One in three short-term rental listings in Budapest is unlicensed: the registration number is missing, does not exist, or belongs to someone else.¹ These hosts pay no tourist tax, issue no invoice, and if there is trouble in the building there is no one to hold responsible. District bans do not solve this, because they only reach those who registered in the first place.

We measured the size of the unlicensed market, then tried to report an abuse. This summary sets out what happened.

The story: five authorities in three months, one web form in six days

In May we noticed that four listings by strangers were running under a client's deleted NTAK number. An NTAK number is like a licence plate: unique to each property, and the tax return is tied to it.

On 13 May we wrote to four authorities: the accommodation classification body, NTAK, the tax authority and the district clerk. Each replied that the matter was outside its competence and referred us to the clerk. The clerk's office answered in a single sentence: "the NTAK numbers listed in your letter have been corrected on the advertising sites". Whether proceedings were opened or a fine imposed, we still have no information.²

On 24 July we filled in Booking.com's public reporting form. Six days later the platform removed both reported listings.

Three months, five authorities, and to this day we do not know whether proceedings were opened. Booking.com removed two listings in six days on the basis of a web form.

The systemic fault in brief: the body that could impose a penalty — the district clerk — cannot have a listing taken down. The platform can take listings down, but has no single Hungarian counterpart: it would have to deal with 23 district clerks, and no one office is large enough for that.

The situation in six numbers

15,125	short-term rental listings run in Budapest, of which 4,952 (32.7%) are unlicensed¹
661	unlicensed listings in Terézváros, where a total ban has been in force since January: 76.5% of local supply¹
−72,200	guest nights in District VI in a single quarter; hotels absorbed less than a quarter of the loss³
−HUF 280 million	shortfall in the district's tourist tax revenue over six months (−22.8%)⁴
HUF 1.3–3.1 billion	the annual tax shortfall in Budapest, depending on the method⁵⁶
97.2%	of operators have at most three properties: this is a market of families, not of large investors⁷

Terézváros: what the total ban delivered

Private accommodation letting has been banned in the district since 1 January 2026. Seven months later 864 listings are still running, three-quarters of them unlicensed.¹ The law-abiding hosts shut down. Those who ignored the rules stayed open and gained a tax advantage over the legal hosts operating in the neighbouring district.

The guests did not move to hotels: of the 94,900 guest nights lost, hotels absorbed 22,700; the rest of the guests went to another district or another city.³ Meanwhile turnover at the district's restaurants, cafés and bars fell by 30 per cent.⁸

New York played this out on a larger scale

In September 2023 New York effectively banned short-term rentals, and 90 per cent of the supply disappeared.⁹¹⁰ Rents did not fall: median rent in Manhattan hit a record in the summer of 2025.¹¹ Hotel prices, on the other hand, rose by USD 14–19 per night, and hotel industry revenue increased by USD 2–3 billion in eighteen months. Almost all of this came from the price increase, and it was established by a peer-reviewed study, not a news report.¹² Restaurant turnover fell there too, by roughly 10 per cent.¹³

And what about housing?

If housing is the goal, the proportions speak for themselves. In Budapest 95,320 homes stand genuinely empty and unused while 10,703 are let short-term: nearly nine times as many empty homes as short-let ones.¹⁴¹⁵ Acting against unlicensed accommodation is therefore not primarily a housing question but one of fair competition and paying tax. The full derivation, with downloadable charts: Budapest's empty homes.

What we propose

Clean up the market first, restrict afterwards. First let it become clear how large the unlicensed supply is, and let those listings disappear from the platforms. Then we can measure how much of a problem is left.
One Budapest-level counterpart instead of 23 district clerks, able to negotiate with Airbnb and Booking. Platforms cooperate when they have a clear partner. The six-day removal shows this.
A uniform Budapest tourist tax base, so that the platform can collect the tax. Bratislava has had this in place since 2021.¹⁶

We offered our measurement system to the authorities free of charge. It shows unlicensed listings by district and by operator. So far no one has taken it up: one district already has a contracted partner, and another says it "does not negotiate with market players".

What we can give a newsroom

The complete correspondence with the authorities, verbatim and with dates. Measurement data broken down by district, operator or street. Verifiable example listings where the irregularity can be checked in a few minutes. We are also happy to demonstrate the system in person.

We do not release the names and addresses of individual hosts. Some of those concerned are victims themselves, because their identifier was stolen. Everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

If you need more: the full background material

This summary gives the essentials. The full press background goes considerably deeper, in eleven chapters. What is there and not here:

verbatim quotations from the correspondence with the authorities, with dates and the full chronology,
the measurement methodology and the district breakdown,
the derivation of the tax shortfall estimate: what is the measured base and what is estimated,
the details of the international research on rent effects and empty homes,
Józsefváros's HUF 381,000 half-year listing-screening contract,
and eight concrete questions a newsroom can follow up.

