“Rising Number of Illegal Airbnbs in Brussels Causing Housing Market Pressures”

Since 2020, 436 apartments have been discovered in the city of Brussels that have been unlawfully made available via Airbnb or booking.com. So says Brussels alderman of Stedenbouw Ans Persoons (one.brussels-Vooruit).

The number of holiday accommodations offered in our country via Airbnb or sites such as booking.com is at an all-time high, writes De Tijd. According to the Ghent data company OTA Insight, these are record figures.

In 2022, a total of 33,456 rooms, apartments or houses were rented out for a certain period of time – usually for a short period of time. That is an increase of about 20 percent compared to the previous year.

Own residence

The increase points to a lucrative ‘Airbnb business’, of which the city of Brussels, but also other Brussels municipalities, bear the consequences.

“There are regional regulations about this, which will soon be refreshed,” says Brussels alderman Persoons. “The essence of this is: people are allowed to offer accommodation 90 days a year, if it is their own home.”

Rising housing prices

But that’s not always the case. Since 2020, the Brussels city services have been able to detect 436 cases of ‘illegal Airbnbs’.

“It is often professional real estate companies that buy buildings and then rent them out as Airbnbs, because they can earn a lot of money.”

This trend is putting even more pressure on the housing market, especially in the central neighbourhood, but also in other municipalities such as Ixelles and Sint-Gillis.

“Because there are fewer apartments left for people who want to rent, and that in turn entails price increases, but also, for example, noise pollution.”

Key boxes

Incidentally, it is through such complaints that the Brussels inspection services are able to expose illegal Airbnbs.

“Our teams also actively look for or notice key boxes that Airbnb users use.”

In addition to Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent and Ostend are also popular Airbnb cities in our country.