Canary Islands Struggle to Curb Illegal Tourist Rentals on Booking Platforms

The rise of unregulated tourist accommodations remains a major headache for authorities in the Canary Islands. Despite new oversight rules, booking platforms like Booking.com continue to list properties that fail to meet legal standards, including vehicles with roof-mounted tents and makeshift structures like yurts.

This issue is visible in places like Radazul, where roof-tent setups are advertised for around 70 euros a day, and Arico, where yurts are available for 48 euros a night. These listings highlight the gaps in current enforcement. While the Canary Islands government signed agreements with major travel portals last year to remove listings that lack a mandatory registration number, these automated filters are clearly not foolproof. Although more than 10,000 illegal listings have been removed nationwide, many properties that do not qualify as legal vacation rentals remain on the market.

The core of the problem is the definition of a dwelling. Regional laws require all vacation rentals to meet strict standards for safety, habitability, and urban planning. By design, a car is not a home, and while structures like yurts might be suitable for authorized campsites or "glamping" businesses, they do not meet the requirements for standard tourist housing.

Examples like the Radazul car rental—which comes with little more than a portable cooler and a stove—or the isolated yurt in Arico, show a clear disconnect between what tourists are looking for and the laws meant to ensure market transparency. While officials maintain that they are working directly with platforms to take down these irregular listings, the digital market is proving difficult to police. To maintain the quality of the islands as a tourist destination and ensure legal certainty, authorities must ensure that all rentals meet established housing standards, rather than allowing digital platforms to bypass the law.