Catalonia: regulation of B’n’B

Around 100.000 flats in Catalonia are rented to tourists and are inaccessible to local residents. Their number has increased 20 times in the last ten years, and they have led to significant rent rises and forced the local population to leave attractive places to tourists.

In november 2023, Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia) passed a new decree  to limit the number of flats for short-term rental for tourists…

What does it mean?

Local authorities must establish a maximum of tourist flats in their municipality based on the number of their residents — up to 10 per 100 inhabitants.

They will also give out licences for tourist flats that will expire after 5 years. After that period, owners will have to reapply and their application will be granted or rejected based on how many tourist flats there are in town at that moment.

But how promising is that?

First of all, 10 tourist flats per 100 inhabitants is already a lot and this decree does not guarantee an immediate relief because the existing licences for tourist flats will expire only after five years.

Moreover, this regulates only tourist flats, but not short-term rental, which is another big problem in Catalonia.

Finally, there are already those who would like to modfiy this mild policy by lifting the limit of 10 tourist flats per 100 residents and by applying the decree only to places most affected by tourism.

And this decree is yet to be voted in the Parliament in order to become a law. This only means that the following months will be the times of intense struggles for our comrades from Sindicat de Llogateres and citizens of Catalonia who still need affordable flats to live in.

The European Action Coalition will follow news on this mild, yet progressive intervention in Catalonia as such measures are long needed in many places.

ℹ️ Read the whole article (in catalan and spanish) 👉 here.