Valencian region bans tourist room-rentals from March

Renting a spare room to tourists will soon be a crime in the Valencian Community.
The Valencian region, like Catalonia and the Balearics, has a love-hate relationship with tourists. The money from visitors is most welcome, but the tourists themselves less so, especially when they need a place to sleep in competition with local housing needs. To a greater or lesser degree, all the leftwing parties that currently run these regions argue that tourists drive up housing costs, so regulations must limit the supply of tourist accommodation to reduce housing pressures, amongst other reasons.

Which helps explain why Barcelona recently introduced a ban on the renting of rooms to tourists, and the Valencian Community is not far behind. The Valencian ban was introduced by decree, and approved by the regional parliament in January, to come into force in March.

So, from March onwards, renting a spare room to short-stay guests will be illegal in the Valencian region, and you could be fined for doing so, if you are caught.

The ban fits into the region’s overarching tourism law of 2018 that defines tourist accommodation as a “complete property” that must not be subdivided for other purposes, like residential. From now on “tourist-use dwellings are to be offered whole, without allowing the offer of rooms,” the new regulations make clear.

It seems the new rules have gone down well with the local tourist-apartment lobby. Miguel Ángel Sotillos, the President of the Aptur Costa Blanca tourist-rental association says the new decree is “largely positive”, and will help increase control and uniformity over the sector. “If everyone were to rent rooms to tourists it would be uncontrollable,” he told the press.

The new decree also aims to crack down on unlicensed tourist rentals. All adverts of any type of tourist rental accommodation must now display the tourist rental licence number, and online adverts will be monitored closely for this.

Owners and managers must notify the regional authorities of the cadastral number of any property offered for rent to tourists. Infractions will be fined between 10,000 and 600,000, depending on the seriousness of the offence.