Income in bursts, costs spread across the year
A property costs money in every month of the year. IBI, the annual property tax the town hall charges on each urban property, is billed once and covers all twelve. So do the community fees, the insurance premium and the depreciation of the building. The income does not behave that way, and the rule governing the mismatch is short: costs are deductible only in the proportion of days on which the property was genuinely let.
With occupancy packed into a handful of weeks that proportion is low, and the first year's figures surprise people: nearly all of the income is declared and only a small slice of the cost comes off against it. It is not an arithmetic slip, it is how the rule is built. We set it out with numbers in apportioning costs by nights let.
Which costs are we talking about? The community fees voted by the junta de propietarios, the general meeting of the owners of the building; the insurance premium; the water, electricity and internet consumed while guests are in the flat; the interest on any loan; the repairs; the waste charge; and the depreciation of the building, which on a property bought at a real price is usually the largest single line of the lot. All of them enter the return in the same proportion, which is why the document that decides the tax is the occupancy calendar rather than any individual invoice.
The empty months are declared too
Days on which the flat is not let and stays at your disposal produce imputed property income: a percentage of the cadastral value, which is the administrative value the Spanish cadastre attributes to each property, at 1,1 % or 2 % depending on when that municipality's cadastre was last revised, and apportioned over those days. The sum is small and the consequences are not, because this is the mismatch that generates more letters than any other.
An owner with a flat in the centre who uses it personally for part of the year is in exactly this position, even without having taken a euro in rent. We compare the two ways of holding a second property in letting it or leaving it empty.
The platforms report what you invoiced through them, gross, before their commission is taken. You receive the net. Declare the net and a gap appears that somebody has to explain. What you declare is the gross income, and the commission is deducted as a cost.
The line drawn by article 27.2
With a short season it is difficult for a single dwelling to reach the level of a business activity, because for letting the statute asks for one person employed under a full-time employment contract. Once an owner accumulates several properties and hires somebody to run them, the question stops being theoretical.
The shift is not cosmetic. It changes which costs are deductible, it brings in quarterly interim payments, and it brings in registration with RETA, the Spanish social security scheme for the self-employed, with a contribution of its own. It is a decision worth taking on purpose rather than discovering in a review. It is developed in holiday lets and in self-employed in Spain.
Who writes to us from Córdoba
| Who | What it usually turns on |
|---|---|
| Owner of a flat in the Judería letting in spring | Apportionment with concentrated occupancy, and imputed income for the rest of the year |
| Owner of a casa patio | Separating the accommodation income from the income for visits and activities, which are not taxed the same way |
| Somebody who lets only during the feria | Whether those days are enough to create recurring obligations, and which registration applies |
| Owner of three or four apartments | Whether the threshold into business activity has been crossed, and what changes if it has |
| A neighbour whose waste bill has come at the commercial tariff | Checking the heading recorded on the assessment and deciding whether to challenge it |
Our way of working in Córdoba
Without a flat monthly fee that bears no relation to your reality. If the property earns for three months of the year, paying for twelve months of intensive bookkeeping makes no sense, so we fit the fee to the real calendar of the property and agree it in writing before anything starts.
What does run all twelve months is the deadline watch, because letters do not arrive in high season. They arrive in November, when nobody is thinking about the flat any more. If one reaches you we answer it, from replying to the tax office. We are lawyers rather than a gestoría, and that shows most when the answer is not obvious: we tell you which part of the position is arguable and why, and we do not promise you an outcome. You can see what this costs on the pricing page.
A flat in the Judería let for 44 nights a year, in figures
Take a two-bedroom flat two streets from the Mezquita. The owner lives in Córdoba and lets it by the night during Holy Week, the May Crosses, the patio festival and the fair: 44 nights at an average of 300 €, spread over eleven stays. The rest of the year the family uses it or it stands closed. The bills are those of any flat; what changes is how much of them can be deducted.
| Item | Amount | How it enters the income tax return |
|---|---|---|
| Income reported by the platform | 13,200 € | Declared in full |
| Platform commission | −1,980 € | A cost tied to each booking: deducted in full |
| Cleaning between stays (11 × 45 €) | −495 € | In full, with an invoice |
| IBI (the municipal property tax), community fees, insurance and utilities (2,820 € a year) | −340 € | Only 44 of 365 days |
| Depreciation: 3 % of 150,000 € of building value (4,500 €) | −542 € | Only 44 of 365 days |
| Net rental income | 9,843 € | General base of IRPF, the Spanish income tax |
| Imputed income for the other 321 days (1.1 % of 90,000 € of valor catastral) | 871 € | Added even though nothing was collected |
That makes 10,714 €, added to the owner's salary or pension and taxed on the state scale plus the Andalusian one. The last row surprises people from abroad: Spain taxes a notional income on a home that is neither let nor lived in as a main residence, calculated on the valor catastral, the official cadastral value. Had the same owner deducted twelve months of bills and the full depreciation, and forgotten the imputed income, the return would have shown 3,405 €: 7,309 € less in the base, which is exactly the gap that surfaces when the tax agency matches what the platform reports against what was declared. Whether the imputation rate is 1.1 % or 2 % depends on when the municipality last revised its cadastral values: it is checked before calculating, never assumed.
The calendar of a Córdoba owner who lets by the season
| When | What is due | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| January | Close the booking calendar and the invoices of the previous year | It is the evidence for the day-by-day split |
| 1 to 20 April, July and October; the fourth quarter until 30 January | Modelo 349 for the quarters in which the platform, from another EU member state, charged a commission | To declare the service received from abroad, with its self-assessed VAT |
| April to the end of June | Income tax return with the apportionment and the imputed income | Where almost the whole result is decided |
| Autumn | Answer the review of the previous year, if one arrives | The deadline opened by the letter is short and runs from the date of notification |
How the commission works, and which form declares it, is in Modelo 349 for platform commissions.
Many flats in the old town belong to two siblings, or to a married couple under gananciales (the Spanish community-of-property regime), yet only one of them collects the rent and only one declares it. Income from a property is attributed to each owner according to their share, whoever collects it: if the flat is held 50/50, each declares half the income, half the costs and half the imputed income. Putting everything in one return and nothing in the other does not pay: both returns get corrected, and the owner who declared nothing receives a letter of their own. If you want us to look at it with your figures, the sign-up is in the tourist rental form.