Spain Directs Airbnb to Block Over 65,000 Listings

In its bid to check shortage of affordable housing, Spain’s Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption, and the 2030 Agenda on Monday ordered Airbnb to block more than 65,000 illegal tourist accommodation listings on its platform.

Through the Directorate General for Consumer Affairs, the Ministry, headed by Pablo Bustinduy, has urged the multinational’s Irish subsidiary to remove a total of 65,935 listings, considering them illegal for violating regulations on advertising this type of tourist accommodation.

Specifically, these listings violate the regulations of the various autonomous communities where the Consumer Affairs Department has detected them. In all cases, the listings are for entire tourist accommodations; no listings for individual rooms appear.

In recent months, the Ministry headed by Pablo Bustinduy has sent Airbnb three resolutions notifying it of the more than 65,000 illegal tourist accommodation listings detected on its platform, ordering the company to block these ads.

Airbnb appealed this action to the courts to avoid the block, and now the Madrid High Court of Justice has ruled on the first resolution, issuing an order endorsing the Consumer Affairs Department’s actions. In response to the Ministry’s initial ruling, the High Court of Justice has directed Airbnb to immediately remove 5,800 tourist accommodation listings.

The Directorate General for Consumer Affairs cited three reasons to justify the illegality of the 65,935 vacation rental listings detected on Airbnb, which allegedly violated various regulations:

The ads do not include the license or registration number, which is mandatory in several regional regulations and is the most common violation in the advertising analysed.

The advertisements do not indicate the legal status of the landlords. That is, they do not indicate whether the landlords are professionals or individuals, a crucial question for determining whether the person making the contract is protected as a consumer.

The advertisements include license numbers that do not correspond to those issued by the authorities. This practice can mislead or deceive consumers.

The advertisements on which the Madrid High Court ruled in its ruling affect advertising for tourist accommodation located in the regions of Andalusia, the Community of Madrid, Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, and the Basque Country.

Tab on Illegal Tourist Accommodations

Based on this issue, Spanish Minister Bustinduy said that his goal of collaborating with the relevant public authorities to end the widespread lack of control and illegality of tourist accommodation, as well as to facilitate access to housing and protect consumer rights.

For this reason, the Consumer Affairs Department is working on various complementary actions to those other authorities may implement them. In this way, the Ministry is redoubling its commitment to this cause by providing the information being collected by the Consumer Analysis Unit and offering technical assistance to other administrations so they can act in this direction and put an end to the thousands of illegal advertisements detected.

It may be recalled that the General Directorate of Consumer Affairs opened a sanctioning procedure in December 2024 against a tourist housing rental platform for a potential breach of consumer regulations on the publication of license numbers, and that in February 2025 it opened sanctioning procedures against large tourist apartment managers for failing to correctly indicate the legal nature of the landlord.

These sanctioning procedures are ongoing regardless of the measures now announced. Furthermore, on March 27, a sanctioning procedure was also opened against a large real estate agency for abusive practices against tenants, the Ministry said.