In another move aiming to ease the country’s housing crisis, Greece bans thousands of short-term rental accommodations from platforms like Airbnb by setting stricter rules under which such accommodations can be listed for rental.
The new legislation, presented to parliament on Wednesday, January 8, by the Greek Ministry of Tourism, bans from short-rental platforms all properties that were warehouses, storage rooms, industrial spaces or old basements and have been renovated in order to become tourist accommodations. Moreover, the legislation bans from such platforms all properties that have not been characterized as a primary residence under Greek law or their owners have not arranged to become as such by July 2011.
This means that thousands of properties in Greece currently listed for rental, mostly for tourists, are automatically being excluded from Airbnb-type rentals. The move affects thousands of property owners who have invested in the short-term rental business by renovating spaces that are now, according to the new legislation, deemed unusable.
In addition, the new legislative framework calls for stricter requirements under which properties can be rented, in terms of lighting, ventilation, certifications and various sanitation procedures they must follow.
The Ministry of Tourism, along with teams from Greece’s tax authorities, will be conducting compliance audits, with violators risking thousands of euros in fines.
Greece Bans New Airbnbs for One Year in Central Athens to Tackle Housing Crisis
Greece has been witnessing a spike in Airbnb-type rentals in recent years and the government has been recently introducing a number of measures trying to regulate them.
As of January 1st, Airbnb licenses are no longer being issued in several districts in downtown Athens for at least a year.
The Airbnb market in Greece is blamed for spiking prices and drying up the market for long-term rentals. Many Greek households struggle to find properties to rent.
Golden Visa holders had scooped up multiple properties when the threshold for qualifying was only 250,000 euros ($270,272) and many of them were used for short-term rentals.
PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced at the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) in September 2024, that he would provide incentives to property owners to convert their properties into long-term rentals.
In a difficult balancing exercise, Mitsotakis stressed the need to put a brake on the uncontrolled spread of short-term rentals, but without demonizing them, as he said.
Airbnb also faced an increase in the climate crisis resilience fee. As announced to TIF by the prime minister in September, the fee increases (from April to October), proportionally, for hotels, accommodation, and rental properties through platforms.
The fee is currently up to ten euros per night. The revenue collected will go back to the local communities to better organize their infrastructure against the burden they incur each summer.
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