The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2030 has ordered Airbnb to block more than 65,000 illegal tourist home listings hosted on its platform.
Through the Directorate General of Consumer Affairs, the Ministry headed by Pablo Bustinduy has urged the Irish subsidiary of this multinational to remove a total of 65,935 listings, considering them illegal for contravening the regulations on the advertising of this type of tourist accommodation.
Specifically, the regulations of the different autonomous communities where Consumer Affairs has detected these advertisements are being violated. In all cases, in addition, these are complete homes for tourist use, there are no advertisements for individual rooms.
In recent months, the Ministry headed by Pablo Bustinduy has sent Airbnb up to three resolutions in which these more than 65,000 illegal tourist home listings that were detected on its platform were notified, resolutions in which this company was urged to block this advertising.
Airbnb appealed this action before the Courts to avoid the blockade and now the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid has ruled on the first resolution issuing an order in which it endorses the actions of Consumer Affairs. In response to what was imposed by the Ministry in its first resolution, the TSJ urges Airbnb to remove 5,800 tourist apartment listings immediately.
The Directorate General of Consumer Affairs argued three reasons to justify the illegality of the 65,935 tourist apartment listings that were detected on Airbnb and that would be violating different regulations.
Firstly, those that do not include the license or registration number; secondly, those that do not indicate the legal nature of the lessors, that is, do not indicate whether the lessors are professionals or individuals; and thirdly, advertisements whose license numbers do not correspond to those issued by the authorities. This practice may mislead or deceive consumers.
The advertisements on which the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid has ruled in the order affect the advertising of tourist homes that are located in the communities of Andalusia, Community of Madrid, Catalonia, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands and Euskadi.
Based on this issue, Minister Bustinduy has publicly stated his objective of collaborating with the competent public administrations to end the lack of control and widespread illegality of tourist accommodation, as well as to promote access to housing and protect the rights of consumers.
For this reason, Consumer Affairs is working on various complementary actions to those that other authorities may develop. In this way, the Ministry headed by Bustinduy redoubles its commitment to this cause by providing the information that the Consumer Analysis Unit is collecting and offering technical assistance to other administrations so that they act in this line and put an end to the thousands of illegal advertisements detected.
In this context, it should be remembered that the Directorate General of Consumer Affairs opened a disciplinary proceeding in December 2024 against a tourist home rental platform for a potential breach of Consumer regulations on the advertising of the license number, and that in February 2025 it opened disciplinary proceedings against large tourist apartment managers for not correctly indicating the legal nature of the lessor.
These disciplinary proceedings continue their course regardless of the measures now announced. In addition, on March 27, a disciplinary proceeding was also opened against a large real estate company for abusive practices against tenants.