Airbnb Continues to List Illegal Accommodations on Mallorca – Authorities Under Pressure

Continued Illegal Vacation Offers: How Trust Is Crumbling

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Sometimes a quick look at the listings is enough to shake your head: tents between olive trees, converted vans in parking lots, or a caravan with 'sea view' – and then the price that hardly seems credible. In Mallorca, such offers remain bookable, even though authorities and platform operators have repeatedly promised to monitor private holiday rentals.

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In the days after a drive along the MA-12 coastal road, I myself saw three listings that apparently violate the rules: no registration number, no address, only a mobile number and the note 'rustic camping near the beach'. Prices? Up to €300 per night for a small converted vehicle. That causes trouble not only for people who rent legally, but also for neighbors and municipalities.

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What is going wrong? Authorities in the Balearic Islands have repeatedly given clear guidelines: holiday accommodations must be registered, meet safety standards, and observe tax and reporting obligations. Yet many listings remain online – partly due to gaps in monitoring, partly because platforms do not always react quickly enough.

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Some landlords argue they just wanted to 'help guests'. Some tourists reply that they were looking for a cheap, spontaneous solution. In the municipalities, however, I hear voices from the town hall saying: 'That undermines the rules we enforce with effort.'

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On other islands, cleansing of offerings proceeded faster. Here on Mallorca there is still trouble, and the announcement to remove listings without a registration number from a set date is seen by many as overdue. Whether that is enough is unclear.

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What does that mean for guests and neighbors? Short term: uncertainty. Guests may pay for unsafe sleeping places and lacking standards. For neighbors it means more traffic, potential noise pollution, and the feeling that one's own rules are not being enforced.

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The solution requires several levers: clear, quickly implemented deletion processes on platforms, more thorough checks on site, and better education for travelers. And yes, sometimes a personal conversation between municipality and host helps – with clear consequences if rules are ignored.

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I know a landlord from a quiet settlement near Sa Pobla who says: 'We follow the rules, pay taxes, and invest in the safety of our guests. If others don't, in the end everything is at stake.' That's honestly the point: it's not just about individual listings, but about trust and an island that should remain livable for everyone.

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Whether the announced measures are enough remains to be seen. Until then: watch what you book. Ask for the registration number, insist on details, and don't be blinded by photos. A night in a legal apartment is usually the better choice in the end – and perhaps for the neighborhood too.