Barcelona takes advantage of Sánchez's decrees and raises the IBI by 150% on tourist apartments

BarcelonaBarcelona City Council deepened its fight this Friday to eliminate tourist apartments in the city. Three days after the Council of Ministers re-approved the two housing decrees that failed in Congress a week ago, the city council's economy commission adopted them to approve an IBI (property tax) increase for the 10,600 tourist apartments in the Catalan capital. An increase that, in some cases, will mean these apartments will pay 2.5 times more in property tax.

Specifically, the City Council has approved raising the property tax by 50% for owners of a single tourist accommodation, by 100% for those who own two or three, and by 150% for those who own four or more. As explained by the fourth deputy mayor for Economy, Jordi Valls, during his speech, the latter group represents, with 6,000 apartments, nearly 60% of tourist accommodations, while owners of a single apartment account for 30%, and those who own between 2 and 3 account for a little over 10%.

"Today what we are doing is disincentivizing this activity," Valls emphasized. The head of Economy for Jaume Collboni's government recalled that they have committed to extinguishing all licenses by November 2028, but said that in the meantime, it is necessary to use "all tools at our disposal to hinder tourist uses in homes." In total, the council expects to collect between seven and eight million euros annually with the measure.

Valls remarked that the proportion of owners who have more than four tourist apartments demonstrates that it is a "business activity" and that there is a trend toward "the concentration of licenses." In this sense, he said it is not admissible for this type of economic activity to want to relate to the City Council as if they were neighbors and not companies.

Reproaches between partners

The proposal went ahead with the votes of the PSC, Barcelona en Comú and ERC, the abstention of Junts and the vote against from the PP and Vox. The pre-election climate of the Spanish elections was noticeable throughout the debate, even among the groups that supported the measure. The spokesperson for the commons, Marc Serra, accused the socialists of "arriving late" and assured that for three years Sumar has been demanding the PSOE to bring measures like these to the council of ministers. "In the end, the street overtook them," he retorted.

Serra also asked the City Council to go beyond tourist apartments and implement a progressive property tax (IBI) for all properties based on the number of homes owned. In the same vein, from Esquerra, councilwoman Rosa Suriñach highlighted the importance of using all the tools available to the city to pursue empty apartments, and proposed creating a registry for them and raising the IBI for those that have been unoccupied for more than two years. In addition, she requested that the extra revenue from tourist apartments be used to expand the public social housing stock.

From Junts, councilman Arnau Vives defended his group's abstention, which exactly one week ago caused the two decrees to fail in Congress. The councilman criticized the municipal government for bringing this proposal to debate without even negotiating it and said that it does not solve the housing problem. "It increases revenue, but it does not reduce taxes for the rest of the residents nor does it guarantee better access to the rental market," he said.

The PP and Vox accused the municipal government of perpetrating "a fiscal blow" and of not respecting "proportionality" or "private property".