Contact

GuestGuru Kft. · Révay utca 6. fszt. 7, 1065 Budapest · hello@guest.guru

180 managed homes in Budapest, six in Malta. In this matter our partner is the Hungarian Apartment Letting Association. We are not an authority and we do not want to play volunteer police. We are defending our own market: we want lawful operation not to be a competitive disadvantage.

Sources

Links were checked on 13 August 2026. The academic publishers' sites (ScienceDirect, Wiley, Emerald) may require a subscription for the full text; the citation and the DOI identify the study without them.

BPDB (Budapest Database), GuestGuru Kft.'s own market database. A merge of the district councils' accommodation registers, the NTAK register and listings on Airbnb and Booking.com. Queried on 12 August 2026.↩
Correspondence between GuestGuru Kft. and the authorities, between 13 May and 30 July 2026. The complete verbatim material is available on request.↩
Csorba György: Rövid távú szálláskiadás 2 [Short-term rental 2]. Infojegyzet 2026/6, Office of the National Assembly, Information Service for Members of Parliament, 1 June 2026. Data source for Figure 2: HCSO Dissemination database, GB2012. https://www.parlament.hu/infoszolgThe Infojegyzet publishes the figure but does not link it to the Terézváros ban, and does not draw this conclusion from it. The data belongs to Parliament; the interpretation is ours.↩
Tourist tax and accommodation revenue series of Budapest District VI (Terézváros), updated on 29 July 2026.↩
AirDNA estimated last-twelve-months revenue (revenue_ltm) for the active Airbnb listings flagged as unlicensed in BPDB. Queried on 12 August 2026.AirDNA estimates rather than measures; the error of the estimate is unknown.↩
Act CXVII of 1995 on Personal Income Tax. From 1 January 2025 the itemised flat-rate tax for private individuals providing paying-guest accommodation is HUF 150,000 per habitable room per year in municipalities where the number of guest nights exceeded 2 million in the second year preceding the tax year. Budapest is such a municipality. https://njt.hu/jogszabaly/1995-117-00-00 https://nav.gov.hu/ado/szja/A_fizetovendeglatokat_erinto_valtozasokSection 57/A(4c) of the Act obliges the tax authority (NAV) to publish the list of affected municipalities by 31 January each year. In 2025 Budapest is the only entry on that list. A private individual may elect the itemised flat-rate tax for at most three properties; companies are taxed differently. The definition of a "habitable room" differs between NAV, NTAK and some district councils.↩
The public accommodation registers of the Budapest district councils, loaded into BPDB. 12,445 permits, assigned to 8,081 named providers. Queried on 13 August 2026.An aggregation based on provider names. It groups by identical names, so it cannot see ownership links: actual concentration may be higher than this, not lower.↩
Eltűntek a turisták, bajban vannak a terézvárosi éttermek [The tourists are gone, Terézváros restaurants are in trouble]. Turizmus.com, 24 June 2026, based on a statement by the Hungarian Hospitality Employers' Association (MVI). https://turizmus.com/cikk/vendeglatas/terezvaros-ettermek-fprgalomcsokkenes-airbnb-tiltas-mvi-eltuntek-a-turistak ↩
Local Law 18 of 2022, New York City (Short-Term Rental Registration Law). Enforcement began on 5 September 2023. The law is applied by the city's Office of Special Enforcement. https://www.nyc.gov/site/specialenforcement/index.page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Law_18_of_2022The second link is a summary article, not a primary source. The official text of the law is available in the New York City Council's legislative records.↩
New York City short-term rental market after Local Law 18. Hospitality Net, 2025. https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4124666.html ↩
NYC's Airbnb ban failed to lower rents. AOL / The Wall Street Journal analysis based on CoStar and Miller Samuel data, September 2025. https://www.aol.com/news/nyc-airbnb-ban-failed-lower-212121367.htmlA press analysis based on market data, not a peer-reviewed study. We found no peer-reviewed causal study of the effect on rents.↩
Anastasi, S. C.; Marsella, A.; Melo, V.; Stephenson, E. F.; Wagner, G. A. (2025): Short-term rental bans and the hotel industry: Evidence from New York city. European Journal of Political Economy, vol. 89. Article ID: PII S0176-2680(25)00085-0. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0176268025000850 ↩
Kaihang Zhao – Tal Shoshani – Davide Proserpio: How Short-Term Rental Regulations Reshape Urban Spending: Evidence from New York City's Restaurant Sector. SSRN, 6 January 2026. Method: propensity score matching and difference-in-differences, SafeGraph transaction data, 3,220 restaurants, July 2022 – July 2024. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6065366 https://www.realab.blog/p/when-airbnb-leaves-town-how-new-yorksA working paper, not peer-reviewed. The second link is a summary produced with the authors' involvement; the detailed methodological figures come from there.↩
HCSO 2022 census database, table WBL018, HU11 (Budapest): 961,061 dwellings, of which 800,338 occupied and 160,723 unoccupied (16.7%). Queryable without authentication. https://nepszamlalas2022.ksh.hu/adatbazis/The figure of 170,000 circulating in the press is the HCSO's 2023 preliminary release; the final database gives 160,723. Nationally the same correction went from 599,000 to 571,997.↩
BPDB, measurement deduplicated to unique NTAK identifiers, August 2026. The 14,602 dwelling-type Airbnb and Booking listings map to 9,415 unique properties (on average 1.55 listings per dwelling); at dwelling level there are 10,703 units let short-term, of which 6,703 are compliant and about 4,000 unlicensed (39%).The difference between the listing-level numbers (15,825 active listings, 5,374 unlicensed, 34%) and the dwelling-level ones is deduplication: the same dwelling may advertise on several platforms. The two levels must not be mixed.↩
City of Bratislava signs agreement on automated collection of taxes. Airbnb Newsroom. In force from 1 July 2021; this was the first such agreement in the Visegrád Four. https://news.airbnb.com/city-of-bratislava-signs-agreement-on-automated-collection-of-taxes ↩

