permitted to register no more than three properties, apartments or rooms as short-term rentals.
According to Mexico News Daily, the mandatory annual taxes that hotels and online accommodation platforms would pay would remain at 3.5 per cent and five per cent respectively.
Batres highlighted Juárez, Roma and Condesa as neighbourhoods that had been most impacted by “displacement, gentrification and new economic dynamics”, in part due to the sharp increase in short-term rental listings in the city in recent years.
Claudia Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, has been particularly vocal about introducing stricter regulations on Airbnb and other home-sharing sites.
She previously wanted to entice more remote workers to the capital as the local government partnered with Airbnb and UNESCO last October. However, the announcement led to protests from local residents outside the Mexico City Ministry of Urban Development and Housing [Seduvi] demanding adequate and accessible housing for all citizens, while Sheinbaum backed down on her previous stance.
Mexico City is reported to be one of the largest short-term rental markets in the Americas, with recent data indicating that the total number of listings in the city had grown by 17.5 per cent since the start of the year.
In an interview with Bloomberg at the end of last year, Sheinbaum warned that failure to regulate Airbnb and other such platforms in Mexico City could result in condensed rental-only sections of the capital and lead to “a lot of trouble”.
A decision on the proposals is expected to be ratified at an upcoming legislative session in the city on 15 December.
