Barcelona’s city council economy commission voted on October 9, 2026 to raise the municipal property tax (IBI) on licensed tourist-use flats, approving a surcharge of between 50% and 150% on top of the regular bill. PSC, Barcelona en Comú and ERC voted in favour; Junts abstained; PP and Vox voted against, calling the move a “fiscal blow.”
The surcharge is tiered by how many tourist licences each owner holds, not a flat rate across the board. Owners with a single licensed flat would pay a 50% surcharge; owners with two or three, 100%; owners with four or more, 150% — effectively 2.5 times the standard IBI bill on those units. According to city figures, Barcelona has 10,627 active tourist-flat licences in total, and about 6,077 of those flats (nearly 57%) sit with owners who hold four or more licences and so would land in the top 150% tier.
Nothing is final yet. The measure still needs to clear an extraordinary full council plenary, go through a public-objection period, and be ratified at a plenary session in December. It is also contingent on a separate enabling decree from Spain’s national government — nicknamed the “Maricarmen decree” locally — which itself is still awaiting validation by Congress’s Permanent Deputation. If both hurdles clear, Catalan outlet 3Cat reports the surcharge would apply from January 1, 2027; Spanish outlet Demòcrata reports the first surcharge accrual and settlement would fall on December 31, 2027. Neither outlet specifies a single, reconciled effective date, so owners should treat 2027 as the target year with the exact billing mechanics still to be confirmed once the ordinance is ratified.
Mayor Jaume Collboni’s administration has said it wants all tourist-flat licences in the city phased out by 2028, with the units returned to the residential housing stock — the surcharge is explicitly framed as one more tool toward that goal, not a standalone revenue measure. The city projects roughly €7–8 million a year in additional revenue from it. Economy councillor Jordi Valls said the surcharge targets commercial operators, not individual owners, arguing that anyone holding multiple licences “is running an economic activity.” Junts councillor Arnau Vives, whose party abstained, said the measure raises revenue without cutting taxes for other residents.
References
Ara – Barcelona takes advantage of Sánchez’s decrees and raises the IBI by 150% on tourist apartments / 3Cat – Barcelona aprovarà apujar l’IBI dels pisos turístics fins a un 150% / Demòcrata – El decreto Maricarmen llega a Barcelona con un recargo fiscal de hasta el 150% para los pisos turísticos
