Barcelona accommodation laws

In Barcelona, Spain, new laws affecting tourism went into effect in February 2017. New hotels are prohibited from being built near the city center, and no new licenses for short-term rentals (such as those booked through Airbnb.com) will be granted to landlords. 

Currently, there are about 75,000 hotel beds and 50,000 licensed short-term-rental beds available in Barcelona. The city announced in November 2016 that it was fining Airbnb more than €500,000 (near $538,000) for listing unlicensed rooms in Barcelona on its website.

In 2016, the city of Barcelona, which has a population of 1.6 million, had about 32 million visitors. In a survey of citizens, tourism was listed as the second-biggest concern for the city after unemployment.