ZURICH - One month into the city's new regime against commercial short-term rentals, the reports are piling up. Some 338 notices of suspected violations have reached the city since 1 September, when the revised building and zoning code took effect after the Federal Court cleared it, Markus Pfanner, spokesperson for the building department, confirmed on Friday.
The rules stop short of a full ban but make commercial hosting far harder. Flats rented out commercially for periods under a year, whether Airbnb listings or business apartments, no longer count toward a building's mandatory residential share and are treated as commercial use. Converting a flat to such use now requires a building application even when no physical work is done, and owners must report the activity. Occasional rentals of one's own home during absences remain exempt.
Checks by tip-off first, platforms in 2027
So far, no inspector has knocked on a door. The building authority is working through the reports and expects to complete checks based on concrete tips by the end of the year. Systematic monitoring of online platforms like Airbnb is planned from 2027. To handle the load, the council has approved five full-time positions for three years, at a cost of CHF 650,000 a year.
The city estimates that around 5,300 Airbnbs and business apartments were on offer in 2025, roughly half of them likely to fall under the new rules. The context is a housing market where the national vacancy rate has fallen below one percent and Zurich's own debate over short-term rentals has been building all year.
Airbnb disputes the premise
The platform rejects the logic of the crackdown entirely. "Airbnb has no significant impact on housing availability or affordability in Switzerland," the company said, pointing to its 2025 analysis that listings booked at least 90 nights a year make up just 0.14 percent of the country's housing stock, though the Zurich share is likely far higher. The great majority of hosts, it insists, are homesharers renting out their own place occasionally, which removes nothing from the market.
The company also cites the scoreboard from abroad. Amsterdam's strict regime cut Airbnb listings by 54 percent between 2019 and 2024, yet long-term rents there rose 34 percent over the same period, far more than the 13 percent national rise. Barcelona, which plans a full ban on tourist flats from November 2028, has seen similar doubts. Meanwhile Zurich's own anti-Airbnb initiative, launched by the Greens and the Alternative List on the Lucerne model of a 90-night annual cap, is still pending. The council supports its goals but wants to shape a counter-proposal aligned with the rules now in force.