As reported by the project Relocation, the European Commission proposed new rules that will allow EU cities and regions to limit short-term apartment rentals through Airbnb, Booking and other platforms in areas with an acute shortage of affordable housing.
The Affordable Housing Act project was presented by the European Commission on September 9, 2026 and must now be considered by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. It is not about a single ban on short-term rentals throughout the European Union, but about the creation of a general legal system under which local authorities will be able to introduce restrictions where they can prove the negative impact of tourist rentals on the housing market.
According to the project, the territory will be able to be recognized as a zone of "housing stress" if the cost of an average apartment corresponds to at least eight years of available income per capita, this indicator has increased over the past ten years, and the housing shortage, likely to persist for at least another three years. If the housing cost-to-income ratio is ten years old, the requirement that this indicator has increased over the previous ten years will not apply.
However, the mere fact of high prices will not be enough. To introduce restrictions, local authorities will have to prove that short-term rentals for at least three years have significantly worsened the availability or cost of housing in a specific area, and milder measures are not able to solve the problem with the same effectiveness.
Restrictions should primarily apply to apartments that are used for commercial purposes and are not the main residence of the owner. Tourists are offered to exclude the rental of their own primary residence from such restrictions. When assessing the commercial nature of the activity, the authorities will be able to take into account the number of apartments of one owner and the frequency of their letting.
Thus, cities will be able to introduce limits on the volume of short-term rentals, limit the use of investment apartments for tourist accommodation or apply other measures, but they must be territorially limited, justified and proportional to the problem. Transitional periods should be provided for already existing legal entities. The maximum initial period of validity of the restrictions will be five years, after which the need for their retention should be reviewed.
The new proposals complement the European regulation on the transparency of short-term rentals, which has already entered into force on May 20, 2026. It provides for the registration of objects and the transfer of data platforms to local authorities, and also allows to request the removal of ads with missing or invalid registration numbers.
The European Commission notes that the number of short-term rental objects in the EU increased by approximately 93% in 2018-2024, and such apartments now account for about a quarter of the tourist accommodation offer in the European Union. At the same time, house prices in the EU have risen by more than 60% since 2013, and rents by around 20%.
Most noticeably, the new rules could potentially affect tourist centers with both high demand for housing and limited hotel supply — including Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Rome, Florence, Venice and other popular cities.
For tourists, the flip side of the restrictions could be growth cost of living In its own assessment of the impact of the Affordable Housing Act, the European Commission directly acknowledges that reducing the number of apartments for short-term rentals may reduce the choice of tourist accommodation and lead to higher prices, especially where the hotel market is already operating close to capacity.
As one of the guidelines, the European Commission cites the experience of New York, where after the de facto ban of a large part of short-term rentals, the average price of a hotel room, according to a study, increased by about $14-19 per night, and the additional revenue of hotels for the first 18 months was estimated at $2.1-2.9 billion. The authors of the study found that the increase in revenue occurred mainly due to the increase in tariffs, and not an increase in the number of nights sold.
It is not possible to directly transfer the American result to Europe, since the structure of the hotel offer differs greatly from city to city. However, for a major European tourist center where a room or apartment today costs 150-200 EUR per night, a comparable increase in absolute terms would mean about 7-13% additional cost of living.
We estimate that, under moderate restrictions that only reduce the number of professional Airbnb properties, the average effect for a tourist is likely to be 5-7%. In popular areas with strict restrictions and a shortage of hotel rooms, the increase can be 5-10%, and during holidays, exhibitions and peak tourist season it can temporarily exceed 10-15%.
For example, if an apartment is currently €120 per night, a 5-10% markup means an additional €6-12 per day or €42-84 for a week's stay. For a property costing €200 per night, a 10% increase would increase a tourist's spending by around €140 per week's trip.
At the same time, the effect for permanent residents should be the opposite. The European Commission expects that the return of some tourist apartments to the long-term rental market will increase the supply of housing and slow down the growth of rental rates. The impact assessment cites a Barcelona study: in areas with a medium Airbnb presence, its impact was associated with approximately a 2% increase in long-term rentals and a 4.4% increase in home values, while in areas with the highest concentration of tourist rentals, the effect was 7% and 17%, respectively.
