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Câmara Municipal de Lisboa

Lisbon City Council; recalibrating its STR night-cap policy after Eurostat admitted undercounting EU rental growth.

Last refreshed: 20 May 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic

Key Question

Did Lisbon set its Airbnb night limits based on data that undercounted the real market by a third?

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Common Questions
What is Lisbon doing about Airbnb in 2026?
Lisbon City Council is reviewing its STR night-cap policy after Eurostat disclosed that its voluntary data panel understated EU STR growth by about one third. The council's existing limits may have been calibrated against a systematically low baseline.Source: Eurostat / Câmara Municipal de Lisboa
Does Lisbon still allow Airbnb in its historic centre?
No new tourist apartment licences have been issued in Lisbon's historic centre since 2020. Existing licensed properties operate under annual night limits that the council is now reviewing in light of Eurostat's underreporting finding.Source: Câmara Municipal de Lisboa
How does the Eurostat underreporting affect Lisbon's Airbnb night-cap policy?
Lisbon City Council's STR night-caps were calibrated against Eurostat's 2024 four-platform panel figure of 854 million nights. That figure understates true EU STR volume by roughly a third, meaning Lisbon's limits may be set against a baseline that is structurally too low.Source: Eurostat / Câmara Municipal de Lisboa

Background

The Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (Lisbon City Council) is recalibrating its short-term rental policy in May 2026 after Eurostat published findings that its voluntary data panel had been understating EU STR growth by approximately one third . Lisbon's STR night-cap policy, which set limits on the number of nights per year a property could be rented on platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com, was calibrated against the Eurostat baseline. If that baseline understates actual STR growth by a third, the caps may have been set too permissively.

Lisbon has been among the most active EU cities in using STR data to justify housing-market interventions. The council imposed a moratorium on new tourist apartment licences in the historic centre in 2020, and introduced annual night limits as a softer enforcement tool. The city's housing market has seen some of Europe's fastest rent increases since 2019, partly driven by a surge in foreign remote workers and short-term rental conversion.

The Câmara Municipal de Lisboa is led by a centre-right mayor (Carlos Moedas, independent) who has taken a broadly market-friendly approach to housing. The Eurostat finding creates political pressure from opposition councillors to tighten STR night limits regardless of licence-moratorium politics.