Eurostat figures show almost 719 million guest nights spent in the European Union were booked via online platforms Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor last year, with Paris leading EU capitals with over 19 million guest nights.
Within Central Europe, Budapest was the most popular for short-term stays with 6.7 million guest nights, ahead of Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, Krakow and others.
But Tamás Soproni, the mayor of Terézváros, Budapest’s 6th district, said the city’s popularity has justified asking locals about the impact of short-term stays on housing affordability and quality of life. This is why the district is now holding a vote on whether to ban the practice. Voting began on Monday and will end on September 15.
“You cannot sit idle and just wait for something to happen,” said Soproni, the mayor of Budapest's scenic sixth district, saying more and more properties in the area were being offered for short-term stays.
Short term rentals. Who benefits, who loses?
Managers and owners of apartments catering to tourists are unhappy about the vote over the proposed ban - which, if adopted, would start from the beginning of 2026 - with some actively campaigning against it.
One of them, Gergely Hanti, said: “I invested all my savings that I had from ten years of work as an IT worker, plus I took out a big bank loan to be able to buy this flat.”
As Tamás Varga, who is a manager of a rental management company, told Reuters, he has doubts whether the vote can be at all called a referendum, since there is no validity threshold for it.
He said: “So if say only 5% of the total residents of this district go to vote then they will be the ones deciding the future of the district? This is rather weird.”
There are also worries about the effect on local businesses catering largely to foreign tourists. “I would be very very sorry if this was cut back completely,” said Ábel Zsendovits, the owner of one of Budapest's ‘ruin bars,’ set up in abandoned residential buildings and industrial spaces, which are popular with visitors.
According to real estate website ingatlan.com a ban on short-term rentals in the 6th district could temporarily curb long-term rental prices. Currently, apartment prices in Terézváros are 22% above the Budapest average.
Local residents were mixed on the proposal, with one, Gábor Siklósi, saying he favored more regulations rather than an outright ban, while another resident, Matild, said short-term rentals, or more specifically the people using them, were causing problems.
“People going out and about have no interest in keeping quiet, order or cleanliness", she said.
Not only a Hungarian problem
Meanwhile, two newly arrived British tourists - who had booked an apartment - said they sympathized with locals who were finding it difficult to afford to live in the district.
“It's an issue we’re having similarly in the UK at the moment, it’s just access to affordable housing,” said Laura Jenkinson, and added: “I do have a great deal of sympathy andthat is something that Airbnb takes away for a lot of people that live around here.”
“It is a problem,” admitted her partner, Matt Oliphant. He said that both of them worked in the service industry for over a decade and have experienced hotels losing business to cheaper short-term rentals.
But at the same time, he pointed out that short-term rentals lead to an increased presence of tourism, which “drives a lot of the economy for local bars and things, people coming like us that maybe wouldn't have been able to afford a hotel in this area, drinking in the bars in this area.
“So there’s arguments for and against, isn’t there,” he concluded.