We measured the size of the unlicensed market, then tried to report an abuse. This summary sets out what happened.

The story: five authorities in three months, one web form in six days

In May we noticed that four listings by strangers were running under a client's deleted NTAK number. An NTAK number is like a licence plate: unique to each property, and the tax return is tied to it.

On 24 July we filled in Booking.com's public reporting form. Six days later the platform removed both reported listings.

Three months, five authorities, and to this day we do not know whether proceedings were opened. Booking.com removed two listings in six days on the basis of a web form.

The situation in six numbers

15,125	short-term rental listings run in Budapest, of which 4,952 (32.7%) are unlicensed¹
661	unlicensed listings in Terézváros, where a total ban has been in force since January: 76.5% of local supply¹
−72,200	guest nights in District VI in a single quarter; hotels absorbed less than a quarter of the loss³
−HUF 280 million	shortfall in the district's tourist tax revenue over six months (−22.8%)⁴
HUF 1.3–3.1 billion	the annual tax shortfall in Budapest, depending on the method⁵⁶
97.2%	of operators have at most three properties: this is a market of families, not of large investors⁷

Terézváros: what the total ban delivered

New York played this out on a larger scale

And what about housing?

What we propose

Clean up the market first, restrict afterwards. First let it become clear how large the unlicensed supply is, and let those listings disappear from the platforms. Then we can measure how much of a problem is left.
One Budapest-level counterpart instead of 23 district clerks, able to negotiate with Airbnb and Booking. Platforms cooperate when they have a clear partner. The six-day removal shows this.
A uniform Budapest tourist tax base, so that the platform can collect the tax. Bratislava has had this in place since 2021.¹⁶

What we can give a newsroom

If you need more: the full background material

This summary gives the essentials. The full press background goes considerably deeper, in eleven chapters. What is there and not here:

verbatim quotations from the correspondence with the authorities, with dates and the full chronology,
the measurement methodology and the district breakdown,
the derivation of the tax shortfall estimate: what is the measured base and what is estimated,
the details of the international research on rent effects and empty homes,
Józsefváros's HUF 381,000 half-year listing-screening contract,
and eight concrete questions a newsroom can follow up.

