'We Can't Compete With Tourists': Barcelona Residents Speak Out on the Housing Crisis Tearing Apart Their Neighbourhoods

The notice arrived on a Tuesday morning in May. A family of four living on Carrer de Verdi in Gràcia — the father a school technician, the mother a part-time nurse — were told their building had been sold to a property group and that their lease, renewed annually since 2019, would not be extended. Their rent had already climbed from €1,100 to €1,650 over three years. They are now on a waiting list with the city's Oficina d'Habitatge de Gràcia, which currently has more than 2,400 active applications for social housing support in the district alone.

Their situation is not unusual. It has become, in the summer of 2026, almost routine. Barcelona City Council is pushing forward with its most aggressive housing agenda in decades, including the full expiry on 31 October of the remaining active tourist apartment licences in several residential zones and an expanded tourist tax that reached €4 per night for cruise passengers docking at the Port de Barcelona as of January. Mayor Jaume Collboni has staked considerable political capital on the argument that returning housing stock from the short-term rental market to long-term residents is the single most urgent urban priority the city faces. For the people caught between policy ambitions and market realities, the waiting is the hardest part.

A Neighbourhood Split in Two

Walk down Carrer del Consell de Cent in the Eixample on any weekday morning and the tension is visible in small ways: handwritten notes in doorways asking delivery drivers not to ring bells, washing lines strung across light wells in buildings where, three floors up, an apartment lists on Airbnb for €180 a night. Residents here describe a building culture fractured between those who stayed, those who left, and the rotating cast of short-stay visitors in between.

The Sindicat de Llogateres, the tenants' union that has grown from a handful of activists in 2017 to more than 14,000 affiliated members city-wide, has been collecting testimonies this spring from people in precisely these buildings. Their latest report, published in June, found that 38 percent of surveyed members in the Eixample and Sant Antoni had received at least one non-renewal notice or verbal pressure to vacate in the previous 18 months. In Barceloneta, where the density of tourist apartments has historically been highest, that figure rose to 51 percent.

Average rental prices in Barcelona hit €22.4 per square metre per month in the first quarter of 2026, according to figures from the Col·legi d'Agents de la Proprietat Immobiliària de Catalunya — a 9 percent increase year-on-year and the highest recorded level since the organisation began tracking the metric in its current form. A 60-square-metre flat in Sant Martí, once considered a more affordable alternative to the centre, now lists routinely at €1,350 to €1,500 per month on mainstream portals.

Small landlords, for their part, describe their own pressures. One owner of two apartments near the Mercat de Santa Caterina in the Born district — who asked not to be named — said the tourist licence cancellation process had left him uncertain whether he could legally rent either property long-term under the city's new containment zone rules without facing a two-year freeze on rent increases he said made the numbers impossible. He has consulted the Col·lectiu Ronda legal cooperative, which handles housing disputes for both tenants and small owners. They told him, he said, that the regulatory picture would not fully clarify until autumn at the earliest.

What the Council Says, and What Comes Next

The Ajuntament de Barcelona points to its Pla Metropolità d'Habitatge, adopted in coordination with the Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona in early 2025, which commits €480 million over five years to new public and co-operative housing units across 36 municipalities. Within the city, 1,800 new affordable units are projected to come online by the end of 2027, with priority given to applicants who can demonstrate at least three years of continuous residence in Barcelona.

That timeline does little for the family on Carrer de Verdi this October. Their Oficina d'Habitatge caseworker has told them realistically to expect a 14-to-18-month wait before any social housing offer materialises. In the meantime, they are looking at Badalona and Santa Coloma de Gramenet — municipalities outside the city limits where rents run roughly 30 percent lower but transport connections to their jobs add 90 minutes to the daily commute. It is, the father said through a neighbour who relayed his words, not the Barcelona they planned to raise their children in. It is the Barcelona they are left with.