On Thursday, 19 June, a Spanish court rejected an appeal by Airbnb, thus effectively blocking almost 66,000 holiday home listings considered to be failing to comply with national regulations. Airbnb calls the matter a “distraction” from the real housing issues in Spain.
In late May 2025, the Ministry of Consumer Rights ordered Airbnb to block 65,935 listings throughout Spain, as they did not follow local guidelines. Some of the infractions included a lack of a licence number, failure to state whether the property is owned by an individual or a company, and inconsistencies in the information provided. 5,800 listings had to be taken down immediately.
However, Airbnb denied all responsibility for the illegal listings. It said the company wasn’t obliged to ensure listings meet local rules, and it refused to comply with the government’s request. An appeal was filed against the government’s order.
At the beginning of June 2025, Spain’s Consumer Rights Minister, Pablo Bustinduy, already spoke with the AP about the struggle against Airbnb.
“Tourism is for sure a vital part of the Spanish economy. It’s a strategic and very important sector. But as in every other economic activity, it must be conducted in a sustainable way. It cannot jeopardize the constitutional rights of the Spanish people. Their right to housing, but also their right to well-being,” Bustinduy told the AP.
The appeal has now been rejected by a Spanish court. However, in a statement, Airbnb has said that the ministry’s actions are against Spanish regulations, which hold owners of short-term rentals and thus not the platform responsible for listing the information. Moreover, the company said the court’s decision was not made on the merits of the ministry’s order, which will take longer to decide. According to Airbnb, Spain’s housing crisis is a matter of a lack of supply to meet demand more than anything else, calling everything else a “distraction”.
Spain’s fight against and for tourism
The court ruling against Airbnb comes at a moment when Spain is struggling to deal with the mass tourism that the country is being confronted with. In 2024, 94 million travellers paid a visit to Spain, and that number is only expected to rise in 2025, which would amount to a GDP contribution of €260.5 billion, equivalent to almost 16% of the national economy.
Those visitor numbers are putting a stain on the lives of many locals and the country in general, creating issues such as water shortages and a lack of housing within the reach of locals. Aside from the crackdown on holiday rental platforms, the Spanish government has proposed two key fiscal measures: a plan to increase taxes on holiday rental income and a proposal to impose a 100% tax on property purchases by non-EU nationals. Neither has yet been enacted.
