Amsterdam officials have failed to reach a deal with Airbnb and other online holiday rental agencies on making sure that the city’s 30-day limit is kept, alderman Laurens Ivens said on Tuesday evening.

The council will now begin carrying out extra checks on people who rent out their homes to make sure the rules, which also include a ceiling of four people per property, are not being broken, Ivens said.

The main issue, Ivens said, is that the agencies are unwilling to take an active approach to making sure the 30 day limit is not broken. It is, for example, very easy for landlords to make a new advert and start the rental process again, Ivens said.

‘It is the platforms themselves, which have so much information about their landlords and which are in direct contact with them, that should take responsibility to make sure the city remains a pleasant place to live and visit,’ he said.

The city will continue to press national government to introduce a registration system for holiday rentals and will call on the European Commission to take a more active position, he said.

Amsterdam has had an agreement with Airbnb since the end of 2016.

Priorities

Airbnb told DutchNews.nl the company ‘wants to continue working with Amsterdam and on industry-wide approaches.’ The company has placed a list of its priority points online but makes clear that it will not adhere to the 30 day rule.

The company says it will continue the voluntary automated hosting limit of 60 days from last year and points out that a number of challenges have been made to the 30 day ruling which was introduced on January 1.

‘We believe there is a better way forward and ask for an external and objective assessment of this rule in terms of legality and effectiveness,’ the company said.

Airbnb claims that its 20,000 hosts in Amsterdam rent on average for less than three nights a month, or 36 nights a year.