Two uses in the same flat, two regimes
Letting a dwelling to a student who makes it their home during the academic year is letting a dwelling: it is exempt from VAT under article 20.Uno.23 of the Spanish VAT Act and, for income tax, it is property income with its reduction where the conditions are met.
The same flat let by the night in summer, with cleaning between guests and a turnover of occupants, is something else: if services proper to the hotel industry are supplied during the stay, there is VAT; and if by volume and organisation the threshold of article 27.2 of the Spanish income tax act is crossed, the income becomes business income, with everything that drags behind it.
Declaring it properly means splitting the year and documenting each stretch. It is more work, but it is what survives an enquiry. It is in tourist or seasonal letting.
The apportionment, which here is no detail
The costs of the property — IBI, the annual municipal property tax; community fees; insurance; utilities; depreciation at 3 % on the higher of the construction value or cost — are only deductible in proportion to the days on which the property was actually let, and the remaining days generate imputed property income.
With a calendar split between term time and high season, that proportion changes a great deal from one year to the next and last year's cannot be copied. It is, by a distance, what generates most enquiry letters in Andalusia. You have it in apportionment by days let and in deductible costs.
One consequence of that arithmetic catches owners out every year. Nights blocked for your own use, nights genuinely empty and nights actually let are three different things, and only the last of them supports a deduction. A calendar kept as the year goes along is worth a great deal more than one reconstructed the following spring, and it is the first document an enquiry asks to see. The same applies to the student let: a signed contract with dates on it is what proves which stretch of the year was which.
The old town: planning rules govern
In the Albaicín, the Realejo and around the Cathedral, whether a dwelling may be put to tourist use depends on the planning instrument and the municipal by-law, and in listed buildings there are further conditions. We give no zones and no percentages here: the planning information for the particular building is requested and read against the rules in force that day.
If the use is not covered, the prudent course is not to carry on and wait, because the income already obtained has to be declared in any event, and an irregular activity does not stop being taxable for being irregular.
A word on what a limited review is, since it is the thing all of this is meant to survive. The Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax authority, can open a limited review of a single point in a single year and ask you to justify it with documents: typically a contract, an invoice or a bank entry. It is not an accusation and it is not a full inspection; it is a request with a short deadline, and what answers it is the file you built at the time.
Who writes to us from Granada
| Who | What they usually face |
|---|---|
| Owner of a student flat who lets it in summer | Splitting the year into two regimes and apportioning the costs of each stretch |
| Owner of a carmen or a house in the Albaicín | Checking whether tourist use is possible in the building before anything else |
| Family letting individual rooms | Apportionment by square metres as well as by days, and shared costs |
| Someone who has had a letter for not declaring the rent | Answering in time and choosing between a supplementary return and a rectification |
| Heir to the family house | Inheritance tax within six months and plusvalía municipal at the city council |
Our way of working in Granada
With a calendar, literally. For a dual-use flat we build a sheet with the days under each regime, and out of it come the apportionment, the VAT that corresponds and the imputed income for the empty days on their own. We show it to you before filing, not afterwards.
And one warning we always give: the reduction on income from letting a dwelling has conditions attached, and applying it to a stretch that was really tourist letting is among the adjustments most easily detected. We would rather say so in advance and file something that holds up.
And to be clear about the limits: we do not guarantee that a reduction we claim will be accepted, or that a review will close without adjustment. What we undertake is that the position we file is one we can explain, with the documents behind it, on the day somebody asks.
A flat by Granada's Faculty of Science, with students and summer: the numbers
The typical dual-use flat, with 2026 figures. From September to June it is occupied by a student on a contract for the academic year: 303 days at 650 € a month, 6,500 € in all. In July and August it is advertised by the night with no hotel-type services: of 62 days, 40 are occupied, at 95 € a night, 3,800 €. The 22 empty summer days generate imputed income, the notional income Spain taxes on a home at the owner's disposal.
| Stretch | Days | Income | General costs allocated | Own costs | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Student | 303 | 6,500 € | 4,482.74 € | — | 2,017.26 € |
| Tourist, occupied | 40 | 3,800 € | 591.78 € | Cleaning 480 € and commission 570 € | 2,158.22 € |
| Empty in summer | 22 | — | 325.48 € that cannot be deducted | — | Imputed income of 46.41 € |
The general costs — IBI 450 €, community fees 720 €, insurance 280 €, utilities 1,500 € and depreciation 2,450 €, 5,400 € in all — are shared out by days among the three stretches. The imputed income comes from a cadastral value of 70,000 € at 1.1 % × 22/365. The student stretch may carry the housing rental reduction if it meets the requirements; the tourist one may not. For us to set it up with your real calendar, the form is the one for tourist rentals.
What a Granada dual-use owner files during the year
| When | What |
|---|---|
| September | The academic-year contract signed, with entry and exit dates that fit the summer listing |
| All year | A sheet of days under each regime, and invoices in the owner's name |
| 1 to 20 October, only if there were hotel-type services in summer | Modelo 303 for the third quarter |
| From April to 30 June | Income tax return: one property, three stretches, with the reduction only where it belongs |
If the summer included cleaning during the stay or breakfast, VAT would appear in that stretch and with it Modelos 303 and 390; we explain it in Modelo 303 for tourist rentals.
The weak point of this arrangement is at the seams: the student who stays until 10 July because of a late exam, or the tourist who arrives on 28 June. Those days change stretch and, with them, the sharing of costs and the reduction. Nothing happens if the sheet of days records it; something does if the return uses the theoretical academic calendar and the platform listing says otherwise, because the tax authority receives information from the platforms.
What almost nobody in Granada asks until the letter arrives: the housing rental reduction only applies to the income you declared in your own return. If you did not declare the student's rent because «it was not much» or because it was paid in cash, and the tax authority regularises it, that income is taxed in full, with no reduction, and with whatever penalty applies. In other words, keeping quiet about the academic-year rent does not only cost the tax that was not paid: it also costs the advantage you would have had for declaring it. Declaring late, but before they write to you, keeps the reduction.