Renting out your home: the holiday-let licence in Andalusia

Letting your Andalusian home to holidaymakers sounds simple until you read the rules. The Junta de Andalucía treats a holiday let as a tourist use of the house, with its own register, a minimum set of standards and a say for your neighbours. None of it is hard once you know the order to do things in.

Start with the Junta, not the booking site

Andalusia's rules for holiday lets live in Decreto 28/2016, as rewritten by Decreto 31/2024. The Junta published the new decree in the Boletín Oficial de la Junta de Andalucía on 2 February 2024, and it took effect on 22 February. The official name for the activity is now the vivienda de uso turístico, and the test is how the home is used, not why it was bought. Homes already registered had until 22 February 2025 to meet the new standards, so if you are buying an existing holiday let, ask the seller for proof that it was brought into line.

Before the first booking, you file a declaración responsable with the regional tourism register. It has to say the home is compatible with the town's urban planning and, where planning rules require it, that the licence or change-of-use declaration exists. It also names the catastral reference, the owner, the operator and the periods you plan to open. Do the planning check before you advertise, because missing licences can lead to the registration being cancelled.

What the home needs to have

The size rule is 14 square metres of built space per place, measured from the Catastro figure, with a floor of 25 square metres of built main-use surface. Then comes the climate. Cooling is required for May to August and heating for December to March, by fixed or portable appliances. That sounds obvious until a guest arrives in February to a flat with no way of warming the bedroom.

Guests must also be able to find the official Hojas de Quejas y Reclamaciones of the Junta de Andalucía, with a visible notice saying so. You also show them the house rules, the community regulations, some information about the area, and whether you adhere to the consumer arbitration system. Keep the complaint forms in the same folder as the wifi code and the bin days, so the forms are found before anyone needs them.

Your neighbours have a vote

This is the change most likely to affect a buyer. Ley Orgánica 1/2025 came into force on 3 April 2025 and added a rule to the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal: a community may limit or prohibit tourist use of its flats, but only with the votes of three-fifths of the owners, representing three-fifths of the participation quotas. That does not need unanimity, so a determined majority can vote a holiday let out of the building.

If the licence was obtained before 3 April 2025, the activity can carry on under the conditions that applied. For licences obtained after that date, the registrars handling the national short-let number have asked for proof of community approval. Before you buy a flat you plan to let, read the community minutes and the statutes, and ask the administrator directly whether tourist use has ever been raised.

The national register that was struck down

For a while Spain was building a single national register of short-term lets, with a number every listing had to show. On 21 May 2026 the Tribunal Supremo annulled the part of that scheme which created the register, because the state had no power to set one up over the regional registers. The digital one-stop window and the platforms' duty to share data survived. Owners no longer need the national number to advertise, but the Andalusian registration and the rules above still apply.

Tax on the rent if you live abroad

Rent from a Spanish home is taxed in Spain even if you live elsewhere, and non-residents declare it on the Modelo 210. EU and EEA residents pay 19% on the net income, after the running costs they can deduct. Residents outside those areas pay 24%, and on the gross rent, which is the harsher rule. Those figures are the starting point, and the deduction rules are where small owners make the costliest mistakes, so speak to a gestor who handles Spanish non-resident returns before the first booking rather than after the first season.

If you are still deciding whether a letting plan fits the price you would pay, our property prices for 2026 piece sets out what homes on the coast are asking, and the costs of buying in Spain covers the taxes and fees on the purchase itself. Both are a good place to start.