10 % VAT on holiday lets: start date uncertain · outer limit July 2028. On 2 October 2026 Congress voted down Royal Decree-law 26/2026, which had set 1 December 2026, so that date no longer stands. The outer limit comes from Directive (EU) 2025/516: July 2028. We have it ready for whenever it comes in. Meanwhile we keep handling what is already compulsory today: Form 303 for the reverse-charge VAT on Airbnb and Booking fees, the EU VAT number (ROI) and Form 349.
What was published, and what happened next
Article 7 of Royal Decree-law 26/2026 of 29 September rewrote the letting exemption in article 20.Uno.23 of the VAT Act (Act 37/1992). A furnished apartment or home was to stop being exempt in two cases: when the landlord undertakes to provide services typical of the hotel industry (restaurant, cleaning, laundry or similar), which is already the law, or when the let to the same tenant does not exceed 30 nights, which was the novelty. Both at the reduced rate of 10 % — the hospitality rate of article 91.Uno.2.2, not the 21 % that was talked about during the debate. The decree-law had set 1 December 2026 as its start, and kept exempt a short let of the home in which the landlord has their habitual residence.
On 2 October 2026 Congress voted on whether to validate it and said no, by 178 votes to 172. The decree-law is repealed and the measure, which had not yet begun to apply, never took effect. The 10 % rate it also provided for renovation work on long-term rental homes falls with it.
1 December 2026 no longer stands as a date. The 10 % VAT on short stays has not gone away, though: Directive (EU) 2025/516 of 11 March 2025, the "VAT in the digital age" directive, treats short-term accommodation letting — up to 30 nights to the same person — as similar to the hotel sector and provides for its regime from 1 July 2028. That is the outer limit. When, inside that window, Spain will legislate again is not known today, and this guide is updated the same day anything changes.
Who it will reach and who it will not
| 10 % VAT once the measure is in force | Will stay exempt |
|---|---|
| A holiday home let by the night or the week, without hotel services | Stays of more than 30 nights without hotel services: mid-term and seasonal lets |
| Holiday flats advertised on Airbnb, Booking or Vrbo | Long-term lets of a tenant's main residence |
| Homes let with hotel-type services (already at 10 % today: nothing changes) | The home where the landlord habitually lives, let for a few days |
The owner's residence is irrelevant: VAT applies where the property is. A British or German owner with a flat on the coast will be in exactly the same position as a resident, even though their income tax goes through form 210. Until the new rule arrives, the distinction between an exempt letting and one with hotel-type services is still the one that decides, for short stays as much as for long ones.
What will change in your quarter
- Every booking will carry 10 % VAT. If the price on the platform already includes it, of 110 € collected, 100 € is the taxable base and 10 € is VAT. To keep what you earn today, the price has to go up by 10 %.
- You will register for VAT by updating your census entry on form 036, the registration with the Spanish tax office.
- Form 303 will carry that VAT every quarter. If you pay commission to a platform based in another EU country you already file it today, for the reverse charge.
- You will deduct your input VAT: utilities, cleaning, platform commission, repairs, furniture, any insurance that carries VAT — provided the invoices are made out to you with your tax number. For an owner with high running costs this recovers a real slice of the tax.
- You will issue an invoice for each stay and keep registers of invoices issued and received.
- Form 390: if letting urban property is your only activity, you are in principle exempt from the annual summary and give the year's totals in the fourth-quarter 303.
- If the same flat alternates short stays (taxed) with stays of more than 30 nights (exempt), the VAT on shared costs will be deducted in proportion: the partial-deduction rule.
Airbnb and Booking commission
Airbnb invoices Spanish hosts from Ireland and Booking from the Netherlands, so their commission is a service received from another EU state. You self-account for the Spanish VAT on it under the reverse charge, which requires registration on the ROI, the EU VAT register, and form 349. That obligation exists today, with the letting exempt; see form 349 and platform commission. What the 10 % VAT will change is that the VAT you self-charge on the commission becomes deductible on the same return, so it stops costing you money — while the letting is exempt, it is a cost.
Bookings paid before the start date
This was the question owners raised first in September, and it will come back the day a new date is set. In VAT, a payment in advance brings forward the moment the tax arises: under article 75.Dos of the Act, VAT on an advance payment falls due when it is received. A reasonable reading follows from that: money collected while the letting is exempt carries no VAT even if the stay is later. It is a reading and not a certainty, and it will depend on what the new rule says, which is why those bookings will have to be reviewed one by one with the text in hand.
