Airbnb hosts in Paris will have to register their property beginning December 2017

The measure discussed earlier in the year will enter into force on December 1. Anyone wishing to rent their Paris apartment on short-term rental site Airbnb will have to register with local authorities to do so. 

It is a measure that was made available to all communes of over 200,000 inhabitants and Paris was one of the first to declare an interest in using it, with enactments in Bordeaux and Nice also on the horizon. City policymakers and the hotel industry have long railed against short-term rentals as depleting an already scarce housing stock, pushing up prices and rents. They celebrated last week as the Paris Council almost unanimously passed the measure.

The Decret Airbnb – as it has come to be known despite affecting all short-term websites – will mean that all short-term rental property owners will be required to request a registration number from local authorities – though it is not clear what enforcement remedies could be levied on rental firms that are not based in France. The City Hall has promised that “the request for a registration number will only take a few minutes.”

An estimated 65,000 properties in Paris are available for short-term rental on sites like Airbnb, something that some locals, hoteliers and politicians claim is aggravating a housing crisis in the capital. In April, the hotel industry teamed up with local urbanism think-tanks to combat the spread of Airbnb by building more hotel rooms. Other cities interested in imposing the measure include Bordeaux, Nice and most recently Lyon.

image © Pxhere