Florence Airbnb Ban? 402 New Permits, 8 in the UNESCO Area, and No Count of Rentals Removed

The short answer

Florence has not banned Airbnb. Since 31 May 2025 it has blocked new short-term-rental units in its UNESCO World Heritage center, which the city's planning maps call Zona A, sottozona A1. Apartments that were regularly let to tourists during 2024 can keep operating. The city's regulation shields them from its provisions until 31 May 2028. On 4 June 2026 the city council voted to extend the same kind of block to two further zones, A3 and A4. Those zones hold 67,780 homes, according to the city.

The current rules have survived every court test so far. On 14 May 2026 the regional administrative court for Tuscany (TAR Toscana) rejected 19 appeals against the 2025 regulation, according to ANSA. On 25 September 2026 the same court refused to suspend the June 2026 extension while a challenge is heard, ANSA reported. An appeal to Italy's highest administrative court, the Consiglio di Stato, has been announced as likely. We found no report that one has been filed.

What the city has published is narrower than the headlines suggest. It reports 402 new authorizations issued under the regulation between June 2025 and May 2026. Only 8 of them are in the UNESCO area. It has not published how many short-term rentals left the market, how many 2024 units are still running, or any change in rents or residents inside the protected zone. This article sets out what each rule does, what the courts decided, and which numbers can be cited safely.

The legal sections below summarize public documents. They are not legal advice. Anyone letting property in Florence should check the current text of the regulation and take professional advice.

Which instrument does what

Florence's rules come from several layers of law that are easy to confuse. The planning rule, the rental regulation, the regional law and the court rulings each do a different job. The table below lists them in order.

The planning layer came first. In October 2023 the city adopted a variant to its old urban planning rules that barred new tourist-rental use in the UNESCO center. On 10 July 2024 the TAR Toscana closed a challenge to that variant brought by the consumer group Codacons. Local press reported that the court declared the appeal could not proceed, because the city's new Piano Operativo did not contain the rule. The court did not rule on the merits. On 30 July 2024 the council adopted a new variant to the Piano Operativo, Delibera n. 57. The Piano Strutturale and Piano Operativo then took effect on 6 June 2025. According to the city's own FAQ, the Piano Operativo bars the "temporary residence" use in sottozona A1.

The regional layer gives the city its power. Tuscany's tourism code, Regional Law 61 of 31 December 2024, lets high-density tourist municipalities and provincial capitals set zones and limits for short-term rentals by regulation. Article 59 of that law also requires a five-year authorization per unit in those zones. The national government challenged the law. In ruling 186/2025, decided on 8 October 2025 and deposited on 16 December 2025, the Constitutional Court declared the challenge to article 59 unfounded. It held that the rule falls mainly under tourism and land-use planning, where regions have power.

The municipal layer is the Regolamento per le locazioni turistiche brevi. The council approved it with Delibera n. 27 on 5 May 2025. It entered into force on 31 May 2025. The council amended it with Delibera DC/2026/00028 on 4 June 2026.

What the 2025 rule actually blocks

The regulation applies to a "locazione turistica breve". Florence defines that as a residential lease of no more than 30 days for tourist purposes. Every new unit let this way needs its own authorization, valid for five years. The unit must have at least 28 square meters of floor space. Breaches of the quality and size rules carry fines of €1,000 to €10,000 per unit. An authorization lapses if the unit is not let for more than 12 consecutive months, unless it was on a longer residential lease in that time. The city must decide a complete application within 60 days.

Article 8 is the core of the UNESCO-area rule. It limits the number of short-term rentals in sottozona A1 to units that were already regularly let to tourists during 2024. No new unit can join that pool. This is why the most accurate short description is a block on new short-term-rental units, with 2024 units grandfathered to 31 May 2028.

The grandfathering sits in article 12. Units regularly let in 2024 are excluded from the regulation's provisions from 31 May 2025 until 31 May 2028. Some quality standards in article 7 apply to them at once. The text sets no expiry date for the article 8 limit itself. It does require the city to run permanent monitoring and lets the council add zones or limits based on the results.

