The Madrid High Court rejected Airbnb’s request to suspend payment of a €64 million fine imposed by the Spanish Ministry of Consumer Affairs and ordered the company to pay the fine while the case is pending. This was reported by Spanish media, and the move is part of a broader campaign by Spanish authorities to tighten control over the short-term rental market.
According to a report by El País, the fine was imposed in December 2025 and is equivalent to approximately six times the amount of “illegally obtained profits” that, according to Spanish authorities, Airbnb received as a result of its controversial advertising practices. The court ruling, published on March 23, specifically concerns the denial of a stay of proceedings, meaning it does not resolve the dispute on its merits but prevents the company from postponing payment until a final verdict.
Spanish authorities justified the sanction based on three main violations. These include the publication of listings for tourist accommodations without the required license number, the use of false or incorrect registration data, and misleading information regarding the legal status of landlords. All of this was classified in Madrid as forms of unfair or misleading advertising.
Airbnb, in turn, stated that the court’s decision is procedural in nature and does not address the substance of the dispute, and that the company itself considers the fine to be contrary to Spanish and European law. The company has already appealed the sanction and is continuing its legal defense.
The case is unfolding against the backdrop of a general tightening of Spain’s policies regarding short-term rentals. According to Reuters, in the summer of 2025, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs announced that it had secured the removal of 65,000 Airbnb listings deemed to be in violation of the rules, and subsequently identified nearly 55,000 more listings lacking the required license numbers. Authorities link this campaign to efforts to ease the pressure of tourist rentals on the housing market and curb rising rent rates for local residents.
Spain as a whole has been tightening restrictions on short-term rentals over the past two years. In particular, in March 2025, one of the country’s highest courts upheld Barcelona’s plan to completely phase out short-term rental licensing by 2028. This underscores that Airbnb’s conflict with regulators is part of a broader shift in Spanish housing policy toward restricting short-term rentals in overheated tourist areas.
For the real estate market and the tourism sector, this means an increase in regulatory risks for short-term rental platforms in Spain.
For the platforms themselves, the key issue is no longer just the scale of the business, but also the ability to quickly adapt to new requirements regarding licensing, transparency of listings, and disclosure of information about property owners.
