Amsterdam has more Airbnb-registered apartments than it did during the pandemic but the total is less than half of the 18,000 homes listed on the site before new rules were brought in.

In total, tourists can choose from 7,800 apartments and rooms in the Dutch capital, compared with just 3,000 at the height of the coronavirus period, news radio station BNR reported. 

Three in four properties in the capital are entire homes, and the average price is €241, BNR said. That is up 22% from a year ago. 

The figures come from AirDNA, which analyses the short term property rental market and claims to track 10 million holiday rentals across the globe.

Registration

Since 2021, Amsterdam hosts have had to register their property with the city council and can only rent it out for a maximum of 30 days. 

New York has recently introduced tougher restrictions, banning all Airbnb rentals unless the owner is also in the property at the same time, BNR said. This is something that could also be looked at in Amsterdam, local PvdA leader Lian Heinhuis told BNR. 

‘Airbnb began as a friendly concept and has grown into a problem, which we as a council have little control over, despite the rules,” Heinhuis said. 

The European parliament is also pressing ahead with legislation to better monitor holiday rentals through websites such as Airbnb, Booking and Expedia, with legislation expected to pass by the end of the year

Short-term rentals booked on these websites now represent around 25% of tourist accommodation in the European Union, according to EU data.

Last year, 13 cities including Amsterdam, Paris and Barcelona called for urgent EU action, arguing that long-term rentals were increasingly being converted into short-term tourist accommodation causing soaring prices and more problems for residents.

More bookings

According to Eurostat figures, guests spent almost 153 million nights in short-term rental accommodation in the EU, booked via Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group or TripAdvisor, in the second quarter of this year.

This corresponds to an increase of 15.8% compared with the same period in 2022.

In the Netherlands, the number of overnight stays in the spring and early summer was almost three million.  

Licences

Dutch News has asked Amsterdam city council how many Airbnb licences it has given since registration became a requirement, and how many are still active.

According to the council website, it has granted over 500 licences for holiday rentals in the past eight weeks.

A spokesman for Airbnb told Dutch News “our absolute number of listings on the platform in Amsterdam remains well below the peak prior to enforcement of registration.”

He also said the city had earned €44 million in tourist taxes collected by the company from hosts since 2015.