Two smaller provisions matter for anyone reading the rule as a total ban. First, a resident host can let part of a home, or a single room, without prior authorization, under article 2. The text does not say explicitly whether the zone limits also apply to such room lets. Second, units that obtained a regional registration code between 1 January and 31 May 2025 had until 31 December 2025 to apply for authorization, according to the city's FAQ.

None of this removes an existing 2024 rental from the market before 2028. Reuters, reporting the expansion plan on 27 May 2026, wrote that the measure does not reduce the number of existing short-term rentals and would stop new ones from being activated.

The June 2026 extension to A3 and A4

On 26 May 2026 the city announced a plan to extend the block beyond the UNESCO center. The council approved it on 4 June 2026. The vote, as recorded in Delibera DC/2026/00028, was 20 in favor, 8 against and 2 abstentions, with 30 councillors present. A separate vote made the act immediately enforceable, by 21 to 6 with 27 present. Council president Cosimo Guccione chaired the session. Mayor Sara Funaro is listed among those voting in favor.

The amendment adds article 8bis. It limits short-term rentals in sottozone A3 and A4 to units already regularly let "at the date of entry into force" of the new article. It does not use 2024 as its reference year. Article 12 already applies the regulation to lets started from 1 January 2025, so units that began in A3 or A4 after that date do not share the 2024 exclusion. The text does not say directly whether such a unit, if authorized, counts in the A3 and A4 pool at the date article 8bis took effect. La Nazione reported that the extension took effect on 19 June 2026. We did not find that date in the council text.

The city's 4 June release sizes the two areas. Sottozone A3 and A4 hold 67,780 homes across 11.21 square kilometers. Sottozona A1, the UNESCO area, holds 35,593 homes across about 5.05 square kilometers. Added together, the blocked zones now cover 103,373 homes and about 16.26 square kilometers. That is 2.9 times the number of homes covered before June. Reuters reported the same totals as "more than 103,000" homes and "about 16 square kilometres".

Press coverage described the new zones as nine areas, seven areas or 504 streets. Those are journalistic descriptions. The legal boundary is the A3 and A4 sub-zone map of the Piano Operativo. Reuters also wrote that the expansion would last two years. We did not find a two-year term in the consolidated regulation, which sets no end date for article 8bis.

The city based the extension on studies by the MEMOTEF department of Rome's Sapienza University. In its 26 May release the city described pressure in A3 and A4 as high, at 20% to 44%, and quoted a risk of growth of up to 97%. The mayor said growth in the Pignoncino and San Frediano areas had passed 90%. We did not open the studies. These figures are the city's account of them.

What the TAR decided on 14 May 2026, and what it did not

ANSA reported that the first section of the TAR Toscana, in rulings published on the morning of 14 May 2026, rejected 19 appeals against the 2025 regulation. Finestre sull'Arte and La Notizia reported that the 19 appeals were decided in three judgments. A Florence council committee record of 26 May 2026 cites one of them as ruling n. 925 of 14 May 2026. A legal commentary on diritto.it, published on 22 May 2026, also cites ruling 925/2026 and describes it as the decision that rejected the 19 appeals. We did not find numbers for any other judgments, and we could not open the text of any of them.

The appellants were industry operators, trade associations and private citizens. According to ANSA, they argued that the regulation breached the constitutional protection of property and enterprise, conflicted with the EU Services Directive, and invaded powers reserved to the national state. The court relied on Constitutional Court ruling 186/2025 and on European case law. It held that protecting the urban environment, social and cultural policy goals, and the historic and artistic heritage are overriding reasons in the public interest that can justify limits on economic freedom. The diritto.it commentary adds that the court cited the EU Court of Justice's 2020 Cali Apartments judgment, which accepted prior-authorization schemes where housing is under strain.

