Marseille is the most beautiful city in the world, so it’s not surprising that a lot of people want to come and visit. And there’s nothing easier than booking a little Airbnb! For some owners, it’s a question of making a family apartment profitable in order to finance work on their new kitchen, but for others, it’s become a real business. Even if this principle delights tourists, leaving apartments empty most of the time is not very beneficial. What’s more, if more and more apartments are dedicated solely to tourism, where are the people of Marseille going to live?
“In Marseille, we’ll have the strictest and strongest regulations in France to combat meublés de tourisme. – Benoît Payan
As we enter 2025, the regulation of tourist rentals in Marseille is taking a new turn. After several months of battle against platforms such as Airbnb (we remember the hunt for #discriminating key boxes), on February 17, City Hall announced the reduction to 90 days a year of the maximum duration for which principal residences can be rented to tourists (compared to 120 days currently). And if these rules are not respected, a fine of around 15,000 euros awaits those concerned (so much for being unprofitable).
The aim is to facilitate access to housing for Marseilles residents, who are finding it difficult to find accommodation because of the short-term rental market.
On the Airbnb side, the platform’s General Manager for France and Belgium, Clément Eulry, doesn’t share this (logical) point of view. According to him, this new measure will have no impact on the housing crisis in Marseille and could, on the contrary, penalize families who rely on this income to improve their purchasing power. In fact, tourist rentals account for just 0.3% of the city’s real estate stock (which isn’t all that much after all).
Nevertheless, the mayor’s office is totally opposed to the idea of turning Marseille into a tourist rental center. In addition to measures against key boxes, the city had already forced owners of second homes to invest in traditional rental accommodation if they wished to rent out their property to tourists (one wonders whether this is still a good plan). And in 2023, a control brigade dedicated to illegal rentals was created, in response to the rapid increase in tourist rentals in the Phocaean city. That same year, 13,000 tourist rentals were recorded in Marseille, representing a 45% increase over the previous year.
The question then arises: will this new rule be enough to alleviate the housing crisis in Marseille, or is it just a measure that will make landlords lose money? Vast topic!