Tax and accounting in Barcelona

The tourist-flat licence has a date on it

Barcelona has not been granting new municipal authorisations for the marketing of a dwelling to tourists for some time, and both the city and the Catalan government have been moving on the basis that the existing ones are not perpetual. We are not going to put a date or a number of places on this page: they move, they get appealed and they get qualified, and a wrong figure here would cost the reader money. What we can tell you is what we check in each case: which authorisation is on record, in whose name, with what period of validity, and what the by-law and the planning instrument in force today say about your particular building.

For our purposes the important thing is that the licence decides whether the activity may exist, and decides nothing at all about how it is taxed while it does exist. The quarters run regardless, and on the day the activity is switched off it has to be switched off in the census of taxpayers as well, in the final Modelo 303 for VAT and in that year's income tax return. That part is in tourist rentals.

It is worth spelling out what switching the activity off in the census means. Anyone carrying on an economic activity in Spain is entered on the census of taxpayers through Modelo 036, and that same form records a change of circumstances or a cessation. Modelo 037, the short version of it, was abolished with effect from 3 February 2025, so if anybody hands you a 037 they are working from an old manual. Leaving the census entry open after the activity has stopped keeps generating filing obligations for returns with nothing in them.

Seasonal letting is not an automatic way out

The alternative most often raised here is to move the flat onto seasonal contracts. It works in some cases and in others it is a new problem with a different name. The difference does not lie in how many days the stay lasts but in the purpose of the contract and in the services you provide: if you carry on rotating guests, cleaning during the stay and offering hotel-type services, what you have is tourist activity in disguise, with the VAT that drags behind it.

As things stand, the exemption in article 20.Uno.23 of the Spanish VAT Act covers any letting of a dwelling without hotel services, short or long: the moment those appear, VAT appears. The decree that would have narrowed it, from 1 December 2026, to lets of more than 30 nights and to the landlord's own main home was voted down by Congress. It is compared in tourist or seasonal letting and developed in what counts as hotel services for VAT.

Inheritance and gifts under Catalan rules

Catalonia has its own regulation of inheritance and gift tax, with reliefs by degree of kinship and its own rules on the main home and on the family business. We do not reproduce the percentages here: the text in force is checked as at the date of death or of the gift, because it is that date which fixes the applicable rule and not the day the deed happens to be signed.

What is worth knowing in advance are the deadlines, which are set at state level and do not forgive: six months from the death, extendable if the extension is asked for in time, and thirty working days for gifts. We cover it in inheritance and gifts and in deadlines and extensions in the tax.

Who writes to us from Barcelona

Who	What they usually face
Holder of a tourist authorisation in Ciutat Vella or l'Eixample	Finding out how long it runs, and in parallel quarterly VAT, platform withholding and the apportionment of costs
Owner who has moved the flat onto seasonal lets	Whether the contract holds up as a dwelling let, and what happens to VAT if it does not
Employee arriving at a tech company in the 22@ district	The article 93 regime of the Spanish income tax act, and shares in the foreign parent
Heir under Catalan rules	Six months, the valuation of the properties and the plusvalía municipal on the transfer
Self-employed person invoicing EU clients	Registration on the ROI, Modelo 349 and the place-of-supply rules

How we work with clients in Barcelona

Remotely and in writing. You upload each invoice to your folder on the day you receive it, without waiting for the quarter to close; we review it, we show you the figures before filing and then we file. If you also have a municipal file open, we treat it as what it is: a separate front, with its own calendar, that cannot be allowed to eat the tax deadlines.

We deal with clients in Spanish, Catalan, English and French, and we say from the outset which parts are arguable. On tourist housing in Barcelona there is a fair amount that is, and we would rather you knew it before deciding than afterwards.

We take a file as it is, not as it ought to have been. If two years of quarters went in wrongly, we put a figure on correcting them and a figure on leaving them, and you choose. What we will not do is promise that an authorisation will be renewed or that an enquiry will end well. Those are decisions of the administration and, if it goes that far, of the courts.

The last year of a tourist licence in l'Eixample: tourist until August, seasonal afterwards

A typical case among those winding down here: the flat operates as tourist accommodation from 1 January to 31 August, and in September a four-month seasonal contract is signed with a visiting researcher. The tax year splits into three stretches, and each is declared in its own way.

Stretch of 2026	Days	Income	Costs allocated	Result
Tourist, nights occupied	150	21,000 €	1,989.04 € of general costs + 4,650 € of commissions and cleaning	14,360.96 €
Seasonal, September to December	122	6,400 €	1,617.75 € of general costs	4,782.25 €
Nights advertised and empty	93	—	1,233.21 € that cannot be deducted	Imputed income of 308.30 €

The year's general costs — IBI (the annual municipal property tax) 700 €, community fees 1,440 €, insurance 300 € and depreciation 2,400 €, 4,840 € in all — are shared out by days: 150, 122 and 93 out of 365. Platform commissions and cleaning between guests belong entirely to the tourist stretch, because they only exist because of it. The imputed income for the 93 empty days comes from a cadastral value of 110,000 € at 1.1 % — 2 % is used if the municipality's last cadastral revision does not fall within the rule — apportioned by days. Imputed income is the notional income Spain taxes on a home at the owner's disposal that is neither let nor lived in as a main residence.

Two things that do not appear in the table and are almost always forgotten: the change of census registration on Modelo 036 when the tourist activity ends, and the last Modelo 303 if the flat provided hotel-type services and charged VAT. If you would like us to look at your split year with your own numbers, the form is the one for tourist rentals.

What is filed in Barcelona in the year the use changes

When	What	For which stretch
On closing the tourist activity	Modelo 036 amendment or deregistration	The tourist one
1 to 20 October 2026	Last quarterly Modelo 303, only if there was VAT	The tourist one, up to August
1 to 30 January 2027	Modelo 390, if Modelos 303 were filed during the year	The tourist one
From April to 30 June 2027	Income tax return for 2026	All three stretches, each in its own box

The seasonal contract is best drafted with the tax return in mind: it should say who pays the utilities, because if the tenant takes them on they stop being your cost for that stretch, and it should record the temporary reason for the stay — the research post, the project, the course — which is what supports its classification as seasonal if anyone challenges it. A two-page contract downloaded from the internet usually says neither.