The ruling has limits that are easy to miss. It upheld the 2025 regulation, which covered the UNESCO area. It did not rule on the June 2026 extension, which did not yet exist. It is a first-instance decision and can be appealed. It also said nothing about whether the rule works. A court can find a measure lawful and proportionate on the evidence before it without measuring its later effect on housing.

There is also a national tension that the Florence ruling does not resolve. In April 2025 the Consiglio di Stato ruled in a case from Sirmione, in Lombardy, that tourist letting done in a non-business form is not subject to municipal prescriptive powers, according to Il Post. That case rested on Lombardy's law, which differs from Tuscany's 2024 code. It shows that Italian courts have not reached one view on how far a city can go.

The September 2026 order and the road to the Consiglio di Stato

The June extension was challenged quickly. ANSA reported on 25 September 2026 that the TAR Toscana had refused an interim suspension requested by an association and other applicants. The court said the grounds of appeal need full examination at the merits stage. It found that the applicants had described the risk of harm "in absolutely generic terms". The extension therefore stays in force while the case continues. ANSA did not report a date for the merits hearing. Tourism assessor Jacopo Vicini welcomed the decision.

On the May rulings, two groups have talked about going to the Consiglio di Stato. Lorenzo Fagnoni, president of Property Managers Italia, was quoted by La Notizia on 19 May 2026 announcing a "probable" appeal. Forza Italia's group leaders Marco Stella, on the Tuscan regional council, and Alberto Locchi, on the Florence city council, said they were ready to back one, according to Finestre sull'Arte on 15 May 2026. Our searches to 30 October 2026 found no report that an appeal has been lodged. Until one is reported, the accurate wording is that an appeal was announced.

What is measured, and at what scope

The city's case rests on a mix of counts that measure different things over different areas. Some cover the whole city. Some cover the UNESCO area. One covers an undefined area the city calls the centro storico. The table below puts each count next to its scope and its source.

Reading the table row by row avoids the most common errors. The 35,593 and 67,780 figures are homes, meaning all dwellings in each zone. They are the size of the area the rule protects. They are not rental counts. The 16,906 figure is registered tourist-rental activities across the whole city, from Tuscany's regional tourism observatory as cited by the city. The city also says these rentals provide about 56% of all tourist beds in Florence. We did not open the underlying data for either claim.

The Inside Airbnb figures are listings scraped from one platform. The city reports 10,867 listings in 2023 and 12,211 in 2026, a rise of 1,344, or 12.4% by our calculation. It does not give the scrape dates, and a listing can be a room, a whole flat or a duplicate. The city says about 85% of listings are in the centro storico, an area it does not define. It should not be read as sottozona A1.

The population figures need the same care. On 31 January 2025 Florence had 365,756 residents, according to the city's statistical bulletin. Quartiere 1, the administrative district called Centro Storico, had 62,966. Quartiere 1 is a larger area than the UNESCO zone. Il Post reported on 6 May 2025 that the UNESCO area had 35,954 residents at 31 December 2024, citing city data. We found no official source for that figure, so we treat it as press-reported and do not use it in any calculation. We found no resident time series for sottozona A1.

The authorization count is the only clean outcome metric

One number speaks directly to what the regulation has done. Between June and December 2025 the city issued 132 authorizations. In the first five months of 2026 it issued 270. The total is 402. Only 8 are in the UNESCO area, and the city's releases describe the regime there as a block on new units. These figures appear in the city's 26 May and 4 June 2026 releases. The 132 and 270 figures also appear in the council's own act.

Our calculation puts the pace at about 18.9 authorizations a month in 2025 and 54 a month in early 2026. Part of that rise may reflect the 31 December 2025 deadline for units registered in early 2025. The city has not broken the figure down by reason, so we cannot say how much. The 8 UNESCO-area authorizations are 2.0% of the total.

The count shows where new supply went after 31 May 2025. Almost all of it went outside the UNESCO center. The city used that pattern to argue for the June extension. It does not show whether the stock of rentals inside A1 has fallen. The 2024 units there remain outside the regulation until 31 May 2028. They do not need to apply, so they do not appear in the 402. The city has not published how many there are.

