New study sheds light on who owns all the Airbnb-style lets in Spain

Short-term tourism lets have been pinpointed as one of the main reasons why property prices and rents have skyrocketed in the last five years in Spain.

Despite this, the Spanish government has not released any detailed data clearly illustrating which group owns the most flats, and whether they’re using it for short-term, temporary or long-term renting.

The Local Spain has previously carried out research into this matter, with the best official approximation of the structure of property ownership in Spain being data by the Barcelona Metropolitan Housing Observatory (OHMB), which in a 2022 study concluded that 36 percent of rental apartments in Barcelona belonged to landlords who owned more than 10 properties.

Now in 2025, we have new data to help us ascertain who owns a vast number of short-term lets in Spain.

A study by tourism intelligence platform Mabrian carried out for leading Spanish radio station Cadena Ser showed that 26 percent of tourist apartments in Spain are owned by landlords who own multiple properties, rather than individuals who just own one.

Mabrian analysed data from three main platforms - Airbnb, Booking.com and Tripadvisor - and looked several factors, such as the number of licenses reported, the distribution of owners, and the number of vacation rentals they manage.

Mabrian defines single property owners as ones with only one short-term rental property, medium-scale owners as ones with two to 10 properties, and large holders as those with 11 to 51 properties. In the last category they have split them into three tiers based on the number of properties they own, ranging from 11 to 20, from 21 to 50, and 51 or more.

The study also revealed that four out of 10 rental apartments haven’t reported that they have a tourist licence.

This most likely means that they don’t have one and that they’re not complying with current regulations where they’re located. This could mean they don’t have permission from their neighbours, don’t have a separate entrance or are located in an area which has banned tourist licences.

“There's a requirement to have one, but not a requirement to publish it," explained Carlos Cendra, Partner and Director of Marketing and Communications at Mabrian.

Furthermore, the study showed that the more properties a landlord owns, the higher the price they charge.

Single-property owners charge an average of €41.10, medium-scale property owners €46.90, and large-scale property owners with more than 51 apartments charge €63.80.

"We attribute this to different product positioning and a more professionalised marketing system. These are much more professionalised structures that offer much better quality, with a different quality positioning than that offered by small-scale property owners or individuals. This means they have a specific focus on increasing results and profitability, and they can possibly sell at a slightly higher price," Cendra explained.

Tourist apartments are being partly being blamed for Spain's housing crisis. Given that they can be considerably more lucrative when they have high occupancy rates, landlords often prefer to rent to tourists than to long-term tenants, reducing the stock of normal rentals and thus increasing prices.

Even though Mabrian's data shows that 26 percent of Airbnb-style lets are in the hands of multi-property landlords and companies, the remaining 74 percent of Spain's short-term lets belong to individual owners renting just one unit out to holidaymakers.

This would suggest that average Spaniards trying to make some extra money with their second home make up the bulk of the country's holiday let market.

In many cases, the money generated from letting out their second home can be what allows them to make ends meet every month. Others with sought-after homes in popular tourist spots may be able to make considerable earnings, but nowhere near the profits of companies and multi-property owners with a large portfolio of properties.

These nuances are what makes regulating the country's holiday let industry so complicated and explains to an extent why the Spanish government has struggled to come out with effective legislation thus far.

READ ALSO: How the rules for tourist lets in buildings in Spain change in April

Different municipalities across the country have their own rules for getting a tourist licence, which aims to decrease the numbers, but many still operate illegally.