Medellín Tightens Crackdown on Airbnb-Style Short-Term Rentals Used by Foreigners

COLOMBIA · HOUSING

Medellín, one of Latin America’s most popular destinations for remote workers and expatriates, has stepped up enforcement against unlicensed Airbnb-style rentals, including cross-checking immigration data to track properties housing foreigners. The campaign comes amid mounting local anger over a tourism-driven surge in rents that residents say is pricing them out of their own neighbourhoods.

What the city is doing

Medellín’s city government, working with the National Police, has strengthened inspection, surveillance and control operations in purely residential buildings in the El Poblado district, where apartments are being used as short-term lodging for tourists and visitors. During the visits, officials check that properties comply with urban-planning rules, hold the relevant permits and respect internal building regulations.

According to the Secretariat of Territorial Management and Control, the city consolidated 93 technical reports over a six-month period documenting possible infractions, ranging from prohibited land use and unauthorised changes of use to building works without a licence and violations of horizontal-property rules. Inspections identified at least 34 establishments operating without the required licence.

The immigration cross-check

A central element for foreign residents and visitors is the city’s data-sharing with the immigration agency Migración Colombia. The secretary of territorial management and control, Juan Manuel Velásquez Correa, said the exchange aims to identify which establishments house foreign citizens and to verify whether the properties file the reports required of them by the migration authority.

The city said the cross-check helps detect unregistered short-term rental operations, improve traceability and advance surveillance of properties that may be operating outside the rules. Authorities have also flagged cases where contracts of more than 30 days appear to be used to disguise what are, in practice, unlicensed tourist-lodging schemes.

Where the cases are concentrated

Velásquez Correa said the highest concentration of cases was in the Laureles district with 21, followed by San Cristóbal with 19, El Poblado with 16 and La Candelaria with 13. A further 11 cases were identified in environmentally restricted stream-buffer zones, particularly in rural townships and hillside areas, pointing to the spread of the activity into areas with planning restrictions.

Following the findings, the city opened police processes and issued formal requirements to property owners, aimed not only at sanctioning but at forcing compliance with planning rules. Building administrators, the city stressed, have a duty to report and to refuse short-term rental activity that breaches horizontal-property rules.

The wider rent debate

The enforcement drive plays out against intense local debate over housing costs. Residents and local media have linked the arrival of foreign tourists and digital nomads, often earning in dollars, to sharp rent increases and the transformation of neighbourhoods such as El Poblado, Laureles and the city centre, where the property guild estimates more than 12,000 homes are given over to short-term rental.

Analysts caution that the picture is more complex than foreigners alone. Some point to a chronic shortage of new housing supply as a key driver of rising prices, noting that the city has issued building permits for relatively little new housing over the past decade. Others argue that short-term platforms have nonetheless amplified pressure in specific, high-demand neighbourhoods.

What it means for foreigners

For foreigners living in or visiting Medellín, the practical takeaway is that short-stay accommodation in residential buildings is under closer scrutiny, and that staying in an unlicensed unit could expose hosts, and disrupt guests, as enforcement continues. Stays of under 30 days that are not properly reported are a particular focus of the migration cross-check.

The city has framed the campaign as a matter of urban order, safety and neighbourly coexistence rather than a move against foreigners as such. But the immigration data-sharing gives it a direct bearing on where and how visitors can legally stay in the city.