Keep your bookings listed by payment date and by stay date. With that list, closing the first quarter with VAT is an afternoon's work. Without it, you rebuild the quarter booking by booking.
The arithmetic, briefly
Take a flat billing 24,000 € a year with 6,000 € of costs that carry VAT at 21 %. Once the 10 % applies, if prices hold, the 24,000 € becomes a VAT-inclusive figure: the taxable base is 24,000 ÷ 1.10 = 21,818.18 €, and 2,181.82 € goes to the tax office. Against that you recover about 1,041 € of input VAT on the 6,000 € of costs (6,000 − 6,000 ÷ 1.21). If prices rise by 10 %, the guest bears the tax and the deduction is a gain. The net effect depends almost entirely on how cost-heavy your operation is and how your guests react to the price. The 10 % VAT calculator runs both scenarios side by side.
VAT on what you bought before
The VAT on running costs from an exempt period is not recovered: it was borne when the activity gave no right to deduct. Capital goods are different. The VAT Act provides for adjustments when the use of an asset changes within its adjustment period (ten years for property, five for other assets), and that mechanism may allow part of the VAT to be recovered, once the letting becomes taxable, for the years that remain. It depends on the asset, its dates and on having a full invoice.
The new bathroom, the air conditioning, the furniture: with an invoice in your name and the VAT shown separately there is something to discuss; without one, there is not.
What to have ready until there is a date
- Prices. Decide now whether you will raise them by 10 % or absorb the tax, so you can change them on every platform as soon as the date is known. Today a stay without hotel services has no VAT inside it.
- Registration. Check the activity code on your form 036; the start of taxable supplies is declared when the time comes.
- ROI and form 349. If you pay commission to Airbnb or Booking they are already compulsory, and so is the form 303 for that VAT; once your letting is taxed, the VAT on that commission will also be deductible.
- Invoicing guests. Have consecutive numbering ready for the first taxable stay.
- Cost file. Every invoice in your name, with your tax number: they count for income tax now and will count for VAT then.
Three reactions that go badly
- Deciding it will never come. The decree-law fell, but the directive has a date. When the tax applies it is due whether or not you charge it, and if you do not add it, it comes out of the price you collected.
- Incorporating a company in a hurry. A company does not solve VAT — the 10 % will apply to it in exactly the same way — and it adds corporation tax, statutory accounts and filings at the Companies Registry.
- Planning to switch every booking to 31 nights on paper. The exemption follows the real length of the stay, not the label on the contract, and a pattern of long contracts with short stays is easy to spot.
Our system is ready to calculate with 10 % from the day it comes into force: it separates the VAT in each booking, places the platform commissions in the right boxes, deducts the VAT on your costs and prepares each quarter's 303. Meanwhile we keep handling what is already compulsory today — the 303 for Airbnb and Booking commission, the 349 and your income tax — with your stays treated as what they are: exempt.
What stays true
The rental income is taxed as before. If you are resident in Spain it goes in your annual income tax return; if you are not, it goes on form 210, one per property, per owner and per type of income, as explained in non-resident property tax. VAT, when it comes, will be a second, separate layer on top of that, not a replacement for it.
Questions we get asked about your holiday let
From when do I have to charge VAT?
There is no date today. Royal Decree-law 26/2026 had set 1 December 2026, but Congress voted it down on 2 October 2026. The outer limit is July 2028, under Directive (EU) 2025/516. If you provide hotel-type services, you already charge 10 %.
Is it 10 % or 21 %?
10 %, the reduced rate for accommodation. A 21 % rate was discussed while the measure was being prepared, but the decree-law that reached the BOE applied 10 %, which is also the hotel rate.
Does it affect lets of more than 30 nights?
No, unless hotel-type services come with them. Mid-term and long-term lets are exempt today and stayed exempt in the decree-law.
When is my first form 303?
The first one carrying VAT on your stays falls in the filing window of the quarter in which the measure comes into force, which is not known today. If you pay commission to Airbnb or Booking, the form 303 for that VAT is already due every quarter.
Can I recover the VAT on the renovation I did two years ago?
Not on ordinary running costs. For capital goods still within their adjustment period there may be room for an adjustment for the remaining years. Keep the invoices. If you would like us to look at where you stand, write to us or see what handling it costs.