The Spanish city with the ‘most illegal’ holiday homes – not in Costa del Sol | World | News
With Fenco, Kitchen Excellence and the world’s largest Gothic cathedral, Seville is a warm tourism center not only because of air. More than three million tourists per year and the third most visited city in Spain with a population of 700,000. However, as in everything else, mass tourism comes with problems and illegal tourist apartments certainly add to the heaps. According to the data published by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda, Seville is home to the highest number of touristic apartments operating in Spain with 2,89 units and except for legal regulations. After Seville, Marbella saw 1,802, Barcelona 1,564 and Malaga 1,471 pieces, Olive press reports.
The only rental registry that has been working since July 1, 2025 is a country -wide system created to identify and verify all properties designed for temporary leases in Spain. The measure aims to prevent illegal short -term rental, to improve the housing crisis and to ensure tourism security. If not in a property registry, it cannot be legally declared online.
This emerges as a significant number of properties rented to tourists without appropriate records or licenses in Spain. In order to deal with the issue, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced that thousands of illegal tourist offices will be transformed into permanent houses for residents at the beginning of this month.
“We will ask the platforms to remove 53,000 tourists in order not to comply with the regulations.
Platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com were asked to remove ads for rules breaking properties by the Spanish Ministry of Housing. However, Airbnb and the Spanish Ministry of Housing found that less than 10 percent of the lists rejected by the registry is in Airbnb.
“The majority of non -compatible lists are not in Airbnb. So on other platforms, we invite Airbnb to participate in the ongoing execution efforts with local authorities.”
Last summer, Seville Municipal Assembly, unlicensed apartments by cutting water source to reduce the increase in illegal tourist rental increase. The three property owners objected to the decision, but the courts decided that the council’s actions were legal. Meanwhile, Mayor Jaume Collboni in Barcelona explained his plans to gradually relieve the tourist apartments until 2028 and refused to renew the licenses of more than 10,000 apartments legally registered.
Residents in Spain’s tourist warm points accuse the explosion in short -term rents that are legal and illegal for the housing crisis and many have to leave because of rising costs. Rentes have increased by 80% in the last decade, leaving the wages behind, and almost half of the tenants spend at least 40% of their revenues on rent and public services – far above the EU average.
