Over 1,300 ads for illegal tourist apartments removed in 2023

The Catalan government enforced the removal of 1,339 advertisements for illegal tourist apartments in 2023, which represent about 7,360 bed places, according to data from the Catalan tourism board. 

Every month, the government checks around 90,000 listings on the major rental sites such as Airbnb, Booking, Vrbo, Niumba, Tripadvisor and Rentalia. If they find an illegal home, they order the sites to take it down. 

While most platforms generally offer to work with the government to comply with the law, Airbnb does not offer "voluntary cooperation," according to the government. 

Airbnb is the platform with the most illegal listings. At the beginning of 2024, 80% of the illegal listings detected by the government - 8,844 - were posted on Airbnb.    

"The scale is very significant," says the director general of the tourism board, Marta Domènech, who criticizes Airbnb's lack of cooperation, which makes the level of illegal flats offered on the platform "much higher" than on others. 

This lack of collaboration contrasts with other platforms such as Booking, Expedia or TripAdvisor, which have a "fluid and very collaborative relationship" with authorities.  

However, sources from Airbnb told the Catalan News Agency (ACN) that the company always tells its hosts that they must comply with local rules and asks them to certify that they have permission to offer their space. 

Airbnb claims that every time a national authority notifies them that an apartment does not comply with the law, they always take it down. 

The company also says that since 2022, it has implemented a system that forces the owner of the property to show the registration number, and they add that they are a "good ally of the Catalan government."