Listings, registrations and nights do not answer the question

Three other series are often quoted as evidence of the rule's success or failure. None of them can carry that weight.

Listings rose between 2023 and 2026, according to the city's Inside Airbnb figures. That could reflect growth outside A1, changes in how the platform is scraped, or hosts listing on more than one site. The figure is citywide and not tied to a date before and after 31 May 2025. It cannot show the effect of the rule.

Registrations, at 16,906, are a citywide stock at one point in time. The city has not published a matching figure for an earlier date or for A1 alone.

Tourist nights measure demand. Rental supply is a separate question. The city reported more than 4.7 million arrivals and 11.5 million nights in 2025, up 10.2% and 11.1% on 2024. For January to October 2025, the city and its Centro Studi Turistici reported 9.7 million nights, up 8.5%. They split the increase by type. Hotels added about 25,000 nights, other non-hotel lodging about 274,000 and tourist rentals about 463,000. Those three add up to about 762,000. Tourist rentals made up about 61% of the increase, by our calculation. This is a citywide figure, and half of the period came after the UNESCO block took effect. It is consistent with rental growth moving outside A1. It does not measure what happened inside A1.

Readers comparing Florence with national totals can see how 2025 and 2026 demand looks across Italy in our Italy tourism 2026 record watch. Older city series give a lower 2024 base than the 2025 growth rate implies. We have not chained the two.

Claims that do not hold up

Several claims about Florence's rules circulate in news coverage and industry blogs. The table names who made each claim and when, and checks it against the documents opened for this article.

Two of these claims trace to Il Post's article of 6 May 2025. Il Post gave 21 May 2025 as the expected start, written before the regulation was published. The council's June 2026 act records 31 May 2025. Il Post also reported 35,954 residents in the UNESCO area at 31 December 2024, citing city data. We found no official source for that figure, so we report it as press-reported and do not use it in any calculation.

What travelers will and will not notice

For visitors, the rule limits new listings. Booking an existing one is unaffected. A rental that was regularly let in 2024 in the UNESCO center can still take bookings until at least 31 May 2028. Rooms let by a resident host need no authorization. Hotels, B&Bs and other licensed accommodation businesses sit under separate rules. A traveler booking a central apartment today is not breaking any rule. Compliance is the host's duty.

What a traveler may notice is where new listings appear. If new supply keeps moving outward, more of it will sit in neighborhoods beyond the old center. Our Florence travel guide covers how the main areas connect to the sights. Our list of things to do in Florence shows which attractions sit inside the UNESCO center.

Florence's rule is a supply measure. Venice took a different route with a fee charged to day visitors on set dates, and our review of three years of Venice access fee results shows what that city has and has not published. Rome's charge at one monument is another model, covered in our look at the Trevi Fountain fee results. In each case the published data lag behind the claims made for the measure.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers do not face a ban on booking a short-term rental in Florence. Existing 2024 units in the UNESCO center can operate until 31 May 2028, and the block applies to new units in A1 and, since June 2026, in A3 and A4. Booking a licensed property remains legal, and checking that a listing shows its national identification code (CIN) is a sensible step. The rules do not change tourist demand, which the city says rose in 2025.

Tourism businesses and investors (landlords and hoteliers) should treat the A1, A3 and A4 zones as closed to new short-term-rental units for now. According to ANSA, the TAR has upheld the 2025 regulation and refused to suspend the 2026 extension. A Consiglio di Stato appeal has been announced as likely but was not reported as filed by 30 October 2026. The open questions are the status after 31 May 2028, whether units started in A3 or A4 in 2025 or early 2026 count in the pool for those zones, and the outcome of the merits hearing on the extension. This article is not legal advice.

Journalists and analysts can cite the official figures in the box above, including the city-cited figure of 16,906 registered rentals citywide. The rejection of 19 appeals on 14 May 2026 and the refusal on 25 September 2026 to suspend the extension are press-reported, because we could not open the judgments. The claims table lists what not to repeat.