On 4 February 2026, Spain’s Ministry of Housing ordered short-term rental platforms, including Airbnb and Booking.com, to immediately remove 86,275 property listings.

📊 The removed listings related to properties that:

— were not registered in the national tourist accommodation register;
— failed to comply with new transparency and owner identification requirements;
— continued to be advertised despite the entry into force of the new regulatory framework.

According to the ministry, online platforms bear direct responsibility for verifying the presence of a valid registration number, and the publication of unlicensed properties constitutes a violation of Spain’s housing legislation.

🏘 The measures were introduced against the backdrop of an acute shortage of affordable housing in Spain’s largest cities, most notably Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and major tourist regions. According to national statistics and regional regulators in certain districts, short-term rentals accounted for more than 20–30% of the residential housing stock and rental prices increased at double-digit annual rates, significantly outpacing income growth among local residents. The expansion of tourist accommodation contributed to the displacement of residents from central urban areas.

🏛 Spain has become one of the first EU member states to fully implement the EU Short-Term Rental Regulation, which entered into force in 2025. The regulation provides for:

— the creation of centralised national registers of tourist accommodation;
— mandatory inclusion of registration numbers in all online listings;
— expanded accountability of digital platforms for monitoring hosted content;
— data sharing between platforms and national authorities.

📉 Experts note that the mass removal of listings is likely to reduce the supply of tourist accommodation in popular destinations and may deter investment in the short-term rental segment. However, the impact on the long-term rental market remains uncertain.

Market participants stress that without a parallel increase in new housing construction, the overall effect of regulatory measures will remain questionable. Here, the situation remains largely unchanged: despite a projected 12% increase in residential construction in 2026, Spain is expected to deliver around 260,000 new housing units, which falls well short of the accumulated housing deficit estimated at 800,000–900,000 units.