Barcelona Bans All Airbnbs by 2028
Barcelona is banning all 10,000 licensed Airbnb and short-term rental properties by 2028. Mayor Jaume Collboni announced the move alongside a sweeping set of measures aimed at reversing decades of mass tourism damage to the city.
The city attracted 26 million visitors last year, up 2.4% from 2024. Barcelona's newly appointed Commissioner for Sustainable Tourism Development, Josep Antoni Donaire, a 58-year-old professor at the University of Girona, put it bluntly in an interview with The Guardian: the city has reached the end of the road and cannot accommodate a single additional tourist.
"The city has reached the end of the road and cannot accommodate a single additional tourist." — Josep Antoni Donaire
When the short-term rental licenses expire in 2028, the city is banking on the majority of those properties returning to the long-term rental market to ease a deepening housing crisis. Donaire acknowledged that a similar ban in New York in 2022 did not produce that result, so Barcelona plans to offer financial incentives to landlords to encourage them to rent long-term instead.
The crackdown goes well beyond Airbnb. Cruise ship berths will be cut from seven to five, and Mayor Collboni plans to double the passenger tax on cruise arrivals from 4 euros to 8 euros. Over 7 million day-trippers who arrive by coach will face higher parking fees, and tourist buses will be required to park outside the city, forcing visitors to take the metro into the center.
Donaire is also taking aim at bar crawl tourism, with the city formally banning organized pub crawls that end in public intoxication. His longer-term goal is to shift the visitor profile so that recreational tourists make up no greater a share than business and cultural visitors. A portion of increased tourist tax revenue will be redirected to support independent small businesses in the city center.
The iconic La Boqueria market, long overrun by tourists buying snacks rather than fresh produce, is also set for a reset. Donaire said snack stalls will be banned from the market's vendor stands and it will be restored to a fresh food market serving chefs and residents within a year.
