Housing shortage in Europe: EU sets its sights on holiday apartments

Short term rentals

Housing shortage in Europe: EU sets its sights on holiday apartments

Changing overnight guests instead of families in everyday life – short-term rentals are putting a strain on the housing market in many places. What the EU Commission is proposing against it.

Holiday apartments for tourists, rising rents for locals: pressure on the housing market is growing in many European cities. The European Commission therefore wants to provide municipalities and authorities with a legally secure framework to place greater restrictions on short-term rentals via platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.

“We are in a housing crisis, we must act,” said EU Energy and Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen in Brussels. Short-term rentals are part of the problem, although not solely responsible.

The EU cannot create binding Europe-wide rules on this topic. The EU Commission is suggesting to the responsible authorities how they themselves can assess the local housing market and what measures could be decided. In addition to short-term rentals, this also includes second homes or long-term vacancies.

However, whether or not action is taken remains a national, regional and local responsibility. The Brussels authority emphasized that it was not about regulating specific platforms or business models. The law should provide more certainty as to how municipalities can act, among other things, without violating the rules of the EU internal market.

For the proposal to come into force, the consent of the European Parliament and the EU member states is required.

“We know that this will not lead to affordable housing for everyone in Europe overnight – that is clear,” said Jørgensen. But this could address a factor that has caused people to give up their homes and leave cities.

Criticism of the bill arose after its presentation: “The central question is why too little is being built and which European legal acts stand in the way of construction,” criticized Markus Ferber (CSU), a member of the European Parliament. The Commission is taking the wrong approach here.

The President of the EU regions, Kata Tüttö, spoke of an important first step, but also pointed out the need for more investment. The draft contradicts the EU Commission’s proposal for the EU budget for the years 2028 to 2034. In it, it drastically weakens the role of cities and regions in managing EU investments and eliminates all financial instruments that have previously been used by local authorities to support and improve the quality of their housing strategies.

Kai Warnecke, President of the Haus & Grund owners’ association, told the Funke media group that the cause of a European housing crisis was not short-term rentals. “It is therefore correct that interventions should only be possible where it can actually be proven that short-term rentals will have a noticeable impact on the regular housing market for years.” No European requirements are needed for this.

According to figures from the European statistics office Eurostat, in 2025 11.2 percent of the German population was overburdened by housing costs, meaning their households had to spend more than 40 percent of their disposable income on housing. On average this affects 7.7 percent in the EU.