Madrid goes to war with illegal tourist rentals

One of the weapons will be stinging fines that can reach 100,000 euros if the offending landlords are particularly persistent

Non-registered tourist rental apartments have proliferated so much in recent years in Madrid that the city authorities have now decided to take firm measures to put an end to this unregulated economic practice. For this purpose, the city council announced that it would drastically increase the financial sanctions for landlords caught offering their properties for short-term rentals without having a licence to do that.

According to the new Action Plan for Housing and Tourist Use in Madrid, the urban authorities will initially issue an order to cease the illegal renting and if the landlord fails to comply, they will be subjected to increasing fines, which will start from 30,000 euros and can reach 100,000 euros with repeat offences. Cumulatively this can mean a sanction of 190,000 euros for particularly stubborn rule violators.

To put things in perspective, previous regulations used until now only stated that the fines imposed had to range between 1,000 and 3,000 euros.

93% of tourist rentals in Madrid are illegal

According to official figures, the number of tourist rentals in Madrid has grown by 41% since 2017. The city’s website indicates that 13,500 holiday lets exist in Madrid and an astonishing 93% of them are illegal! Yes, there are only 1,008 licensed places which tourists have at their disposal.

Clearly, there’s a large demand for short-term accommodation in the Spanish capital. However, the local government isn’t too specific on how it plans to manage that side of the equation. The illegal tourist flats issue, however, is skewing Madrid’s accommodation market and contributing to “residential desertification”, authorities and residents say.

In addition, the authorities will beef up by 15% the inspectorate force charged with finding out and sanctioning such properties.

The Plan will be submitted to the City Plenary for approval at the beginning of 2025. Until then, no new licences for holiday flats will be granted.