Paris asks Airbnb to delist 1,000 apartments

The city of Paris’ officials told the AFP that they have asked Airbnb and competing platforms to comply with new regulation. The Mayor’s Office has flagged around 1,000 apartments that are not registered with the city.

Since December 1st, you have to register your apartment with the city if you want to list it on an online renting platform. This way, city officials can more easily track apartments and see if they comply with regulation.

In particular, you can’t rent an apartment more than 120 days a year. Many renters also can’t list their apartment on Airbnb unless the landlord is fine with it.

Now, hosts need to display a registration number on the Airbnb listing. There are currently 65,000 homes on Airbnb in Paris. Only 11,000 apartments have been registered so far according to the AFP.

So it seems like Paris wants to speed things up more than anything. While Airbnb is the elephant in the room, the city of Paris sent a letter to Airbnb, HomeAway, Paris Attitude, Sejourning and Windu.

Paris is Airbnb’s biggest market. The company has made some promises, saying that Airbnb will automatically cap listings to 120 days per year.

But it doesn’t stop people from listing their apartment on multiple websites. For a big tech company like Airbnb, it doesn’t seem that hard to ask for a registration number as a mandatory field. But many hosts have yet to register. The company is buying time before the holiday season.

Like in many big cities, the city of Paris has been concerned about housing shortages and property price distortions. Hotel owners also see Airbnb as unfair competition.

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