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Short-term rentals worth 51.7 billion euro, AIGAB says, as Salvini vows to block EU rules

Italy's short-term rental sector was worth almost 52 billion euro in January to September 2026, by the count AIGAB presented in Milan on 26 October. The managers' association put the total at 51.7 billion euro: 10.1 billion euro of direct bookings, up from 8.5 billion a year earlier, an estimated 40.6 billion of indirect spending and 0.8 billion of investment in renovation and furnishing. AIGAB counted 509,342 homes listed online in September, 1.4% of Italy's 35.6 million dwellings. The figures were presented at the Stati Generali degli Affitti Brevi, where Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said the government would use "every means" to oppose the European Commission's Affordable Housing Act, which he described as a regulation that "in fact legitimises the expropriation of private property" (translations). The Act, proposed on 9 September, would let authorities in designated housing-stress areas limit or ban short-term letting of homes that are not the host's main residence. Rome already contests its legal basis and wants a national clause letting each state decide whether to apply it. The numbers are the industry's own. The 40.6 billion is a model estimate of spending around stays, not money earned by hosts, and the three components add up to 51.5 billion rather than 51.7. The 1.4% national share also hides local concentration: AIGAB's own data in April put 319,211 of Sardinia's 1,049,263 homes, 30.4%, without resident occupants. For visitors nothing changes now: the Act still needs the European Parliament and member states, and no Sardinian comune has been designated.

Source: Il Sole 24 Ore

Matteo Salvini, Italy's Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, reading papers at the EU Transport Council in June 2023

What AIGAB presented

Marco Celani, president of AIGAB (Associazione Italiana Gestori Affitti Brevi) and chief executive of Italianway, presented the figures at the Teatro Nazionale in Milan on the first day of the two-day Stati Generali degli Affitti Brevi, 26 and 27 October. Il Sole 24 Ore attributes the value figures to AIGAB's research centre, the listing counts to AirDNA and the housing stock to Istat and PriceLabs. For January to September 2026 against the same months of 2025:

  • Direct bookings: 10.1 billion euro, up from 8.5 billion (about +19%)

  • Indirect impact: 40.6 billion euro, up from 32.9 billion (about +23%)

  • Investment in renovation, furnishing and maintenance: 0.8 billion euro, up from 0.6 billion

  • Homes listed online in September 2026: 509,342, or 1.4% of the national stock, up 9.5% on a year earlier

  • Listings in the 20 regional capitals: 78,927, up 2.5% on August

  • Rome, Florence, Bologna, Milan and Venice: listings roughly flat over two years (+1%), their share of the national total down from 12% to 11%

AIGAB also broke down where new supply comes from: 30.4% homes that had been empty for some time, 28.7% inherited, 26.1% owner-occupied homes let temporarily, 12.6% former long-term lets and 2.2% bought as investments, according to Il Sole 24 Ore. It counted about 395,000 inherited homes in 2025. Celani said demand "is holding up and rates are rising, although not for all destinations" (Il Sole 24 Ore's translation).

What Salvini said

Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, spoke after Celani. ItaliaOggi quotes him: «Useremo ogni mezzo, come governo italiano e come ministero delle infrastrutture per opporci al regolamento europeo sugli affitti brevi» (we will use every means, as the Italian government and as the infrastructure ministry, to oppose the European regulation on short-term rentals), and «un regolamento che di fatto legittima l'esproprio della proprietà privata» (a regulation that in fact legitimises the expropriation of private property). Requadro reports the pledge as a block «con ogni mezzo lecito», by every lawful means.

On hotels he told the audience: «Voi non siete in competizione col mondo alberghiero, soddisfate due fasce diverse» (you are not in competition with the hotel world, you serve two different segments), Requadro reports. He also backed extending fast eviction procedures to occupied second and third homes, telling the room «occupare la seconda casa non è meno reato di occupare la prima» (occupying a second home is no lesser crime than occupying a first), according to ItaliaOggi. Milano Finanza reports that this is a bill in the Senate, which he asked the Lega to add as an amendment to the security decree. Tourism minister Gianmarco Mazzi also said he would oppose the EU proposal, ItaliaOggi reports.

Where the EU proposal stands

The European Commission presented the Affordable Housing Act on 9 September 2026. As a proposed regulation it would let national, regional and local authorities designate "areas under housing stress" by price-to-income tests and, where they can show a significant adverse effect from short-term rentals, introduce authorisation schemes, caps or bans on letting homes that are not the host's primary residence, for up to five years at a time. Hosts letting their own main home are exempt. It does not ban anything by itself, and it needs the agreement of the European Parliament and the member states.

Italy's objection is already on the record. At question time in the Chamber of Deputies, European Affairs Minister Tommaso Foti said that Article 114 of the EU Treaty, on the internal market, is the wrong legal basis for housing policy and that the proposal breaches subsidiarity and proportionality, ItaliaOggi reported on 24 September. «Noi continueremo a sostenere che questo Regolamento debba contenere una clausola nazionale», he said: we will keep arguing that the regulation must contain a national clause.

What it means in Sardinia

The national average hides very different local pictures. In April, ANSA reported AIGAB research-centre figures of 1,049,263 homes in Sardinia, 319,211 of them, 30.4%, without resident occupants, a category that includes second homes in use. Reporting of a Nomisma study presented in Olbia on 17 October gave 51,597 national CIN registration codes for tourist lettings in the region, 30,111 of them in Cagliari and Gallura. Platform-booked nights in Sardinia rose 24.2% in the first quarter of 2026 on Eurostat data.

No Sardinian comune has been designated a housing-stress area, and nothing in the Act applies until it is adopted and in force. Italy's Constitutional Court has meanwhile set its own limits on local rules, striking down Emilia-Romagna's region-wide approach in October while upholding Tuscany's targeted one in 2025.

A note on the numbers

The headline 51.7 billion euro is AIGAB's figure as reported by Il Sole 24 Ore and Qualitytravel. Its three published components add up to 51.5 billion (10.1 + 40.6 + 0.8), and Milano Finanza headlined 51.5 billion. Nearly four fifths of the total is indirect impact, a model estimate of spending linked to stays, not money received by hosts or managers. Listings are online adverts counted by AirDNA, not registered homes, and the 9.6 million "unoccupied" dwellings in Istat's stock include second and holiday homes, so they are not homes available to rent. Milano Finanza quotes Celani as saying only 2.2% of short-term rental homes were previously let long-term; Il Sole 24 Ore's breakdown gives 12.6% for former long-term lets and 2.2% for investment purchases, and we use the latter. All figures are AIGAB's own and have not been independently audited.

Image: Matteo Salvini at the EU Transport Council, 1 June 2023. © European Union, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources: Qualitytravel, 27 October 2026 · Il Sole 24 Ore, 26 October 2026 · ItaliaOggi, 27 October 2026 · Requadro · Milano Finanza, 26 October 2026 · ItaliaOggi, 24 September 2026 · AIGAB, Stati Generali 2026

Related reading

Elsewhere on Sardinia Blog: how the Affordable Housing Act's price tests might apply to Olbia; the 319,000 Sardinian homes with no permanent resident, and why the figure is not new; why the Constitutional Court struck down Emilia-Romagna's region-wide rules; and Eurostat's count of platform-booked nights in Sardinia last winter.

Sardinia Blog is published within the Rental12 ecosystem, an owner-operator letting homes it owns in Olbia and Golfo Aranci rather than a property manager acting for other owners. Its own articles on rental law and the 1.4% share of Italy's homes, on vacant homes and holiday lets in Olbia and on the economic effect of short-term rentals in Europe and Sardinia, and its press archive, are company statements, not independent evidence.