The city of Brussels has already detected more than 400 illegal apartments on Airbnb since 2020

Since 2020, 436 apartments have been discovered in Brussels that were illegally provided via Airbnb or booking.com. So says a Brussels alderman of Stedenbouw Ans Persoons (one.brussels-Vooruit).

De Tijd writes that the number of places to stay in our country via Airbnb or sites like booking.com is at an all-time high. According to Ghent data company OTA Insight, these are record numbers.

In 2022, a total of 33,456 rooms, apartments or homes were rented for a certain period of time – usually for a short period of time. This represents an increase of about 20 percent compared to the previous year.

private house

The increase refers to the profitable “Airbnb”, the consequences of which are borne by the City of Brussels, as well as other Brussels municipalities.

“There are regional regulations about this, which will be updated soon,” says Brussels alderman Persons. “The gist of this is that people are allowed to provide accommodation for 90 days a year, if it is their home.”

Rising housing prices

But this is not always the case. Since 2020, the Brussels City Services have detected 436 cases of ‘illegal Airbnbs’.

“It is often the professional real estate companies that buy the buildings and then rent them out as Airbnbs, because they can make a lot of money.”

This trend is putting more pressure on the housing market, especially in the central district, but also in other municipalities such as Ixelles and Sint-Gillis.

“Because there are fewer apartments left for people who want to rent, and this in turn leads to an increase in prices, but also, for example, noise pollution.”

key boxes

By the way, it is through these complaints that the Brussels inspection services can detect illegal Airbnbs.

“Our teams are also actively looking for key boxes that Airbnb users use or notice.”

In addition to Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent and Ostend are also popular Airbnb cities in our country.