According to the Relocation project, the European Commission has proposed new rules that will allow EU cities and regions to restrict short-term apartment rentals through Airbnb, Booking, and other platforms in areas with a severe shortage of affordable housing.
The Affordable Housing Act was presented by the European Commission on September 9, 2026, and must now be reviewed by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. This is not about a blanket ban on short-term rentals across the entire European Union, but rather about creating a common legal framework within which local authorities can impose restrictions where they can demonstrate the negative impact of tourist rentals on the housing market.
According to the draft, an area may be designated a “housing-stressed zone” if the cost of an average apartment is equivalent to at least eight years of disposable income per capita, this ratio has been rising over the past ten years, and the housing shortage is likely to persist for at least another three years. If the housing-to-income ratio reaches ten years, the requirement for this ratio to have increased over the previous ten years will not apply.
However, high prices alone will not be sufficient. To impose restrictions, local authorities will have to prove that short-term rentals have, for at least three years, significantly worsened housing affordability or increased housing costs in a specific area, and that less restrictive measures are not capable of solving the problem with the same effectiveness.
The restrictions should primarily apply to apartments used for commercial purposes that are not the owner’s primary residence. Renting out one’s primary residence to tourists is proposed to be exempt from such restrictions. When assessing the commercial nature of the activity, authorities will be able to consider the number of apartments owned by a single owner and the frequency with which they are rented out.
Thus, cities will be able to impose limits on the volume of short-term rentals, restrict the use of investment apartments for accommodating tourists, or apply other measures; however, these must be geographically limited, justified, and proportionate to the problem. Transitional periods must be provided for existing, legally compliant properties. The maximum initial duration of the restrictions will be five years, after which the need to maintain them must be reviewed.
The new proposals supplement the European regulation on transparency in short-term rentals, which already entered into force on May 20, 2026. It requires the registration of properties and the transfer of data by platforms to local authorities, and also allows for the removal of listings with missing or invalid registration numbers.
The European Commission notes that the number of short-term rental properties in the EU increased by approximately 93% between 2018 and 2024, and such apartments now account for about a quarter of the EU’s tourist accommodation supply. At the same time, housing prices in the EU have risen by more than 60% since 2013, and rents by approximately 20%.
The new rules are likely to have the most significant impact on tourist destinations with both high demand for housing and limited hotel supply—specifically, Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Rome, Florence, Venice, and other popular cities.
For tourists, the downside of these restrictions could be rising accommodation costs. In its own impact assessment of the Affordable Housing Act, the European Commission explicitly acknowledges that a reduction in the number of apartments available for short-term rentals could limit the choice of tourist accommodations and lead to higher prices, especially in places where the hotel market is already operating near full capacity.
As a point of reference, the European Commission cites the experience of New York, where, following a de facto ban on a significant portion of short-term rentals, the average cost of a hotel room, according to a study, increased by approximately $14–19 per night, and the additional revenue for hotels over the first 18 months was estimated at $2.1–2.9 billion. The study’s authors found that the revenue growth was primarily driven by higher rates rather than an increase in the number of nights sold.
The U.S. findings cannot be directly applied to Europe, as the structure of hotel supply varies significantly from city to city. However, for a major European tourist destination where a hotel room or apartment currently costs 150–200 euros per night, a comparable increase in absolute terms would mean an additional 7–13% in accommodation costs.
According to our estimates, assuming moderate restrictions that merely reduce the number of professional Airbnb listings, the average impact on tourists would most likely be 5–7%. In popular areas with strict restrictions and a shortage of hotel rooms, the increase could be 5–10%, and during holidays, trade shows, and peak tourist season, it could temporarily exceed 10–15%.
For example, if an apartment currently costs 120 euros per night, a 5–10% surcharge would mean an additional 6–12 euros per day or 42–84 euros for a week’s stay. For a property costing 200 euros per night, a 10% increase would raise a tourist’s expenses by approximately 140 euros for a week-long trip.
At the same time, the effect on permanent residents is expected to be the opposite. The European Commission anticipates that returning a portion of tourist apartments to the long-term rental market will increase the housing supply and slow the rise in rental rates. The impact assessment cites a study from Barcelona: in neighborhoods with an average level of Airbnb presence, its impact was associated with an approximate 2% increase in long-term rentals and a 4.4% rise in housing costs, while in neighborhoods with the highest concentration of tourist rentals, the effect reached 7% and 17%, respectively.
