Barcelona said it would ban tourist flats. So where did they go?
The city's celebrated crackdown promised thousands of homes back on the market. We followed the paper trail — and found a lot of 'temporary' rentals instead.
10,101
Tourist licences to be revoked by 2028
When Barcelona announced the phase-out of all 10,101 tourist-flat licences by 2028, headlines called it the boldest housing move in Europe. And it might be. But paper bans and real homes are different things.
Three months into the transition, listings for 'seasonal' and 'temporary' rentals in the city have jumped sharply. A flat that can't be rented to tourists for a weekend can still be rented to a 'digital nomad' for 32 days — no licence needed, no questions asked.
Tenant unions call it the loophole economy. Every regulation invents a new category, and every new category becomes a business model.
The lesson isn't that the ban is fake. It's that a city has to close every door at once, or capital just walks through the one left open. We'll keep tracking the listings month by month — the numbers don't lie even when the categories do.