The EU has recognized short-term rental platforms akin to Airbnb, Booking, TripAdvisor, and Expedia as a serious driver of Europe’s inexpensive housing scarcity, however has stopped wanting spelling out how far it intends to manage them, in line with a draft of its forthcoming housing plan seen by Euractiv.
While mild on element, the draft stated the Commission will suggest new laws on short-term leases subsequent yr, geared toward limiting their detrimental results whereas “preserving their advantages.”
The initiative would kind a part of a broader housing package deal that pairs nearer scrutiny of short-term leases with a evaluation of EU state-aid guidelines to steer public funding in direction of housing initiatives, alongside new simplification measures for planning, allowing, development and renovation.
Housing shortages have emerged as a high political precedence for the Commission, which has appointed Dan Jørgensen as its first commissioner devoted to housing a yr in the past. The European Parliament has additionally established a particular committee on the housing disaster.
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The EU already handed a regulation on short-term leases in 2024 – on account of take impact in May 2026 – designed to deal with fraudulent listings and enhance data-sharing between authorities and platforms.
But the draft housing plan, set to be adopted by the Commission on Tuesday, argued that stronger measures are wanted. It stated that between 2019 and 2024, round 70% of the expansion of short-stay platforms lowered the supply of inexpensive housing for native residents. In some fashionable vacationer locations, short-term leases account for as much as 20% of housing inventory.
Against that backdrop, the draft plan proposed a brand new regulation on short-term leases to harmonise requirements and housing definitions throughout the EU, curb unfair competitors with conventional lodging suppliers and small companies, and strengthen client safety.
The draft additionally characterised short-term leases as cross-border companies, arguing that diverging nationwide guidelines have created authorized fragmentation throughout the bloc. Existing preparations, it added, “generate unfair competitors” with motels and different suppliers that adjust to EU security, tax and consumer-protection guidelines, whereas client rights in short-term leases “stay uneven and unclear throughout borders.”
(cz)
