The Mediterranean coastal destination of Valencia in eastern Spain is set to restrict holiday rental accommodation in a bid to improve the balance of housing offered in the city.
Local councillors have approved measures to cap the proportion of short-term vacation houses and apartments to two percent or less of the city’s housing stock, as part of what Mayor María José Catalá, called “a much more ambitious strategy, framed within the city’s broader vision of changing the paradigm,” she said.
As tourism has boomed to record levels in recent years, Spain has experienced an accompanying rise in anti-tourism sentiment. This has manifested itself in protests, vandalism, graffiti, and civil disobedience, as residents across the mainland, Balearic and Canary Islands have complained that they are being priced out of residential property rentals and ownership, as well as being unable to afford to go on holiday in their own resorts. The situation has led to some of the harshest rules about tourist rental platforms anywhere in the world, with Airbnb forced to remove tens of thousands of non-compliant listings and subject to huge fines.
Hoy en el #PleValencia aprobamos la regulación de plazas turísticas más restrictiva de España.
— María José Catalá (@mjosecatala) March 31, 2026
Ponemos freno a 8 años de descontrol de una izquierda que expulsó a vecinos y permitió apartamentos turísticos en bajos comerciales.
Marcamos un antes y un después protegiendo el… pic.twitter.com/HdMKKCxiWB
Responding to the same public concerns, in a city described by Time Out as a “magnet for city breakers,” Catalá said: “We are not just a sun and beach city seeking mass low-cost tourism, we are a city that encompasses an urban tourist destination, and we are bringing order to the chaos of recent years.”
The new regulations will apply to rental homes and hotels, confining the number of occupants to no more than eight percent of registered residents per neighbourhood and district. To further improve the balance of home types available to locals, holiday accommodation will be allowed to occupy only 15% or less of ground-floor properties in residential districts.
Since many of the city’s most popular districts are already at or above those quotas, licensing for new premises will be hard to obtain. Local stakeholders have questioned why the rules will apply to hotels, blaming the housing affordability problem on unregistered rentals in residential homes, rather than legitimate businesses.
Francisco Guardeño, of the Federation of Neighbourhood Associations of Valencia, told Euronews “more than 9,000 tourist apartments” are being rented out illegally in the city, adding up to “almost twice the number of hotel accommodations”. Those rentals will not be affected by the change in law, since they already operate “in the shadows,” Guardeño said, pointing to a “problem that the proposal before us does not solve.”
