The Balearic Parliament has demanded this Wednesday to the central government to withdraw the possibility of enabling private vessels -those of list seven- for tourist rental, a figure contemplated in the state resolution of the Merchant Marine of July 17, 2025.
The House has done so with the votes of PP and Vox, against the opposition of the left-wing groups, in an initiative that reopens the institutional dispute over the “nautical Airbnb”, widely questioned in the Balearic Islands, especially in Ibiza and Formentera.
The PNL, defended by the ‘popular’ deputy Sebastià Mesquida in the Commission of Territorial Planning, Housing, Mobility, Sea and Water Cycle, calls on the State to annul the regulations governing the transition from private to commercial use of pleasure boats, considering that it generates “negative consequences” for maritime safety and sustainability of the coast.
Mesquida has argued that allowing private boats to operate as charters, even temporarily, increases the risk of saturation in particularly sensitive areas of the Balearic Islands. The PP argues that the state measure breaks the regional consensus on the regulation of the marine industry, an approach reiterated in recent months by the Government of Marga Prohens, who has already activated two lines of action to block this model.
In fact, the Balearic Executive approved in summer an express amendment to the regional decree of nautical charter to prohibit the tourist rental of private boats, even when requesting a temporary change of use. Prohens then argued that the State intends to “impose a model that ignores the island reality“, a reaction supported by municipalities, the Consell de Ibiza and the marine industry, which has come to describe the state rule as “a time bomb” by the expected increase in uncontrolled activity.
Measuring the impact of the measure
The PNL approved today also urges the Government, this time with unanimous support, to maintain dialogue with administrations and entities engaged in coastal management to assess the nautical density in each territory and strengthen safety, control and environmental preservation. The stated objective is to avoid impacts on posidonia, anchorages and regional ports, where PortsIB has already expressly vetoed the commercial use of moorings reserved for private vessels.
While the institutional pulse continues, Madrid defends that the impact of the new system is minimal: since August only 17 applications have been submitted in Spain, two in the Balearic Islands, and none has been authorized in the islands. The Ministry of Transport maintains that the future regulation will allow to limit or veto this activity in saturated territories, a nuance that, however, has not calmed the political and business rejection in the Balearic Islands.
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The Government downplays the importance of the ‘nautical Airbnb’ and says that in the Balearic Islands there are only two applications
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The Government will allow the prohibition of ‘nautical Airbnb’ in saturated areas such as the Balearic Islands.
Debate on the Llevant express line
In the same commission a different PNL has been debated, presented by Marta Carrio (MÉS per Mallorca), to maintain in winter the express line of the TIB that connected the Llevant region with Palma during the summer. The proposal has been rejected by PP, Vox and the non-attached deputy Xisco Cardona, although the author defended that the mobility needs “do not disappear according to the tourist season“.
Carrio regretted that, in his opinion, the Government conditioned “the right of residents to the availability of public transport” to the volume of visitors. It did go ahead, unanimously, the point that urges the regional government to continue dialogue with the municipalities of the Llevant to improve the network.
