Florence banned new short-term rental licences in its UNESCO-listed historic centre from May 2025. Existing licensed properties can continue operating; no new licences are being issued in the historic core.Source: Comune di Firenze

Why did Florence ban short-term rentals in its historic centre?

Florence cited severe resident displacement: the historic centre's population fell from over 100,000 in the 1970s to fewer than 40,000 by 2025. The city also invoked its UNESCO World Heritage status as justification for the heritage-protection measure.Source: Comune di Firenze

What cities in Italy have banned key-boxes on Airbnb properties?

Florence, Bologna, and other Italian historic-centre municipalities banned external key-boxes on STR properties. Italy's 2026 Budget Law codified these local bans nationally for designated historic centres.Source: Italy 2026 Budget Law

Background

Florence (Firenze) enacted one of the most restrictive short-term rental policies in Italy, banning new STR licences in its UNESCO-listed historic centre from May 2025. The measure followed years of community pressure over housing displacement, with residents of the historic core falling from more than 100,000 in the 1970s to fewer than 40,000 by 2025. The key-box ban subsequently codified in the Italy 2026 Budget Law built directly on Florence's earlier unilateral prohibition .

Florence is Tuscany's regional capital and one of the world's most visited cities, receiving around 15 million tourists annually against a resident population of approximately 370,000. Its historic centre — encompassing the Duomo, Uffizi, Ponte Vecchio, and Palazzo Vecchio — is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a designation the city invoked to justify the STR ban as a heritage-protection measure.

The Florence model is being studied across Italy and beyond as a test of whether historic-centre STR bans survive legal challenge under EU Services Directive provisions on free movement of services.