Why Spain's rural holiday lets are unlikely to be targeted by crackdown on Airbnb

Amid protests and building social tension, the Spanish government has in recent years tried to limit the spread of short-term tourist accommodation in Spanish cities.

As of July 1st 2025, all landlords who want to let out their properties out as tourist or seasonal rentals in Spain must have registered on the Single Rental Registry or if not remove their listings from platforms such as Airbnb, Idealista or Booking.com.

However, Spain’s rural tourism sector recently welcomed with relief news that could mark a turning point in the industry and provide sustainable income to smaller towns across the country.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda has confirmed to the Spanish Association of Rural Tourism (ASETUR) that rural tourist accommodation already correctly registered in regional databases will be excluded from the new State register.

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The circumstances in major tourist centres, say Barcelona or the Balearic Islands, is vastly different to smaller, less-known parts of rural Spain.

In many smaller towns, small tourist properties rented at certain times throughout the year can provide valuable income and employment to locals without disrupting the housing market like in bigger cities.

Airbnb, the company that has become the bogeyman of Spain’s anti-tourism protests, has defended the potential of short-term tourist rentals to boost tourism and revitalise local economies in rural areas.

A report commissioned by the platform from Afi (Analistas Financieros Internacionales) showed that tourist rentals channelled €5.563 billion to local businesses in rural Spain in 2024.

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Last year, 13 million tourists visited Spanish municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, mostly staying in tourist rentals.

Of the more than €5 billion they spent, less than half went on accommodation while €3.2 billion ended up in restaurants, bars, pubs, retail shops, museums, and leisure and cultural companies.

This translates not only into money but also into jobs. The study also highlighted that this increased tourist flow into rural Spain produces a 4 percent increase in local employment in sectors such as hospitality (with a 5 percent rise) and retail (3 percent) in rural towns and villages, highlighting the need for nuance when considering ways to regulate the Spanish tourism market.

Airbnb itself has hit back at Spain's holiday let crackdown and called for nuance, arguing that the vast majority of owners only have one property.

Following the exemption, the only requirement of rural tourist properties will be to include their regional registration code on the websites and platforms where they advertise their services.

As The Local previously reported, the new registration process has for many owners proven to be something of a bureaucratic nightmare. On the last day landlords had to register their properties on the new platform, 215,438 applications had been received out of a total 368,295 homes that Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE) identifies as short-term or temporary lets.

READ ALSO: Nearly half of Spain's holiday lets not registered with government before deadline

Rural owners will no longer need to worry about this. “Rural accommodation that is regulated and correctly registered in their respective regional registers is not considered a holiday homes or occasional rental, and is therefore not affected by the obligation to register under the new state procedure,’ ASETUR said in a statement.

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