A quick guide to restrictions on Airbnb in Spain's main cities and regions
If you’re planning on buying a property in Spain to rent out to tourists on platforms such as Airbnb, you need to think very carefully about where the property is located as many places have strict restrictions.
Many Spanish cities and regions have strict restrictions on Airbnb-style short-term rentals due to a housing crisis and rising property prices caused by tourist rentals. City councils and regional governments have implemented limits on issuing new tourist licenses to control the number of accommodations and prevent overdevelopment.
In major tourist cities like Seville, Málaga, Cádiz, Córdoba, and Granada, regulations restrict the growth of tourist apartments in certain zones or have frozen the issuance of new licences altogether. Seville has banned new licences in 11 neighborhoods of its historic centre where short-term rental properties exceed 10 percent of the residential stock.
Málaga announced a three-year ban on new tourist apartments or hotels on residential land, while Mallorca prohibits renting out apartments in multi-family residential buildings. Licenses in Mallorca are only granted for detached single-family homes or villas in designated areas.
Other cities like Barcelona, Alicante, and Santander have stopped issuing new tourist licences in central zones or are imposing strict limits on the number of tourist apartments allowed per inhabitant. Barcelona aims to revoke all existing licences by 2028, while Alicante capped tourist apartments at 0.187 per inhabitant in 2025, with new licences suspended until January 2027.
Certain areas in cities like Logroño, La Coruña, and Santiago de Compostela have identified "saturated zones" where no more tourist apartments can be issued. In Toledo, the maximum quota for tourist apartments is set at 12 percent of the total housing stock.
Tourist licences must be renewed every five years, and fines for operating without one can reach up to €400,000 or more. Many areas limit tourist apartments to ground or first floors only, and some ban tourist rentals entirely in residential developments.
Written by urgent.news from The Local Spain's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
