Catalonia loses 6,000 tourist apartments in the last year

BarcelonaRegulatory pressure is beginning to be felt in the holiday rental market. Last year, with the entry into force of the state registry, this pressure began to increase. in order to operate legally Nearly 6,000 tourist apartments were lost in Catalonia through digital platforms, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE). This represents an 11.3% decrease compared to 2014. The decline recorded last year leaves the total number of tourist apartments in Catalonia at 46,915. This is the lowest supply of tourist apartments recorded by the INE since 2020, when it began counting them. This decrease means that one in four apartments has disappeared since then, when there were approximately 63,200 apartments designated for tourist rentals or tourist accommodation, almost 26% fewer apartments. This decline has coincided with other control measures implemented by the Catalan Government, as well as measures to increase the stock of residential rental housing. The most pronounced drop was recorded in the province of Barcelona. Data collected by the INE (National Institute of Statistics) shows that nearly 40% of tourist apartments operating in 2020 have closed. The number has fallen from almost 26,000 to just over 15,700. In the last year alone, 2,416 apartments have disappeared, representing 13% of the number that existed in 2024. As the statistics institute shows, there are currently more tourist apartments in Girona (17,754) than in Barcelona (15,741). With these figures, Catalonia has a proportion of tourist apartments of 1.2% of the total number of registered dwellings, a proportion that stands at 0.61% in the city of Barcelona.

They are also decreasing in Spain

Across Spain, the drop in the number of tourist apartments has been somewhat more pronounced than in Catalonia, with a 12.4% decrease compared to 2014. This translates to 52,000 fewer apartments, bringing the total to 329,764. This is the largest decrease in the historical record. Furthermore, the number of tourist apartments is the lowest since the summer of 2013 and represents 1.24% of all homes in Spain. Its impact is greatest in Andalusia and the Canary Islands, which together account for nearly half of all tourist apartments in the country. Sources at the Ministry of Housing emphasize that these figures "reflect the results" of the measures they have implemented, such as the state registry and the entry into force of the Horizontal Property Law, which allows for the prohibition of this type of housing. "The Ministry of Housing continues working to ensure that the maximum number of available homes are allocated to affordable residential rentals," they emphasize, highlighting the various aid programs included in the 2026-2030 State Housing Plan. Also contributing to these figures are the requests from the Ministries of Housing and Consumer Affairs to platforms like Booking and Airbnb to remove illegal listings.