fines of up to 30,000 euros

Do you charge 2,320 euros per month?

You’re lucky because you can rent an 80 square meter apartment in Ibiza. Of course, you won’t have any money left for anything else. Not even for those small luxuries like eating or showering.

These are the data if we take as reference the 29 euros/m2 that, according to Idealista, It is difficult to live on rent in Ibiza city. That is if we take into account that the data is from the month of February, because in summer prices have been exceeded in recent years, reaching 32 euros/m2. Everything indicates that the pressure on rental prices will increase.

They point out in The Voice of Ibiza that the Balearic Islands have become the Autonomous Community where the most pressure is expected on rental prices, with an average increase of more than 4,000 euros at the end of the year, as a result of the renewal of contracts that expire this year.

The problem recurs every year. The New York Times addressed this problem in 2024 in a report in which voice was given to firefighters, teachers or police destined for Ibiza and who could not pay the rental bill. Entrenched and without solutions, the housing problem has created a series of settlements of workers who spend the night in tents and caravans unable to afford an apartment or rooms for which they have been asking 1,000 euros for years.

On an island where tourism and luxury hotels drive the economy, a considerable number of workers do not have a roof over their heads. The solution to some of them went through live in a caravan. Now Ibiza has expelled 200 of them and it is being protected against this type of settlements.

Legal, until it isn’t

Last January, A post on Tiktok went viral of a woman who worked as a seasonal worker in the Tena Valley (Huesca). “I am a temporary worker and I come to work in the Tena Valley. The rents are 800 euros and I am not going to share a flat. I prefer to live in the van with my cat (…) I don’t understand why they focus on me when I don’t break the regulations,” she noted in the video.

The video showed how the police asked him to leave the town where he had parked his motorhomewhere he lived. The truth is that he was right, nothing prevented him from living in his house on wheels as long as it was parked legally and he did not take objects outside, which could be considered camping.

But this case cannot be completely extrapolated. to the entire national territory. Municipalities or autonomous communities can apply their own restrictions to prevent camping. This is the case of the Balearic Islands, which has decided to protect itself against the entry of caravans.

Since last year, and with the excuse of putting limitations on tourism, Ibiza imposed a maximum number of cars that could enter its islands. Since then, there can be no more than 20,000 non-resident cars driving on its roads. But, of them, 16,000 cars belong to rental fleets. And if you want to move around the island with a caravan you have to prove that you have the camping nights already booked.

This last measure included in the Law 5/2024 on vehicle control It is one of the weapons that are being used on the island to evict those living in a caravan. In fact, the third additional provision reads the following:

In order to avoid the proliferation of motor vehicles parked in certain places for long periods and that are used, in practice, for camping and overnight stays, the prolonged parking of motor vehicles on the rural land of the island outside of the existing public parking lots specially enabled for this purpose is prohibited. Long-term parking is considered to be staying parked in the same location for more than three days.

Camping and overnight stays with motor vehicles on the rustic land of the island of Ibiza outside the legally existing tourist camps are prohibited.

Any type of parking of motor vehicles on the rural land of the island of Ibiza is prohibited if they do not have the accreditation of entry and/or permanence on the island regulated by this law.

The previous regulations, therefore, aim to the Law of Rustic Land of the Balearic Islands in which exactly what rustic land is is defined. And according to the description we read in article 7 of said law, rustic land is practically any non-urban space on the island.

Therefore, the prohibitions described above make any parking illegal in spaces considered “rustic land”, which includes all types of trucks next to the road or towns. They are spaces that tourists with caravans have usually taken advantage of to sleep but that have also been used by the island’s own workers.

The problem is not small. And it is that in article 8 of the Vehicle Control Law it is specified that “the Plenary Session of the Ibiza Island Council” may “agree to temporarily limit the influx and/or parking of motor vehicles” where it is considered that there is too much influx of vehicles following a report from the affected city council if they consider that environmental damage may occur in “certain spaces with natural, heritage or landscape values.”

This makes it easier for caravan settlements of workers who cannot find housing are dismantled. And the fine is no small thing. In its sanctioning regime, a driver who enters one of the described areas can be punished with a fine of between 300 and 1,000 euros, as it is considered a minor offense.

But when it comes to spending the night, things get complicated. And the very serious sanctions include contravening the third additional provision, the one in which it is explained that a person cannot spend the night outside the spaces specifically designed for it. In this case, fines of 10,001 to 30,000 euros and removal of the vehicle for two to four months are contemplated.

The situation is delicate for a very sensitive number of workers who find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They need a job to live but the salary is not enough to live with dignity. And in Ibiza they are clear about one thing: they are willing to put an end to any settlement considered illegal.

Photo | Karol Chomka and Thomas

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