Lorraine Williamson
The Badalona tourist apartment ban is being sold as a decisive shift by a Partido Popular mayor in a city where short-term lets have not, until now, been seen as the main housing problem.
But the detail that residents and landlords will care about is simpler: Badalona plans to stop issuing new tourist apartment licences, while keeping the existing ones in place for the time being. That is the position Mayor Xavier García Albiol has now repeated publicly, after a week of political noise around whether the city was heading for a total, immediate ban.
Why Badalona is tightening the rules now
Badalona sits in the slipstream of Barcelona’s housing squeeze. With the wider metropolitan area moving towards tougher restrictions on tourist apartments, Albiol argues that Badalona cannot become “the exception” — the place where investors rush if neighbouring cities close the door.
In practical terms, the city currently has around 300 licensed tourist apartments, according to reporting in El País and Cadena SER. Albiol has said they are not currently driving major conflict locally, but he wants to prevent a surge.
The awkward timing: moratorium ending, new rules not yet approved
One complication is timing. Local reporting in Badalona warns that a previous moratorium on granting licences has ended, and until a new municipal rule is formally approved, the older framework may apply again. That creates a risk of a short “window” for fresh applications — exactly what the council says it wants to avoid.
El País reports the city’s proposal is expected to be voted through in April or May and, once approved, would stop new licences indefinitely while maintaining the existing ones.
How this fits the bigger Barcelona-area shift
Badalona’s move sits inside a much wider push around Barcelona to curb tourist flats as a way of easing housing pressure.
El País reports multiple neighbouring municipalities are aligning their approach with Barcelona’s 2028 policy direction, while each city chooses how hard to clamp down in the short term. Badalona, in that picture, is positioning itself as “no more growth” rather than “immediate wipe-out”.
Watch two things: the council vote that turns today’s political messaging into binding rules, and what happens in the interim with applications and enforcement. If the city tightens quickly, Badalona is likely to be cited as a template by other commuter-belt towns trying to protect long-term rentals from being converted to visitor lets.