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Airbnb slaps rental limits on apartments in central Paris

Homesharing giant Airbnb announced Tuesday that it will automatically cap rentals in central Paris to 120 nights a year, bringing it in line with the French capital's legal limit.

Published: 14 November 2017 16:26 CET

Airbnb slaps rental limits on apartments in central Paris

Photo: Ernest McGray/Flickr

But Airbnb was quickly criticised for not imposing the new restriction — which will begin in January — across the entire city.

The measure will be applied in four central Parisian districts “which have faced the pressure of tourism and trade, as well as a particularly strong housing shortage over several decades,” Airbnb said in a statement.

“It's unbelievable,” Paris city hall official Ian Brossat told AFP.

“This means that Airbnb will not enforce the law” in the city's 16 other districts or arrondissements, he said.

Brossat accused the company of “making an announcement that violates the law as a gesture of good will,” calling for it to apply the rental limit in
the whole of Paris.

Paris is one of Airbnb's top markets, with some 65,000 sites listed. Another 35,000 are available from similar online platforms.

As a major tourist destination, Paris has slapped limits on the short-term rental of apartments and rooms as they compete with hotels, encourage property speculation and reduce the housing available to residents.

From December 1, anyone wanting to rent their Paris apartment on an online platform will have to get a registration number.

Airbnb was founded in 2008 and offers accommodation ranging from single bedrooms to entire homes in 65,000 cities in 191 countries.

Local authorities in France get power to crack down on Airbnb rentals

This illustration picture taken on July 24, 2019 in Paris shows the logo of the US online booking homes application Airbnb on the screen of a tablet. (Photo by Martin BUREAU / AFP)

The news was welcomed by authorities in Paris, who have long battled to keep a check on Airbnb and its impact on the rental market.

On Sunday, the French government published a decree that allows the City of Paris to subject the renting of local businesses to prior authorisation.

This decree applies to all types of offices, stores or medical offices who may be turned in holiday rentals.

It aims to allow towns to limit the growth of rentals on Airbnb, “protect the urban environment and preserve the balance between employment, housing, businesses and services on their territory,” says the decree.

The news was welcomed by authorities in Paris, which has been witnessing “the multiplication of ground floor business premises being transformed into holiday rentals,” said deputy mayor Ian Brossat, who is in charge of housing, in a press release.

This decree which comes into effect on July 1st, “will prevent local businesses from being turned into holiday rentals,” Brossat added on Twitter.

The conditions businesses will have to meet in order to get an authorisation still have to be defined said Brossat, according to Le Figaro. But Paris aims to draft these regulations and get them voted by the end of 2021, so they can come into force at the beginning of 2022.

Other towns allowed to apply the decree are those who have put into effect “the procedure of a registration number for furnished holiday apartments, owners and, subject to contractual stipulations, tenants of local businesses who wish to rent them as furnished holiday apartments.”

In recent years, Paris city authorities have made tax registration obligatory for apartment owners and have restricted those renting out their primary residence to a maximum of 120 days a year.

Now if owners want to rent a furnished property for less than a year to holidaymakers, they must apply to local authorities for permission to change the registered use of the space.

They are then required to buy a commercial property of an equivalent or bigger size and convert it into housing as compensation.

Until then, these onerous and time-consuming tasks did not apply to local businesses who only had to fill out a declaration.

In February, France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, ruled that regulations introduced to counter the effects of Airbnb and other short-term rental sites on the local property market were “proportionate” and in line with European law.

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