Fact: Banning Airbnb does not make rents cheaper

The Airbnb ban has not brought cheaper rental homes to Terézváros.According to the latest data from ingatlan.com, the median advertised rent in District VI has not changed over the past year. In neighbouring Districts VII and VIII, however, it has fallen, even though there is no limit on the number of days properties can be let there.

The figures and research from New York make one thing clear: some politicians and activists greatly exaggerate Airbnb’s effect on rents, and that exaggeration shapes public opinion. Banning short-term lets does not solve the affordable housing problem. That is not an opinion but a fact supported by data.

Rents did not fall where there was a ban, but they did where there was none

The district chart in ingatlan.com’s12 October analysiscompares median advertised rents in early October with those at the same time the previous year:

• District VI: HUF 280,000/month, annual change 0.0%;
• District VII: HUF 237,000/month, annual change −5.2%;
• District VIII: HUF 230,000/month, annual change −7.6%.

All three figures come from the same source, cover the same point in time and use the same method. The median is the middle advertised price: half the flats are offered for more and half for less. The chart shows asking rents in early October, not the September rent index also mentioned in the article.

Since 1 January 2026, private and other accommodation in Terézváros has been permitted to operate for zero days a year. Nine months later, rents have not fallen compared with the previous year. The median has fallen in two neighbouring districts without a complete ban, while it is also stagnant in District V.

It increasingly looks as though those who say Airbnb has no meaningful effect on rents are right: other market forces drive them.

This is not the first piece of evidence to contradict the promise

In our September fact-check,we showed how an autumn price drop measured against a summer peak was presented as a success attributable to the ban. Rents were already falling in several districts in autumn 2025, before the Terézváros ban. In the September year-on-year comparison, Terézváros and Józsefváros moved almost in lockstep.

Aseparate analysis by Alberlet.hufound that advertised rents in Terézváros had risen year on year in the completed months following the ban, based on its own listings. Now ingatlan.com’s October data show rents stagnating in Terézváros while falling in Districts VII and VIII.

These are different samples and time periods, so the percentages cannot be combined. But none of the data presented supports the promise of cheaper rental homes in Terézváros.

The effect on rents is small in New York too

International research also helps explain why the expected breakthrough has not materialised.

Sophie Calder-Wang’sNew York housing market modelestimated that Airbnb raised citywide rents by 0.71%. The 2021 version of the study modelled what would happen if homes moved from long-term to short-term letting returned to the long-term market. This is an aggregate effect of less than 1%, not a retrospective measurement of the later restrictions.

Alexander Marsella’s2026 studyexamined the tightening of New York’s Local Law 18. The number of affected Airbnb listings fell by 87%. Yet the estimated effect on rents in the first year was just−0.1%. The 95% uncertainty interval ranged from −2.3% to +2.2%, so the study found no statistically demonstrable fall in rents.

The disappearance of listings does not mean an equal number of new long-term rentals. Some New York owners switched to lets of at least 30 days, later returned to the platform or continued operating in another permitted form.

A ban does not make rental homes meaningfully cheaper.That is what the New York findings show, and rents in Terézváros point to the same failure to deliver.

Around 95,000 empty homes alongside 10,000 Airbnb properties

Ourarticle on empty homes in Budapestestimates that around 95,000 homes are genuinely empty. That is nearly nine times the stock of short-term lets.

Not every empty home can be let immediately. But if the aim is to increase the supply of housing, this much larger reserve deserves at least as much attention as Airbnb.

A closed short-term let does not automatically become an affordable rental home. Its owner may sell it, use it themselves, leave it empty or advertise it at the more expensive end of the rental market. A ban shuts down a business. It does not, by itself, create an affordable home.

Restaurants and cafés lose guests’ spending too

Property owners are not the only ones who bear the cost of restrictions and bans. Tourists have breakfast, coffee and dinner near where they stay. If those visitors stop coming, local restaurants, cafés and bars lose revenue too.

According toTurizmus.com’s report of 24 June 2026, the Magyar Vendéglátók Ipartestülete reported an average30% fall in turnoveramong Terézváros restaurants, cafés and bars in the first half of the year. Hospitality businesses linked the decline to the drop in tourist numbers following the Airbnb ban.

Their revenue fell, but they still had to pay their bills and taxes. The Magyar Vendéglátók Ipartestülete therefore called for a review of the regulation’s economic effects and warned of business closures and job losses.

The promised fall in rents has not happened, while local hospitality businesses have reported serious losses of revenue. That, too, must be included when weighing up the ban. The income of businesses that depend on tourism and the livelihoods of their staff matter just as much as those of property owners.

Józsefváros must not promise cheaper rental homes without evidence

TheJózsefváros regulatory proposalincludes improving housing affordability among its aims. The amendmentput out for consultation in the autumnwould regulate the proportion of short-term accommodation through district-wide and neighbourhood-level limits.

Yet in District VIII, the median advertised rent fell by 7.6% year on year without a complete ban. In the neighbouring district, where a zero-day rule has already been introduced, there has been no such fall. It is unjustified to present the outcome in Terézváros as a success in reducing rents and then use it as the basis for further restrictions.

The peace and quiet of residents in blocks of flats must be protected.Unlawful short-term lets must be identified and shut down. Above all, empty homes must be brought back onto the market instead of restricting or banning a sector that employs tens of thousands of people.

Housing promises must be judged by their results

The data and research presented here indicate that Airbnb’s effect on citywide rents is far smaller than the political promises accompanying bans suggest. Housing affordability is a much broader and more complex problem.

The ban has not brought cheaper rental homes to Terézváros. Prices have fallen in neighbouring districts, however.More available homes are needed to improve housing affordability. Blaming Airbnb is an easy answer, but the results so far show that it makes no sense.