More than 20,000 tourist apartments in Andalucia will be allowed back onto platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com after Spain’s Supreme Court struck down the government’s controversial national short-term rental registry.
The ruling effectively eliminates the double-registration system that had forced tourist apartments to be listed on both regional and national databases.
As a result, thousands of properties previously removed from the state registry will once again be able to advertise legally on holiday rental websites.
The decision follows a legal challenge brought by the regional government of Valencian Community, which argued that Madrid had overstepped its powers by imposing a nationwide registry in an area controlled by Spain’s autonomous regions.
Andalucia had filed a similar complaint last year.
According to the ruling, the Spanish state ‘lacks the authority’ to impose an exhaustive national registry system on top of already-existing regional tourism registers.
In Malaga province alone, exactly 12,396 tourist flats that had been removed from the state database will now be allowed to return to Airbnb and Booking.
Across Andalucia, authorities had identified more than 26,000 tourist properties allegedly failing to comply with the national registry rules, including 4,708 in Cadiz and 3,191 in Sevilla.
Importantly, many of these homes were still legally registered under regional Andalusian rules despite being excluded from the national system.
The ruling does not affect separate actions taken by the Andalucian tourism registry itself, nor does it reverse Spain’s €64 million fine against Airbnb or the removal of thousands of allegedly illegal listings already sanctioned before the registry came into force.
Spain’s Ministry of Social Rights and Consumer Affairs insisted those actions remain legally valid.
The Supreme Court ruling is expected to have nationwide consequences, with similar appeals from regions including Murcia and Canary Islands likely to succeed in the coming days.
The decision will also significantly reduce bureaucracy for property owners and operators by removing duplicate paperwork and overlapping registration requirements.
Arturo Bernal, Andalucia’s acting tourism minister, has now urged Spain’s central government to urgently convene a national tourism conference to address the fallout from the ruling.
He said the new legal landscape must be approached through ‘institutional cooperation’ and warned of major economic, legal and operational implications for the tourism sector.
Bernal also called for an assessment into possible compensation claims linked to financial losses suffered by operators whose listings were removed.
Meanwhile, the Association of Tourist Housing and Apartments of Andalucia welcomed the ruling, describing it as a major victory for regional autonomy and tourist rental operators.
The group said the national registry represented an ‘unconstitutional overreach’ that created unnecessary bureaucracy for thousands of property owners already complying with regional and tax regulations.
Its president added that short-term tourist rentals remain ‘a fully legal and essential activity’ for the economies of many Spanish cities and tourist destinations.
