Barcelona, a top Spanish holiday destination, announced on Friday that it will bar apartment rentals to tourists by 2028, an unexpectedly drastic move as it seeks to rein-in soaring housing costs and make the city liveable for residents.

The city's leftist mayor, Jaume Collboni, said that by November 2028, Barcelona will scrap the licences of the 10,101 apartments currently approved as short-term rentals.

"We are confronting what we believe is Barcelona's largest problem," Mr Collboni told a city government event.

The boom in short-term rentals in Barcelona, Spain's most visited city by foreign tourists, means some residents cannot afford an apartment after rents rose 68 per cent in the past 10 years and the cost of buying a house rose by 38 per cent, Mr Collboni said.

Access to housing has become a driver of inequality, particularly for young people, he added.

National governments relish the economic benefits of tourism — Spain ranks among the top three most visited countries in the world — but with local residents priced out in some places, gentrification and owner preference for lucrative tourist rentals are increasingly a hot topic across Europe.

Local governments have announced restrictions on short-term rentals in places such as Lisbon, Berlin and Spain's Canary Islands in the past decade.