Airbnb rentals will be regulated in Playa del Carmen

Starting this year, the municipality of Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, will regulate Airbnb rentals, since property owners must request a license from the city council, which will determine in which areas the service can be offered, Estefanía Mercado, mayor of the town, said in an interview.

This is a project prepared by the treasury to avoid an increase in rents, since in the entity there are 18 thousand places rented through the aforementioned platform.

“If we don’t regulate Airbnb and tourist licenses, rents will immediately rise and it will be impossible to live in the city,” he commented.

“It is another great challenge for this year and the treasury is already working. Airbnb is going to be regulated; that is, it is not what they want. There are certain areas where it will be allowed and others where it will not,” he said.

“New York, for example, has already regulated it. Why? Because there are many people who are homeless and there have been many invasions,” he mentioned.

The mayor explained that the city council will have the power to deny permission if the area where you intend to rent a home through Airbnb does not have a tourist vocation. Not having a license will imply closure, fines and surcharges. “Now there is no license, it is completely free,” he added.

On the other hand, Mercado highlighted that Playa del Carmen is ready to receive an economic benefit this year that is at least 35 percent greater than that of 2025 because the investment made in March 2024 to combat insecurity, of 1.2 billion pesos, is already bearing fruit.

In 2025, the economic impact of tourism in the municipality was 8.4 billion pesos, 35 percent more than in 2024. This town is the one that generates the most income from this area in the Riviera Maya.

“Playa del Carmen today is the safest municipality in Quintana Roo and one of the safest in the country because an investment was made a year ago for equipment for our police.”

He explained that in Playa del Carmen there are more than 470 patrols (“one on each corner”) and a helicopter, with which intentional homicides have decreased by 46 percent in a comparison from October 2025 to date.

The standard established by the United Nations is 300 police officers per thousand inhabitants, and in Playa del Carmen there are 335.

The official indicated that the perception of insecurity has dropped two points, since intelligence teams deployed on Fifth Avenue, the main corridor of the entity, coordinated by the National Guard, the Army and the Navy, have been added to the strategy. “With all these advances, we are ready to receive all types of tourism and not just World Cup tourism.”

He explained that the municipal government is negotiating a collaboration agreement with taxi drivers to apply fixed rates and avoid extortion.

“We are building this agreement to be prepared before the Soccer World Cup arrives and after it,” he said.

In order to reduce the prices for the local population to live in a high-value tourist area, the Fifth Avenue Board of Trustees will be created to agree with businesses on discounts for the inhabitants of the municipality.

In turn, the Municipality’s Economic Development Secretariat will launch this year the Locales Playenses Program, which will give a discount card to local residents, based on the records of the National Electoral Institute, which will be linked to all companies that provide tourist services in Playa del Carmen, so that the costs are lower than those paid by tourists.

In addition, the board, made up of businessmen and representatives of civil society, will receive the income from the advertising that companies install on Fifth Avenue and will decide the destination of those resources.