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MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government has fined Airbnb 64 million euros ($75 million) for advertising unlicensed tourist rentals, officials said Monday.
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The move is the latest government action in Spain against short-term rental companies such as Airbnb and Booking.com as the country grapples with a housing affordability problem, particularly in city centers.
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The consumer rights ministry said the rentals didn’t include license numbers — a requirement in many regions in Spain — or listed license numbers that didn’t match what authorities had. Other had incorrect information about hosts, it said.
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Airbnb said that it plans to challenge the fine in court. The company said it was working with Spanish authorities to comply with a new national registration system for short-term rentals, and that more than 70,000 listings on the platform had added a registration number since January.
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Spain’s leftist government and many Spaniards across the political spectrum see short-term rental companies as bearing responsibility for driving up housing costs.
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The nation on the Iberian Peninsula is one of the world’s most visited countries and short-term holiday rentals have cut into many cities’ stretched supply.
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“There are thousands of families living on the edge because of the housing crisis, while a few enrich themselves with business models that evict people from their homes,” Spain’s consumer rights minister, Pablo Bustinduy, said Monday in a statement.
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In May, the consumer rights ministry ordered Airbnb to take down around 65,000 listings because of rule violations.
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In 2024, Spain’s anti-trust watchdog fined Booking.com 413 million euros ($448 million), saying the the online travel company had abused its dominant market position in the country over the previous five years.
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Local authorities in Barcelona have said they plan to phase out all of the 10,000 apartments licensed in the city as short-term rentals by 2028 to safeguard the housing supply for residents.
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