The European Commission will propose new housing rules that would give national and local authorities clearer rules for restricting short-term holiday rentals and the purchase of homes or land that are not used as someone's main home, according to a document seen by Euronews.
The prospect of a tougher crackdown comes as prices have skyrocketed faster than local incomes across most European capitals, rising 64.9% between 2015 and 2025 and rents 21.8%, according to EU data.
Even people who cannot afford to buy are facing rising rents, which consume 40% of household income, and middle-class families are also increasingly facing a reality where they can't afford to buy or rent, but also aren't eligible for social housing.
Many residents in cities like Lisbon, Barcelona and Prague complain that short-term rental platforms like Airbnb have removed homes from the market and pushed prices up, often forcing them to move. EU data from 2024 reveals that nearly 10% of people living in EU cities spend more than 40% of their disposable income on housing.
Short-term rentals represent only 1.2% of the EU's total housing stock, but they can account for up to 20% in some tourism hotspots. With too few homes being built where demand is strongest, Brussels estimates it needs more than 2 million new homes every year to fix the problem.
