Madrid suffers an avalanche of illegal tourist housing. Just 6.9% of the ads offered on digital platforms correspond to licensed accommodations, as detected by the Ministry of Social Rights and Consumption. The department directed by Pablo Bustinduy has analyzed the digital advertising of 16,335 tourist floors in the city of Madrid and has crossed this information with the 1,131 operating permits for this activity granted by the Madrid City Council – in the framework of the Plan Reside, -. The result is that there are at least 15,204 holiday floors that operate outside the law, for lack of licenses. Consumption has delivered on Monday a digital file to the Madrid town hall, chaired by Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida, in which these findings are detailed and has asked the councilor to eliminate the ads that violate the regulations of large platforms such as Airbnb or Booking, to put a prection to this irregular activity of homes without a public license.
The report delivered by consumption to the capital of the capital not only puts figures to this phenomenon, which many Madrid people identify as one of the culprits behind the increase in housing, also details exact directions of the irregular floors and data that allow identifying the owners of these accommodations. The digital evidence transferred to the Madrid City Council consist of tens of thousands of advertisement links on vacation apartment rentals, segmented to be able to detail the registration number or the absence of this, information about the host and the type of accommodation and stay offered.
In this way, they have tried to facilitate the City of their work to inspect the homes, order the cessation of activity and apply possible sanctions. Among the outbreaks of irregularity are the Calle Mayor and La Calle Preciados, where at least 14 and 11 advertisements have been detected, respectively.
Consumer research
The Consumer Analysis Unit has been working on the lines of the Consumer Holder, Pablo Bustinduy, which requires that the competent administrations intervene to end illegal practices that “are limiting the right of citizenship to decent housing and expelling a good part of the citizenship from the neighborhoods.” In this way, the investigation has covered other tension areas, such as Balearic Islands and Andalusia, where information from the advertisements in an irregular situation to its representatives has also been transferred.
For its part, the General Directorate of Consumer opened a sanctioning file in December 2024 to a housing rental platform for not complying with the regulations in relation to the publication of the license number, and last February opened sanctioning files to tourist accommodation managers for activities such as impersonating individuals while carrying out a professional activity.
The phenomenon of illegal tourist floors remains a headache for administrations of all levels. However, consumption places the capital as “one of the Spanish cities with the highest concentration of illegal tourist floors” and demands the implementation of measures to end that situation, since it is the City Council who can act because it is breach of the municipal regulations. Meanwhile, he cites the example of cities such as Barcelona – who have managed to eliminate thousands of illegal ads and return part of these homes to the residential market – or Ibiza, where the Consell has launched an illegal housing identification strategy to expedite the corresponding inspections and sanctions.
