Barcelona, a top Spanish holiday destination, announced on Friday that it will bar apartment rentals to tourists by 2028, an unexpectedly drastic move as it seeks to rein in soaring housing costs and make the city liveable for residents.
The background: The boom in short-term rentals in Barcelona, Spain's most visited city by foreign tourists, means some residents cannot afford an apartment after rents rose 68 per cent in the past 10 years and the cost of buying a house rose by 38 per cent.
Access to housing has become a driver of inequality, particularly for young people, the mayor says.
The key quote: The city's leftist mayor, Jaume Collboni, said that by November 2028, Barcelona will scrap the licences of the 10,101 apartments currently approved as short-term rentals.
"We are confronting what we believe is Barcelona's largest problem," Collboni told a city government event.
What else to know: Hotels stand to benefit from the move. The opening of new hotels in the city's most popular areas was banned by a far-left party governing Barcelona between 2015 and 2023, but Collboni has signalled he could relax the restriction.
