Short-term rental data used to come mostly from one place: the listings themselves. That is changing fast. The EU now requires platforms to report activity to authorities, all-in price rules have changed what a “rate” means, and city crackdowns have reshaped supply in some of the biggest markets. For teams working on real estate data, travel or pricing, the question is no longer only what listings say, but which figures you can rely on and compare over time.
This guide covers the new rules, where reliable data now comes from, and the traps in comparing rates before and after the changes.
The EU now collects the data itself
Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 has applied since 20 May 2026. Where a country runs a registration system for hosts, platforms must check that hosts have a registration number before a listing goes live, display it on the listing, and make reasonable efforts to randomly check that numbers are valid.
Platforms must also send authorities, every month, “activity data” for each listing: “the number of nights for which a unit is rented and the number of guests to whom the unit is rented per night along with the country of residence of each guest”, together with the registration number, address and listing URL. Smaller platforms, with an average of fewer than 4,250 listings a month, report quarterly.
There is a catch for anyone expecting a uniform European dataset. The Commission says the regulation “has been adopted in an ‘opt-in/opt-out’ mode, meaning that Member States are not obliged to apply it.” What it does require is that countries that register hosts or collect platform data do it this way. Coverage will depend on which countries take part, and we have not found an official list of who has.
National rules can also shift underneath it. In Spain, the Supreme Court annulled parts of the national registration procedure in May 2026, while leaving the platforms’ data duties in place.
Official statistics are getting better
Eurostat publishes statistics built from data shared by the platforms. For 2025, it reported that “guests spent a total of 951.6 million nights in short-stay accommodations booked online” through Airbnb, Booking or Expedia, an 11.4% increase on 2024. The first quarter of 2026 came in at 144.3 million nights, up 9.7%.
Two cautions. The series is labelled experimental, and it now covers three platforms where earlier years covered four, so compare years carefully. And it measures nights and guests, not prices.
A rate now means the total price
In the US, the FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees took effect on 12 May 2025. It covers short-term lodging, including vacation rentals, and requires the total price, including mandatory fees, to be shown “more prominently than any other pricing information”. Airbnb went further in April 2025, making total price display, “including all fees before taxes”, the standard for all guests globally.
For analysts, that creates a break in the series. A nightly rate scraped or bought from before the change may exclude cleaning and service fees that are included afterwards. Before comparing, check whether each data point is a nightly rate, a nightly rate plus fees, or a total for a stay, and whether taxes are in. Airbnb has also said that after it began showing totals, nearly 300,000 listings removed or lowered cleaning fees, so fees themselves moved too.
Supply is shaped by enforcement, not only demand
Several large markets have seen listings fall for regulatory reasons.
| Market | What happened |
|---|---|
| New York City | Local Law 18 requires hosts to register and platforms to verify registration before taking bookings; the city reported just over 3,500 approved hosts in its 2026 fiscal year report, against an estimated 60,000 illegal listings in 2018 |
| Spain | The consumer ministry said Airbnb removed nearly 65,000 unlicensed listings in 2025 and flagged a further 54,728 without registration numbers |
| Barcelona | The city will not renew its 10,101 tourist flat licences, which expire by November 2028 |
So a fall in listings may say more about enforcement than about demand. When you model supply or prices, record the rule changes for each market as events in your data, or your models will learn the wrong lesson.
Where reliable data comes from now
| Source | What it gives | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Eurostat | Nights and guests by country, region and city | Experimental, no prices, no per-platform split |
| National and city registries | Registered units, sometimes with addresses | Coverage varies by country |
| Inside Airbnb | Quarterly listing datasets for many cities, under CC BY 4.0 | About the last 12 months free; one platform |
| Commercial data providers | Rates, occupancy and forecasts | Paid, and methods vary |
| Your own channel and booking data | Exact rates, fees and conversions | Only your own inventory |
Check terms before collecting from platforms yourself. Airbnb’s terms say: “Do not use bots, crawlers, scrapers, or other automated means to access or collect data”. For most teams, the licensed and official routes above are the right starting point.
What pricing teams should check
- Define the price. Store nightly rate, fees, taxes and stay total as separate fields, and note which ones each source includes.
- Mark the breaks. Flag April and May 2025, when total pricing became standard, and each local rule change.
- Use registration numbers as keys. Where they exist, they link listings across platforms and to official registries.
- Watch your own display. If you sell direct, check that your booking pages show the total price correctly in every market. Our guide to rate parity monitoring covers catching your own rates undercut across channels.
- Compare markets fairly. Currency, taxes and fees differ by country, which our study of hotel and airline quotes by exit country shows in practice.
Where proxies fit
A proxy does not change a platform’s terms. Where a platform prohibits automated collection, use its official channels, licensed data or public statistics instead. Residential proxies are useful for a different job: checking how your own booking pages and rate displays appear to guests in each market, including currency, taxes and the total price, so you know your public prices are shown the way the rules require. Our study of the same product priced in 20 countries shows how much display can vary by location.
The bottom line
Short-term rental data is moving from scraped listings towards regulated reporting, official statistics and licensed datasets. The EU now collects activity data where countries opt in, Eurostat publishes the totals, and all-in price rules mean a rate is no longer just a nightly number. Define prices carefully, mark the rule changes in your series, and build on sources you are allowed to use.
Sources and references
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 on data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services: publications.europa.eu
- European Commission, New rules bring increased transparency to the short-term rentals sector (20 May 2026): single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu
- Eurostat, nights in short-stay accommodation booked online in 2025 (1 April 2026): ec.europa.eu
- Eurostat, first quarter 2026 (2 July 2026): ec.europa.eu
- Spain, Supreme Court ruling on Royal Decree 1312/2024 (BOE, 8 June 2026): boe.es
- FTC, Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees takes effect (5 May 2025): ftc.gov
- 16 CFR Part 464: ecfr.gov
- Airbnb, Total price display is now standard globally (21 April 2025): news.airbnb.com
- Airbnb, Q4 2023 and full-year financial results: news.airbnb.com
- NYC Office of Special Enforcement, registered hosts pass 3,500: nyc.gov
- NYC Office of Special Enforcement, report on Local Law 18: nyc.gov
- Spain Ministry of Consumer Affairs, removal of 65,000 illegal Airbnb listings (5 August 2025): consumo.gob.es
- Barcelona City Council, tourist flat licences will not be renewed: ajuntament.barcelona.cat
- Inside Airbnb, data policies: insideairbnb.com
- Airbnb Terms of Service: airbnb.com