The EU Commission has classified Booking as a gatekeeper company under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), saying the company meets the necessary thresholds.

The DMA requires companies that meet certain financial and usage thresholds to follow specific rules, such as ensuring interoperability with other platforms and not favoring their own products and services. After ruling that Booking is such a gatekeeper, the Commission says the company has a maximum of six months to outline its compliance efforts.

Booking has six months to submit a detailed compliance report in which it outlines how it complies with each of the obligations of the DMA. However, some of the DMA’s obligations start applying with immediate effect, for example, the obligation to inform the Commission of any intended concentration in the digital sector.

Failure to comply can lead to fines up to 10% of the company’s worldwide turnover and rise to as much as 20% in the case of repeated violations.

“Today’s good news is: Holidaymakers will start benefiting from more choice and hotels will have more business opportunities,” said Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy. “Following our decision Booking.com joins the list of core platform services required to adhere to DMA rules. Today we’ve also decided not to designate ByteDance and X over their online advertising services.”

“Booking is an important player in the European tourism ecosystem and is now also a designated gatekeeper,” said Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market. “We will work to make sure it will fully comply with the DMA obligations within 6 months. The DMA proves again to be a powerful but flexible tool to identify and regulate companies that are real gatekeepers.”