Spain's progressive coalition spent one week pulling housing policy in opposite directions: a EUR 7bn building plan on Wednesday, a tenant price-freeze defeated in Congress the following Tuesday. Georgia's fines on undocumented foreign workers begin on Friday. Bulgaria's nationalist wrecking party fell to 4.26%, leaving its month-old nomad permit untouched.
Spain won the supply argument and lost the tenant-protection vote in six days.
Spain's Council of Ministers approved Real Decreto 326/2026 on Wednesday 22 April; the BOE published it the next day.
Spain's Council of Ministers approved a EUR 7 billion housing plan on Wednesday 22 April, split 60/40 between the central government and Spain's 17 regional governments. The plan funds first-home support for under-35s, rehabilitation loans, and factory-built housing.
The plan only works if opposition-governed regions in Madrid, Andalusia and Galicia sign up to their 40% share. Past co-financed plans in 2009 and 2013 both saw up to 40% underperformance in regions run by the opposition party.
PP, Vox and Junts voted down the rental price-freeze extension on Tuesday 28 April; PNV abstained.
SpainSpain's Congress voted down the rental price-freeze extension on Tuesday 28 April. PP, Vox and the Catalan independentist party Junts voted against; the Basque nationalist PNV abstained. Tenants who had filed extension requests must now wait for a Tribunal Supremo or Tribunal Constitucional ruling to know if those filings bind their landlords.
Vox deployed a 'Spaniards first' housing frame on the Congress floor on 28 April for the first time at national level. That framing is now available to PP candidates in local elections in 2026 and 2027.
Law No.1509 added remote-work exemptions on 15 April; 2,000 GEL fines start Friday 1 May.
Georgia passed a law on Wednesday 15 April adding exemptions for remote workers to its labour-migration rules. Workers who work entirely for non-Georgian companies should be exempt from fines. But one of the three exemptions cannot be used yet because the government has not issued the required supporting rules.
Fines start at 2,000 GEL (around EUR 670) from Friday 1 May. Tbilisi has about 7,200 foreign remote workers. Many of them are now trying to work out whether they qualify for an exemption before the deadline.
Bulgaria's snap election on Sunday 19 April handed Rumen Radev a 131-seat majority; Vazrazhdane fell to 4.257%.
BulgariaBulgaria's snap election on Sunday 19 April gave former president Rumen Radev an outright majority of 131 seats. Vazrazhdane, the anti-EU nationalist party that had been polling at 13-14%, fell to 4.257%, barely keeping its seats.
Bulgaria's December 2025 digital-nomad permit was in danger in any government that needed Vazrazhdane's votes. That scenario is now off the table. Whether Radev expands or simply maintains the permit becomes the next question.
South Africa's Cabinet approved a points-based white paper on Friday 3 April, naming a remote-work visa lane.
South Africa's Cabinet approved a new immigration plan on Friday 3 April that includes a formal visa category for remote workers and a points-based system for residency and citizenship. Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber presented it.
Parliament must pass enabling Acts before any part takes effect, and no timetable has been published. Around 178,000 long-stay Zimbabwean residents will lose their previous automatic route to permanent residency, because the new points system rewards professional qualifications rather than years of low-skilled work.
Directive 7 of 2026 extended pending applicants' stay to 30 June 2027 from Wednesday 1 April.
South Africa's Home Affairs department issued a directive on Wednesday 1 April extending the legal stay of all foreign nationals with pending applications until 30 June 2027. They can also travel in and out of the country.
The department admitted it cannot process applications within legal deadlines. An immigration specialist told South African broadcaster EWN that when decisions do come back, they are 'often rejected for unclear or nonsensical reasons'. The two organisations litigating the department in the Constitutional Court are likely to use the directive as evidence.
Jesús Sesma asked CDMX Congress to suspend the 182-night STR cap for the 1 June to 31 August World Cup window.
SpainA Mexican Green Party politician, Jesús Sesma, asked Mexico City's Congress to formally suspend the 182-night annual limit on short-term lets from 1 June to 31 August 2026 for the World Cup. The Congress had not voted on this as of 29 April.
A separate bill to protect long-term tenants from rent rises has been pushed back until after the tournament ends on 19 July. Housing campaigners say both moves together leave renters unprotected during the busiest period of the year.
Airbnb lodged a reconsideration motion at the High Court of Justice of Madrid; no hearing date was set as of 28 April.
FranceAirbnb filed a motion at the High Court of Justice of Madrid asking the court to reconsider the EUR 64 million fine the court declined to pause in March 2026. No hearing date has been set as of 28 April.
This is the largest fine ever imposed on a short-let platform anywhere in the EU. With the EU's new short-let registration rules taking effect on 20 May 2026, the outcome will shape how aggressively other European countries pursue their own platform enforcement actions.
Spain: sideways, tending up on the right-nativist axis. The prórroga defeat is a parliamentary outcome, not a policy reversal, but Vox's prioridad nacional framing is now on the record and available in the 2026-27 municipal cycle. Georgia: up. The 1 May fine deadline is a hard enforcement cliff with no grace-period guidance published; if MIA issues early fines, the chilling effect hardens into a documented cost. Bulgaria: down; the permit is stable for the first time since December 2025. South Africa: sideways. The white paper anchors intent but the parliamentary timetable is the binding constraint; without enabling legislation, DHA administrative capacity remains the operative limit.
