Madrid is seeking to pass a law that would in effect ban up to 95% of homeshare and Airbnb listings from the city’s historic center.
The new regulations, which were announced by Sustainable Urban Planning secretary Jose Manuel Calvo on May 9, impose stricter rules on home rentals, more so in the historic center of Madrid.
Residential use
According to The Local Spain, the move aims to preserve residential use of properties, which will in effect end permanent use of such buildings and instead replace it with short-term use by tourists. This would stop housing units from being turned into exclusive accommodation for tourists.
City officials are hopeful that the new regulations would bar landlords from turning whole buildings into rental units, unless where they hold a hotel license.
According to the new rules, it will be illegal to rent apartments to tourist for over 90 days in a calendar year. As for those being rented out to vacationers, they will need to have a different entrance from permanent dwellers. In the city’s historic center, only a few ground floor buildings (roughly 6%) would be allowed to be rented out to tourists. The central zone includes Chueca, Sol, Malasaña, Lavapiés and La Latina neighborhoods.
As the new plan awaits approval by the government, Madrid has temporarily banned issuing tourist licenses for a year.
Madrid is not the only city fighting homeshares. Valencia is in the process of introducing new regulations that aim to bar Airbnbs from taking the best views of the city, while Palma, Mallorca’s capital, outlawed all unlicensed homeshare listings. It takes effect this July.
