Mayor Jaume Collboni has pledged to revoke the more than 10,000 licences for tourist flats currently active for the period through to November 2028.
The decision comes after residents in the city have for several years faced housing shortages and rent increases as more and more properties are turned over to tourism accommodation.
The measure would bring a halt to the short-term rental market, as local authorities have not granted new tourist flat licences in the proceeding years.
“We want to guarantee the right to live in Barcelona and deal effectively with the housing crisis we have been suffering for years,” said Collboni in a post to Twitter/X late last week. “The administration, as well as society and the real estate sector, must join forces to protect the right to housing.”
Hailed by Spain’s central government, Collboni’s decision comes as many tourist hotspots in the country have been protesting against overtourism in the past months.
Rallies started in the Canary Islands in the spring and then spread to the Balearics, with activists threatening to occupy Majorca’s airport and its beaches to protest the tide of tourism.
Collboni’s decision, though, has not come without criticism, with the city’s tourism associations accusing the municipal government of scaring tourists away.
“Tourist flats represent 0.77% of Barcelona’s housing stock,” Enrique Alcantara, president of tourist flat association Apartur, told The Times.
“Eliminating them will not solve the problem of access to housing. The only thing the city council is going to achieve is to feed the supply of accommodation outside the law.”
He added: “They are destroying a sector that contributes €347 million to the public coffers of Barcelona, a sector made up of small owners that directly employs more than 5,000 people and indirectly many more: how many museums, shops and restaurants will have to close?”
According to the Tourism Observatory of Barcelona, some 12.2 million tourists visited the city in 2023 – down from the 13.9 million reported in 2019 – while tourist spend grew by 15% compared with pre-Covid levels.
