BARCELONA’S strict Airbnb ban is leaving residents who rent out a room simply to be able to survive in an impossible dilemma.
Dozens of ordinary people living in the Catalan capital – Spain’s most expensive city to rent – claim they are being treated the same as commercial landlords for sharing their primary homes with students or short-term tenants.
Under rules enforced by the administration of socialist mayor Jaume Collboni, anyone renting a room for less than 31 days is considered to be running a tourist business and must hold an authorisation from the city council.
The problem, residents say, is that no such authorisation exists for people who simply share their own homes.
Airbnb has begun removing hundreds of listings at the request of Barcelona City Council, giving residents just ten days to delete ads or face penalties — even though no legal permit system exists for them to comply with.
It means that locals who depend on small, short-term rentals to pay their rent or mortgage are trapped in an impossible situation – forbidden to operate yet given no means to comply with the law.
Among those affected are pensioners, single parents and low-income workers.
Earlier this year, La Vanguardia reported the case of María Teresa, an 80-year-old widow who receives an €840 pension but pays €1,200 in rent.
To make ends meet, she rents two rooms to students. Without that income, she said, she would not be able to remain in her home.
Her story has become emblematic of what residents’ group Veïns i Amfitrions de Barcelona (ViA) calls the ‘criminalisation of survival’.
“In ViA, we are all María Teresa,” the association said in a statement. “We are not investors or speculators. We are neighbours sharing our homes to afford to live in our own city.”
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The group has also filed formal objections to Spain’s new Real Decreto on short-term rentals, which would create a national digital registry for hosts.
In its legal filing, ViA accuses the government of breaching Spain’s Constitution by imposing disproportionate restrictions on citizens’ property rights and privacy.
It also points to European Commission guidance stating that occasional ‘home-sharing’ should not be treated as a professional rental business.
ViA claims the council itself created the legal limbo by refusing for years to pass an ordinance regulating shared homes while continuing to fine residents for lacking a licence that doesn’t exist.
The organisation also notes that Barcelona has become one of the few European cities where residents are completely barred from legally renting a room in their primary residence.
City Hall insists its crackdown is designed to protect housing stock and combat tourism-driven inflation, but critics warn it is driving vulnerable residents out of the very neighbourhoods those policies claim to defend.
As ViA put it: “If Barcelona truly wants to protect its citizens, it must start by allowing them to stay in their own homes.”
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