The register that matters
A dwelling let to tourists in Andalusia is declared to the Consejería de Turismo of the Junta de Andalucía, the regional government, through a responsible declaration (declaración responsable), and the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía issues a code which in this province reads VUT/AL/00000. That code belongs in every advertisement. Supreme Court judgment 620/2026 annulled the single state register; the Andalusian one was not affected.
Properties near the natural park or on the outlying coast raise a planning question that a city flat does not: what the land is classified as, and whether protection attaches to it. That is decided locally, it can determine whether a property may be let at all, and it is checked from the deed and the planning certificate.
The form that is yours
| Your position | What you file |
|---|---|
| Resident in Spain | Net rental profit inside your income tax return |
| Self-employed for this activity | Modelo 130 and Modelo 303 quarterly, Modelo 390 in January |
| Non-resident | Modelo 210 per property and per owner, plus imputed income for the days at your disposal |
Non-residents pay 19 % with deductible costs if they live in the European Union, Iceland, Norway or Liechtenstein, and 24 % on the gross with nothing deductible otherwise. Almería ownership is mixed between local residents and a northern European contingent that winters here, so both halves of the rule are in regular use.
A winter market, which is rare
Northern Europeans who want sun in January have a short list of mainland options and this is on it. Long winter stays, film and television crews booking for a shoot, and agricultural and logistics personnel between seasons give the city an occupancy curve that never fully collapses. For the accounts that is the best possible news, because deductible costs are apportioned by the nights actually let: a property working 200 nights carries well over half of its annual IBI, community fees, insurance, waste charge, supplies, mortgage interest and building depreciation into the return, while a purely summer property carries a fifth.
Long winter stays also raise the boundary question. A three-month booking to the same person who settles in as if at home starts to look like an ordinary residential lease rather than a tourist let, with different tax treatment and different protections for the occupant. Decide what each stay is before it begins.
VAT: short stays, and the corporate booking
Article 7 of Royal Decree-law 26/2026 put furnished homes let for stays of up to 30 nights at 10 % VAT; the text was published in the BOE on 30 September and voted down by Congress on 2 October 2026. Corporate and production bookings will bring a practical twist when that rule returns, with July 2028 as the outer limit under the EU directive: a business guest will want a full invoice with its tax number, and may be able to recover the VAT you charge, which makes the 10 % easier to pass on.
Production crews often stay longer than a month, and a let of any length is exempt today provided no hotel services come with it — so a request for daily cleaning on a long booking still needs settling before you agree to it. The reverse charge on platform commissions continues: Airbnb from Ireland, Booking from the Netherlands, self-accounted by you through the ROI register and Modelo 349.
Deductions to set up once
Depreciation of the building is the largest deduction most owners have and the most commonly omitted. It is computed on the construction value taken from the deed and the cadastral split, not on the price paid. The second point is the distinction between a repair, deducted in the year it is paid and apportioned by nights let, and an improvement, which is recovered through depreciation and increases the acquisition value when the property is eventually sold. Air conditioning installed in a hot city is a good example of an expense that needs classifying correctly on the invoice.
The community vote and the local bills
Since 2025 a community of owners can limit or condition tourist letting with three fifths of the votes and participation quotas. Where the building is mostly permanent residents, which describes most of the city, that threshold is reachable. Read the statutes before buying and the minutes before spending, and have any resolution already passed reviewed rather than assuming its effect.
Waste tariffs and the planning treatment of tourist properties are municipal decisions that vary between councils and change over time. An assessment that looks wrong can be challenged within a short window from notification, so the bill is worth reading rather than paying automatically. We check the ordinance in force at your address.
If you decide to stop letting
Winding a holiday let down is not simply a matter of taking the listing offline. The entry in the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía should be cancelled, the tax census updated where you registered for the activity, and the VAT registration — including the ROI entry for platform commissions — closed or reviewed, because an open registration with no activity still carries filing obligations and generates reminders. Once the property stops being let, a non-resident owner does not stop filing: the whole year then produces imputed income instead of rental income, and the return is still due. Owners who close a letting in March frequently assume the year is over for tax purposes. It is not; it has simply changed shape. Doing the closure properly takes an afternoon and saves the long tail of automated letters that an abandoned registration produces.
What we deal with
Recurring compliance for Almería owners: classifying long stays correctly, apportioning costs against a long season, keeping depreciation running, and filing on time with the draft shown to you first. From 60 € a month plus VAT, and no tie-in. Pricing · Tell us about your case.
A flat near the beach, a teacher in Valladolid and three kinds of occupant
Isabel teaches in Valladolid but comes from Almería, and she means to move back in a few years. She remains tax resident in Spain; her Almería flat is not her main home while she is posted away, so whatever it earns goes into her income tax return. Because she wants the flat back one day, she avoids long leases and mixes stays of several months with nightly lets. That is a sensible plan, provided each stay is signed and declared as what it really is.
| Period in 2026 | Use | Days | Income |
|---|---|---|---|
| January to March | Seasonal lease to a Dutch couple, 1,100 € a month | 90 | 3,300 € |
| April to October | Tourist nights at 85 € | 110 | 9,350 € |
| Unlet days across the year | November and December empty, apart from ten days of her own at Christmas, plus the gaps between tourist bookings | 165 | — |
Income of 12,650 € over 200 let days. Platform commission applies only to the tourist stretch: 15 % of 9,350 €, or 1,402.50 €. Thirty changeovers at 35 € add 1,050 €. The annual bills (IBI 480 €, community 660 €, insurance 240 €, supplies 1,300 € and depreciation of 2,550 €, being 3 % of 85,000 € of building value) total 5,230 €, of which 200/365 is deductible: 2,865.75 €. Net rental income comes to 12,650 − 1,402.50 − 1,050 − 2,865.75 = 7,331.75 €. The 165 remaining days generate imputed income on a cadastral value of 70,000 € at 1.1 %: 348.08 €.
Take the Dutch couple away and only 110 days are let: the deductible share of the fixed bills falls to 1,576.16 € and imputed income rises to 537.95 €. The winter does not just bring money in, it improves the whole apportionment. The mechanics are in let days and apportionment.
Since the January-to-March stay «is not tourist», some owners declare it as an ordinary home lease and claim the reduction in article 23.2 of the Income Tax Act. That relief is meant for a tenant who makes the flat their permanent home, and the couple spending the winter here have theirs in the Netherlands. Claiming it wrongly shrinks that slice of the tax base by half or more, and it is among the first things corrected in a review, with interest and a possible penalty on top.
Listed but unbooked is not let
In November and December the advert stays online and nobody books. Those days cannot be counted as let: they are days at Isabel's disposal, they produce imputed income, and no costs attach to them. A single work booking in November, even at a low rate, does more for the return than it seems.
Guest registration reaches the winter couple too. The duty to pass occupants' details to the police through the Interior Ministry's system covers seasonal leases as well as three-night tourists, so their contract and identities are recorded when they arrive. It is not a tax formality, but it is penalised on its own, and the receipt later proves exactly when the flat was occupied. That the rent arrives from a Dutch bank account changes nothing: the flat is in Almería and the income is Isabel's. Just make each transfer traceable to its month of contract.
The day Isabel moves back in
If she returns and lives there, letting stops and the flat becomes her main home: imputed income and deductible costs both end. On a future sale, the gain is computed after subtracting from the purchase cost the depreciation she deducted while letting, and any relief for reinvesting in a new main home will depend on how long the flat has again been her habitual residence. See reinvesting in a main home.