Moratoriums on tourist apartments are extended after vacation rental homes grew by 15% in the last year
Tourist apartments have become a very popular type of accommodation for vacations. Only among foreign tourists Demand for this type of rental has grown by 45% until May compared to 2023, according to INE data. National and foreign travelers are increasingly opting for this formula, which continues to grow while the residential supply is scarce and the difficulties in accessing housing continue. Given this situation, the suspension of licenses is being extended among the most tourist destinations to try to stop the advance of this phenomenon.
In the last year, the number of tourist homes has grown by 15.2% in Spain to almost 351,400 properties, according to the INE, which collects data through the main online vacation rental portals. Andalusia, the Valencian Community, Catalonia and the Canary Islands are the autonomies in which the majority are concentrated, with 82,454, 59,416, 52,598 and 49,784 apartments respectively. However, even in less touristy regions such as Navarra, Asturias, Cantabria or Galicia, the supply of tourist apartments has skyrocketed: it has grown by more than 20% since February 2023.
This boom in tourist housing has put it in the spotlight. Its rise contrasts with the reduced availability of apartments for rent in many cities, which has provoked numerous citizen protests in recent months to demand a change in the tourism model. From the different governments, the authorities work to regulate this phenomenon and guarantee coexistence between tourists and neighbors, increasingly opting for moratoriums on the granting of licenses to try to buy time. The last to join the list has been Valencia, where tourist apartments have grown by 29% in the last year to almost 7,000.
The capital of Turia unanimously approved the plenary session of the City Council last week a moratorium to suspend licensing for one year, while the City Council prepares a new regulation. The stoppage of permits affects apartments located in communities of owners and in commercial basements, with buildings dedicated entirely to vacation rentals and homes located on the first floors with independent access to the street being exempt. The City Council had previously suspended licenses in the heart of the historic center, in the Ciutat Vella district. It is not the first case in the Valencian Community, Altea also activated a one-year moratorium in January.
In the interior of the peninsula, andhe Madrid City Council has maneuvered in the same direction. At the end of April, the City Council led by José Luis Martínez-Almeida launched a shock plan against housing for tourist use that includes, among other measures, the temporary suspension of the granting of licenses in the capital, as well as the cessation of authorizations to transform commercial premises into tourist apartments in the Center district. This moratorium will be in force until the urban planning regulations are updated, the approval of which is scheduled for the first quarter of 2025.
Madrid has also toughened sanctions on tourist homes that do not comply with regulations and has reinforced inspections, after detecting a significant volume of properties that operate without a license. According to data from the City Council, there are 13,502 homes for tourist use in the capital, but only 1,008 operate with a license. The proliferation of unlicensed apartments does not only occur in Madrid. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs has opened an investigation into vacation rental platforms to pursue unlicensed housing advertisements. The Government estimates that more than 90% of tourist apartments registered in some cities do not comply with the regulations. To clarify the heterogeneity of data and prosecute fraud, the Ministry of Housing works together with communities and city councils to develop a state information platform on tourist apartments.
Gain time to regulate
Together with Valencia and Madrid, Gijón and San Sebastián have also recently chosen to suspend the concession of licenses to put regulations in order. The Asturian city, where the number of vacation rentals has grown by 29.7% in the last year to 1,427 homes, gave the green light in January to a one-year moratorium in five neighborhoods, while the regional parliament prepares a new law that It aims to prohibit renting rooms, require authorization from neighborhood communities, give more power to city councils and reinforce fines.
For its part, the capital of Gipuzkoa has extended the moratorium that it approved last year until 2026, hoping that by then the modification of the General Urban Planning Plan will be ready. The suspension of licenses affects both hotels and tourist homes. San Sebastián has 1,318 tourist homes, according to the INE.
In the case of the Balearic Islands, the suspension of tourist licenses is not new. The concessions have been paralyzed since 2022, both for hotels and tourist apartments. In fact, it is the only community where the number of tourist homes has decreased in the last year, just 1.3%. The suspension is proposed for four years until 2026, although the current regional president Marga Prohens promised to lift the restriction in the investiture agreement between PP and Vox. Regardless of what the regional government does, Palma City Council has announced its intention to prohibit the creation of new vacation rentals, within the framework of a package of measures that also includes limits on cruises and rental cars.
On the other hand, the idea of implementing a moratorium on tourist apartments has not caught on in the Canary Islands, where The regional parliament rejected a motion along those lines in April. The archipelago is immersed in the processing of a new law, the draft of which opens the door for neighborhood communities to prohibit the creation of tourist apartments in their buildings, and requires that the use of the home be specified in the Property Registry. and establishes a series of requirements such as the minimum surface area, among others.
Stops in Seville and Catalonia
While some communities seek to buy time, others have already taken measures to limit the supply of vacation rentals. The last to do so was Andalusia, which at the beginning of the year opened the door for city councils to put a stop to tourist apartments and established minimum requirements. Under this regulation, Seville has set a limit whereby tourist apartments cannot exceed 10% of the total number of homes in each neighborhood. This requires reviewing the licenses already granted and in practice means suspending and reducing concessions in the most saturated areas, such as Triana and a good part of the Old Town. There are 6,171 tourist apartments throughout the city, according to the INE.
The Generalitat of Catalonia also approved at the end of last year a new regulation that requires a prior license in 262 municipalities in which it has detected problems with access to housing and in which it estimates that there are 95,094 tourist apartments. These cities will not be able to grant new licenses until they adapt to the new regional regulations, which require them to justify the existence of sufficient residential land to house the resident population and impose a maximum limit of 10 tourist apartments per 100 inhabitants. This limit means reducing the supply of vacation rentals in places like Salou, where there are more than 24 tourist homes per 100 inhabitants. The most affected areas are the Costa Brava, the surroundings of Barcelona, the Costa Dorada and the Pyrenees.
Barcelona is the Catalan municipality where the most tourist apartments are concentrated, although it does not exceed the regional limit. However, your case is particular, since Licensing has been frozen since 2014. Barcelona was one of the first cities to put a stop to the phenomenon of tourist housing in Spain. It has a plan for zero-growth tourist apartments, so that when a home of this type is deregistered in a congested area – in Ciutat Vella, Poble Sec, Gràcia or Vila Olímpica, for example – another one can be opened in a neighborhood that it is not so saturated, keeping the total volume unchanged at around 9,500 apartments.
The phenomenon of tourist apartments is also worrying outside of sun and beach destinations. In the Aragonese Pyrenees, Canfranc has a moratorium until Octoberfollowing in the footsteps of the neighboring town of Aínsa, which suspended the granting of licenses in 2022 and has currently limited the maximum volume of tourist apartments to 60.
