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 existed
Royal Decree 1312/2024 created a single state-level register of short-term lets and a rental registration number that had to appear in platform listings. From 1 July 2025 it was being required to publish on Airbnb, Booking and the rest, and a great deal of effort went into obtaining it.
The Court annulled the single registration procedure, holding that the State lacked competence to create a national register overlapping the tourism registers of the autonomous communities. With that, the obligation to obtain the state number falls away. Spain divides competence over tourism between the central State and the seventeen autonomous communities, and tourism is a regional matter — which is the heart of the reasoning.
What remains standing, which is the important part
- Your regional registration. In Andalucia, entry on the Registro de Turismo de Andalucia and your VUT/MA/00000 code remain compulsory. The judgment does not touch this at all. Every other region has its equivalent, with its own code format and its own inspection service.
- The digital single window and the flow of data between platforms and the administration.
- The platforms' own reporting duties about listings and lettings, which come from EU rules and not from the annulled decree.
- Everything on the tax side. The annulment concerns an administrative register. It does not change one euro of your VAT, your income tax or your form 210.
What to do now
- Check your regional registration is alive and correct. It is the one you can be asked for and the one that supports your listing. Details drift: an owner changes, a property is split, an address is recorded in the wrong municipality.
- Do not cancel anything on your own initiative. If you already hold a state number, no action is needed. Cancelling things voluntarily is how people end up unable to prove a history they later need.
- Expect movement. The Government can rebuild the system by another route — primary legislation, or an agreement with the regions — and the platforms will keep asking for some identifier, because their own obligations have not gone anywhere.
This is worth saying plainly, because the confusion is constant. Holding a valid tourism licence proves nothing about your position with the tax office, and being fully up to date with the tax office proves nothing about your licence. Two administrations, two registers, two sets of penalties. Plenty of owners we meet are immaculate on one side and exposed on the other.
What the regional register actually asks of you
The detail varies by region, but the shape is similar everywhere. You file a declaration of commencement of activity — not an application for permission — which lets you start immediately and leaves the administration to check afterwards. It requires an occupancy certificate for the dwelling, compliance with a list of minimum standards (air conditioning or heating depending on season, first-aid kit, a complaints book, a plan of the property), the identity of the owner and, where relevant, of the operator, and the maximum number of guests.
Two things trip owners up. The first is that your building's owners' association may prohibit or restrict holiday letting in its statutes, and where a valid prohibition exists the tourism registration will not save you. The second is that municipal planning rules can forbid the use in certain buildings or zones independently of tourism law, which is where most of the current litigation sits.
Why the state register was created at all
The underlying driver is European: a regulation on data collection and sharing for short-term accommodation rental services obliges member states to have a registration procedure and to pass structured data to platforms. Spain implemented it through a royal decree and a national number. The Supreme Court did not question the European obligation, only the constitutional route chosen to meet it. That is why nobody serious expects the topic to disappear — only to come back wearing a different hat.
What this means for your listing today
Platforms are commercial operators applying their own compliance policy. In practice they ask for an identifier and they will accept the regional one, because that is what the regional registers issue and what the data flow is built on. If a listing is blocked for want of a number, the number to give is the regional code. If you do not have one, that is a licensing problem to solve before it becomes a tax problem, because income from an unregistered property is still taxable income and the two enquiries tend to arrive together.
How the regions differ, in one paragraph
Because tourism is a regional competence, there is no single Spanish rulebook. Andalucia registers holiday dwellings under its tourism act and issues a VUT code. Catalonia, Valencia, Madrid, the Balearics and the Canaries each have their own register, their own code and their own minimum standards, and several of them have added moratoria, zoning restrictions or caps on new registrations in pressured areas. The Balearics and Barcelona are the strictest; some Andalusian municipalities have begun to follow. The practical consequence for an owner buying with holiday letting in mind is that the question "can this property be registered?" has to be asked of three different authorities — the region, the town hall and the owners' association — before the price is agreed, not after completion.
What an inspection actually looks at
Regional tourism inspections are separate from tax inspections and tend to arrive through a complaint, often from a neighbour or from the owners' association. They check that the registration exists and matches the property, that the code appears in the advertising, that guest identity data has been reported to the police platform as the law requires, that the maximum occupancy is respected and that the minimum standards are met. Penalties are set by regional law and the serious brackets are substantial. None of that is affected by the annulment of the state register.
Questions we get asked about your holiday let
Can my listing be taken down for not having the state number?
After the annulment, the state requirement falls away. Platforms generally ask for the regional identifier, which in Andalucia is your VUT code.
Do I still file the annual information return tied to the register?
The annual obligation tied to the annulled register loses its legal basis. What the platforms report on their own account is a different matter and does not depend on you.
I paid an agent to obtain the state number. Was it wasted?
The number itself no longer serves a purpose, but the underlying work — confirming the regional registration, the land registry reference, the ownership details — is the same information any future system will want. Keep the file.
Does any of this change what I pay?
No. For the tax side see tax on holiday lets in Spain, and for the deadlines the tax calendar.
What it does not replace
Being on this register does not authorise you to let anything. The authorisation comes from the regional tourism registration and, where the town hall requires it, from the municipal licence or planning consent. Those are separate layers, granted by separate administrations, and each one can be missing on its own.
Nor does it change your tax position: the returns you owe are the same before and after registering. What it does is make you visible, which is a reason to have the rest in order rather than a reason to worry about the register itself.