Contact

GuestGuru Kft. · Révay utca 6. fszt. 7, 1065 Budapest · hello@guest.guru

Sources

BPDB (Budapest Database), GuestGuru Kft.'s own market database. A merge of the district councils' accommodation registers, the NTAK register and listings on Airbnb and Booking.com. Queried on 12 August 2026.↩
Correspondence between GuestGuru Kft. and the authorities, between 13 May and 30 July 2026. The complete verbatim material is available on request.↩
Csorba György: Rövid távú szálláskiadás 2 [Short-term rental 2]. Infojegyzet 2026/6, Office of the National Assembly, Information Service for Members of Parliament, 1 June 2026. Data source for Figure 2: HCSO Dissemination database, GB2012. https://www.parlament.hu/infoszolgThe Infojegyzet publishes the figure but does not link it to the Terézváros ban, and does not draw this conclusion from it. The data belongs to Parliament; the interpretation is ours.↩
Tourist tax and accommodation revenue series of Budapest District VI (Terézváros), updated on 29 July 2026.↩
AirDNA estimated last-twelve-months revenue (revenue_ltm) for the active Airbnb listings flagged as unlicensed in BPDB. Queried on 12 August 2026.AirDNA estimates rather than measures; the error of the estimate is unknown.↩
Act CXVII of 1995 on Personal Income Tax. From 1 January 2025 the itemised flat-rate tax for private individuals providing paying-guest accommodation is HUF 150,000 per habitable room per year in municipalities where the number of guest nights exceeded 2 million in the second year preceding the tax year. Budapest is such a municipality. https://njt.hu/jogszabaly/1995-117-00-00 https://nav.gov.hu/ado/szja/A_fizetovendeglatokat_erinto_valtozasokSection 57/A(4c) of the Act obliges the tax authority (NAV) to publish the list of affected municipalities by 31 January each year. In 2025 Budapest is the only entry on that list. A private individual may elect the itemised flat-rate tax for at most three properties; companies are taxed differently. The definition of a "habitable room" differs between NAV, NTAK and some district councils.↩
The public accommodation registers of the Budapest district councils, loaded into BPDB. 12,445 permits, assigned to 8,081 named providers. Queried on 13 August 2026.An aggregation based on provider names. It groups by identical names, so it cannot see ownership links: actual concentration may be higher than this, not lower.↩
Eltűntek a turisták, bajban vannak a terézvárosi éttermek [The tourists are gone, Terézváros restaurants are in trouble]. Turizmus.com, 24 June 2026, based on a statement by the Hungarian Hospitality Employers' Association (MVI). https://turizmus.com/cikk/vendeglatas/terezvaros-ettermek-fprgalomcsokkenes-airbnb-tiltas-mvi-eltuntek-a-turistak ↩
Local Law 18 of 2022, New York City (Short-Term Rental Registration Law). Enforcement began on 5 September 2023. The law is applied by the city's Office of Special Enforcement. https://www.nyc.gov/site/specialenforcement/index.page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Law_18_of_2022The second link is a summary article, not a primary source. The official text of the law is available in the New York City Council's legislative records.↩
New York City short-term rental market after Local Law 18. Hospitality Net, 2025. https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4124666.html ↩
NYC's Airbnb ban failed to lower rents. AOL / The Wall Street Journal analysis based on CoStar and Miller Samuel data, September 2025. https://www.aol.com/news/nyc-airbnb-ban-failed-lower-212121367.htmlA press analysis based on market data, not a peer-reviewed study. We found no peer-reviewed causal study of the effect on rents.↩
Anastasi, S. C.; Marsella, A.; Melo, V.; Stephenson, E. F.; Wagner, G. A. (2025): Short-term rental bans and the hotel industry: Evidence from New York city. European Journal of Political Economy, vol. 89. Article ID: PII S0176-2680(25)00085-0. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0176268025000850 ↩
Kaihang Zhao – Tal Shoshani – Davide Proserpio: How Short-Term Rental Regulations Reshape Urban Spending: Evidence from New York City's Restaurant Sector. SSRN, 6 January 2026. Method: propensity score matching and difference-in-differences, SafeGraph transaction data, 3,220 restaurants, July 2022 – July 2024. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6065366 https://www.realab.blog/p/when-airbnb-leaves-town-how-new-yorksA working paper, not peer-reviewed. The second link is a summary produced with the authors' involvement; the detailed methodological figures come from there.↩
HCSO 2022 census database, table WBL018, HU11 (Budapest): 961,061 dwellings, of which 800,338 occupied and 160,723 unoccupied (16.7%). Queryable without authentication. https://nepszamlalas2022.ksh.hu/adatbazis/The figure of 170,000 circulating in the press is the HCSO's 2023 preliminary release; the final database gives 160,723. Nationally the same correction went from 599,000 to 571,997.↩
BPDB, measurement deduplicated to unique NTAK identifiers, August 2026. The 14,602 dwelling-type Airbnb and Booking listings map to 9,415 unique properties (on average 1.55 listings per dwelling); at dwelling level there are 10,703 units let short-term, of which 6,703 are compliant and about 4,000 unlicensed (39%).The difference between the listing-level numbers (15,825 active listings, 5,374 unlicensed, 34%) and the dwelling-level ones is deduplication: the same dwelling may advertise on several platforms. The two levels must not be mixed.↩
City of Bratislava signs agreement on automated collection of taxes. Airbnb Newsroom. In force from 1 July 2021; this was the first such agreement in the Visegrád Four. https://news.airbnb.com/city-of-bratislava-signs-agreement-on-automated-collection-of-taxes ↩

Unlicensed rentals in Budapest: the essentials in five minutes

The story: five authorities in three months, one web form in six days

The situation in six numbers

Terézváros: what the total ban delivered

New York played this out on a larger scale

And what about housing?

What we propose

What we can give a newsroom

If you need more: the full background material

Contact

Sources

Unlicensed rentals in Budapest: the essentials in five minutes

The story: five authorities in three months, one web form in six days

The situation in six numbers

Terézváros: what the total ban delivered

New York played this out on a larger scale

And what about housing?

What we propose

What we can give a newsroom

If you need more: the full background material

Contact

Sources