Airbnb says that changes to the short-term rental rules in Lisbon harm families.

As part of a public consultation on proposed changes by the Lisbon City Council concerning local accommodations (AL) in the city, Airbnb has urged local authorities to refrain from using short-term rentals as a “scapegoat for housing shortages and excessive tourism.”

Advocating for balanced regulations between short-term rentals and the hospitality sector, which would curb “uncontrolled real estate speculation” in hotels, the short-term rental platform suggests that the city council’s proposed rules would “unjustly harm” families aiming to rent part or all of their homes to “balance the family budget” across 20 of Lisbon’s 24 parishes. Meanwhile, it notes that the council is facilitating “the third-largest hotel expansion in a European capital.”

The accommodation platform highlights that while controlling local accommodations, the city council is permitting “over 54 new hotel projects” in the city, which will add more than 7,000 tourist rooms that “could have been used for affordable housing.”

“It is ineffective to limit local accommodations to combat excessive tourism while continuing to approve new hotel licenses,” Airbnb notes, emphasizing that 30 of the new hotel projects are located in parishes experiencing high levels of tourist pressure.

Airbnb suggests that the city council should implement “a moratorium on the approval and construction of new hotels at the parish level and promote programs that convert obsolete hotels into affordable housing.”

The council’s proposal effectively “bans all new local accommodation licenses, including for ‘room’ modality,” which Airbnb argues is “disproportionate” because it “fails to differentiate real estate investments” intended for tourist rentals from the activities of families who occasionally share their homes, “without any significant impact on the housing market.”

Furthermore, the company argues that the municipality overlooks “the specific needs of parishes that could benefit from tourism decentralization,” while paradoxically promising to alleviate tourist pressure “as it facilitates hotel expansion.”

“It is ineffective to limit local accommodations to combat excessive tourism while continuing to approve new hotel licenses: of the 54 new hotel projects, 30 are located in parishes with high tourist pressure,” Airbnb states, adding that the proposed rules will also “reinforce a discriminatory tourism model that excludes budget travelers.”

Airbnb offers to collaborate with the city council in developing proportional and non-discriminatory regulations, including data sharing to avoid the “counterproductive effects of broad and disproportionate regulations.”

Additionally, the company argues that it is crucial to assess the reality of each parish using “fair ratios at the parish level to define rental areas,” and that the rules should “clearly distinguish” between different types of short-term rentals.

“The majority of hosts on Airbnb in Lisbon are families sharing a room or their own home. Airbnb wants to protect the right of these Lisbon families to rent their primary or vacation home occasionally, helping them earn extra income in a context of rising living costs,” the platform emphasizes.

According to Airbnb, the proposed regulation will not solve the city’s housing problems, as there are more than 47,740 vacant homes, which accounts for nearly 15% of the total housing stock in the city.

The proposal to amend the Local Accommodation Municipal Regulation (RMAL), put forward by the Lisbon City Council, was open for public consultation until Tuesday, with contributions from PSD/CDS-PP, PS, BE, Livre, and PCP.

The document suggests measures to “ensure the desirable balance between tourism and housing in all parishes” and proposes a reduction to a 5% ratio between local accommodation establishments and classic family residences.

The proposal also limits the transferability of AL titles and stipulates that only in areas of relative containment can AL units be registered under the room modality and only in housing units of type T2 or larger.

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