Why Spain’s ‘tourist ban’ won’t impact your holiday

Spain is introducing a three-year “tourist ban” affecting British holidaymakers. Or, at least, that is what headlines circulating this week might have you believe. The truth is, unsurprisingly, much more complex.

Earlier this month, the city of Malaga began a three-year ban on new holiday rentals across its 43 districts. The move mirrors policies seen in other popular Spanish cities such as Alicante and Madrid.

In addition to this three-year ban on new rentals, holiday flats registered after February 22, 2024 without their own entrances and utilities will lose their licences. This means that anyone who has booked a private room in Malaga on sites like Airbnb or Vrbo could be affected.

The reason this new Malaga rule (which, by the way, we’ve known about since November) has been extrapolated into some kind of wider “tourism ban” is two-fold. The first is that it hits a nerve: we Britons travel to Spain in greater numbers than anywhere else, so being told we aren’t wanted rankles. The second is that when you pin all of the measures being introduced across Spain onto a cork board and string them together, there does seem to be an anti-tourist pattern emerging.

Let’s look at some of those snippets.

Last year, the mayor of Barcelona announced that all short-term rentals in the city would be banned from November 2028. Doing so, he said, would solve “Barcelona’s biggest problem” by reintroducing 10,000 properties back into the housing market.

Cruise passengers have also been subject to a raft of stricter regulations. Since September 2024, no more than two cruise ships can dock in Ibiza at the same time, and Palma de Mallorca has a cap of just three cruise ships per day.

In a rather more Orwellian move, in Seville, owners of holiday lettings have been forced to install noise meters in their properties. If guests exceed noise levels of 35 decibels during the day or 30 decibels after 11pm, the property owner is alerted and required to take action or face a penalty. The Andalusian city is also exploring plans to introduce an entrance fee of between €3–4 for tourists to access Plaza de España, although locals will be able to visit for free.

There have also been some bureaucratic quibbles. Since December last year, tourists have had to give up more personal information when checking into a hotel or hiring a car in Spain – but we’re talking about things like your address, date of birth and phone number, rather than blood type or sexual orientation. The measure was introduced to protect citizens against the threat of terrorism and organised crime, rather than to irk tourists, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

There have also been reports, in a similar tone to the ones doing the rounds this week, of a rule requiring British tourists to show evidence of £97 per day in funds on arrival in Spain, or else risk being turned away. This, as it turns out, is a post-Brexit technicality that has never been enforced and was described at the time as “tabloid hysteria” by the Telegraph’s destination expert, Annie Bennett.

And finally, this month Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez announced plans to impose a 100 per cent tax on property purchases by those living outside of the EU. While this would not affect British citizens already living in Spain, it could thwart the hopes of future generations planning to retire in the sun.

When you throw in the mass tourism demonstrations that took place in Spain last summer, the anti-tourist theory starts to build momentum. Last year, tens of thousands of protesters marched across the Canaries, the Balearics and Spanish cities. They held banners like “tourists go home”, and they occupied beaches. In Barcelona, unwitting tourists were squirted with water pistols over the summer. And just last week the rather unnerving phrase “kill a tourist” was sprayed onto a building in Tenerife.

When we take a step back, looking at this cork board of legislation, slogans and graffiti, I can see why the narrative of a tourist ban has taken hold. But the truth is that Spain loves tourists. Tourism accounts for around 12 per cent of Spanish GDP. More than 94 million guests arrived on Spain’s shores in 2024 (up 10 per cent on the year before), spending a total of €126 billion on cervezas, tapas and sunloungers.

Policymakers are trying to get a hold of the exploding industry, and citizens are urging them to do more to protect their way of life. So no. There is no “tourist ban”, but “tourist management” doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?