Amsterdam city councilors have decided to halve the number of nights Airbnb hosts can rent out their apartments in the city — imposing a cap of 30 nights a year, down from the current 60 nights a year (via DutchNews.nl). The new limit will come into effect in 2019.
This is just the latest push on Europe’s short-term rental platform. (Although, to be clear, the Amsterdam cap applies to residents’ use of any home-sharing platform, not just Airbnb.)
Paris — Airbnb’s largest market in the region — now requires accommodation providers on platforms to register their apartments with the city so it can better track compliance. The French capital also caps the number of nights hosts can list in their apartment, but at a slightly more generous 120 per year.
Meanwhile, Barcelona, another popular European tourist destination, has been crack down on illegal tourist rentals in recent years, by applying a series of measures intended to limit the growth of tourist rental platforms such as Airbnb.
And in Germany, Berlin city officials used a change in housing law to effectively prevent anyone from renting an entire apartment to tourists on Airbnb without a permit – also indicating it intends to pursue housing law reform in order to protect the local housing stock.
Although Airbnb welcomed a draft of a new housing law in Berlin in December to recognize home sharing, and expressed confidence that the city will eventually let residents rent their flats for 60 nights a year without needing a permit .
Amsterdam’s chill on Airbnb is significant because the company previously trumpeted a 2016 agreement with the city council – which the couple said at the time was aimed at promoting “responsible home sharing” and tackling ” illegal hotels” – with agreed measures including Airbnb enforcing automated host limits to limit listings to 60 nights per year.
Airbnb also said it would promote a new neighborhood tool that allows anyone in town to share concerns about a listing, such as noise complaints.
It also pledged to continue to share aggregate information with the city council on the impacts of home sharing and to publish data on its enforcement actions annually.
Clearly, the package of measures has failed to allay local concerns about anti-social behavior related to short-term tourist rentals, or provide adequate assurance regarding the longer-term impacts of platforms like Airbnb on people. local communities.
“I recognize that reducing the duration is not the solution to the city’s congestion, but it will reduce the problems caused by tourists in certain areas and make it less inviting to use your house as a means of earning money. “, said Amsterdam housing alderman Laurens. Ivens is quoted as saying about the decision to lower the cap to 30 nights.
Responding to the decision in a statement, Bo de Koning, Airbnb’s head of public policy for the Netherlands and Scandinavia, expressed his disappointment and claimed that the typical Amsterdam homeowner on Airbnb earns less than €4,000. per year, sharing his house for an average of less than 3 days per month.
She also said half of Airbnb owners in the city are self-employed. one person in four is under 30 and more than 40% use their income to stay in their homes.
In 2015 and 2016, Airbnb collected more than 11 million euros in tourist tax for the city, she added.
“The Airbnb community – made up of 19,000 Amsterdam owners – is disappointed with your intention to make big hotels prevail over families in Amsterdam who sometimes share their homes and punish them for the shortcomings of other platforms to promote rental properties. responsible vacation,” she said. “Airbnb has been a proactive and supportive partner of Amsterdam since 2014.”
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