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

BarcelonaBarcelona City Council deepened its fight to eliminate tourist apartments in the city this Friday. Three days after the Council of Ministers re-approved the two housing decrees that failed in Congress a week ago, the council's economy commission adopted them to approve an IBI (property tax) hike for the 10,600 tourist apartments in the Catalan capital. An increase that, in some cases, will mean these apartments 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-use dwelling, 100% for those who have two or three, and 150% for those who have four or more. As explained by the fourth deputy for Economy, Jordi Valls, during his speech, the latter group represents nearly 60% of tourist-use dwellings with 6,000 apartments, while owners of a single apartment make up 30%, and those who have between 2 and 3 account for a little over 10%.

"Today what we are doing is disincentivizing this activity," Valls stressed. The head of Economy for Jaume Collboni's government recalled that the municipal government has committed to extinguishing all licenses by November 2028, but stated that in the meantime, it is necessary to use "all tools available to hinder tourist uses in dwellings." 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 tendency toward "the concentration of licenses." In this sense, he said it is not admissible for this type of economic activity to try to relate to the City Council as if they were neighbors and not businesses.

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 that the PSOE bring measures like these to the council of ministers. "In the end, the street has overtaken 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 tools available to the city to go after empty apartments, and proposed creating a registry for them and raising the property tax for those that have been unoccupied for more than two years. Furthermore, she requested that the extra revenue from tourist apartments be allocated to expanding 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 tax revenue, but it does not reduce taxes for the rest of the neighbors nor does it guarantee better access to the rental market," he said. The PP and Vox accused the municipal government of perpetrating "a fiscal stab" and of not respecting "proportionality" nor "private property".