Register with the regional government
A responsible declaration to the Consejería de Turismo of the Junta de Andalucía places the property on the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía and produces a VUT/MA/00000 code, since Casares is in the province of Málaga. The code goes in every listing. Judgment 620/2026 of the Supreme Court annulled the single state register and left the Andalusian one intact.
Check what the land is before you check anything else
A scattered municipality like Casares contains houses on land whose planning classification is not straightforwardly urban. Whether a given property can lawfully be let to tourists at all can depend on that classification, and no tax planning survives a property that should not have been registered. It is a question that has to be answered address by address, from the deed and the planning certificate, and we do that before anything else.
The return depends on your residence
| Your position | What you file |
|---|---|
| Resident in Spain | Net rental profit in your income tax return |
| Self-employed for this activity | Modelo 130 and 303 quarterly, Modelo 390 annually |
| Non-resident | Modelo 210 per property and per owner, with imputed income for days at your disposal |
Nineteen per cent and deductible costs for residents of the European Union, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein; 24 % on the gross for everyone else. Casares Costa is largely owned from northern Europe and from Britain, and those two groups now sit on opposite sides of that line.
VAT: the golf-resort extras, with the 10 % on hold
In the golf developments owners like to bundle extras into the price — a maid twice a week, a buggy, a welcome hamper served by someone. Those services put the VAT exemption at risk, today as before. The question nearly moved: Royal Decree-law 26/2026, in the BOE on 30 September, taxed every let of up to 30 nights at 10 %, with or without extras, until Congress voted it down on 2 October 2026. For now a let of any length remains exempt so long as nothing hotel-like is supplied during the stay.
What the extras will affect once the 10 % is in force (July 2028 is the last date the EU directive allows) is how much you recover. With an invoice in your name, the VAT on the buggy hire or the cleaning becomes deductible on a quarterly return. Airbnb invoices from Ireland and Booking from the Netherlands, so the reverse charge through the ROI register and Modelo 349 applies meanwhile. The autumn golf bookings, like the spring ones, are exempt unless hotel services are added.
Golf seasons and beach seasons are different seasons
A house in the golf valley fills in spring and autumn and empties in August heat; a beachfront flat does the reverse. Since deductible costs are apportioned by the nights actually let, two properties in the same municipality with the same annual occupancy can nonetheless need very different calendars and very different cost profiles: green fees and buggy storage on one side, pool servicing and air conditioning on the other.
Whichever pattern is yours, the deduction ratio comes from the calendar. Community fees, IBI, insurance, waste, supplies, mortgage interest, repairs and building depreciation all enter in proportion to the nights let, and the days neither let nor lived in produce imputed income for a non-resident.
Communities and local charges
Since 2025 a community of owners can restrict or condition tourist letting with three fifths of the votes. Casares developments are often communities of houses rather than blocks of flats, with shared roads, gardens and pools, and the same majority rule applies to them. Statutes and recent minutes are worth reading before a purchase and before a refurbishment.
Waste tariffs and the planning treatment of tourist properties are set by the town hall, differ between municipalities and change. We read the one that applies to your address.
Three markets, one set of books
Owners who hold more than one property in Casares — a village house and a flat on the coast is a common pair — sometimes assume the two can be reported together. They cannot. Each property has its own return, its own cadastral value for imputed income and its own apportionment of costs, and a shared expense such as an insurance policy covering both has to be split on a defensible basis. Where the two properties are held in different proportions by different family members, the number of returns multiplies accordingly. It sounds like bureaucracy for its own sake, and to some extent it is, but it is also the level at which the tax office checks, since its data arrives property by property from the cadastre and from the platforms. Getting the structure right in year one makes every subsequent year a matter of updating figures.
Foreign owners and Spanish succession
Casares Costa is owned largely from abroad, often by couples who bought in their fifties, and Spanish inheritance tax applies to Spanish property whoever owns it and wherever they live. The return is due within six months of the death, the applicable rules are those of the region where the property lies, and Andalusia treats spouses, children and parents very differently from siblings, nephews or unmarried partners without a registered relationship. A foreign will drafted without Spanish property in mind can also produce a result nobody intended, and European succession rules allow a choice of national law that is worth making deliberately rather than by default. None of this stops you letting the property, and none of it is urgent while everybody is well. It is raised here because the cost of addressing it early is an afternoon, and the cost of addressing it late is measured in tax.
How we work with owners here
We take on the recurring compliance: the planning and register position confirmed at the start, the costs apportioned against real nights, depreciation set up properly, drafts for you to approve, and returns filed on time. From 60 € a month plus VAT, and no tie-in. Pricing · Tell us about the property.
Hélène's golf-course flat: five months of her own, seven weeks let
Hélène lives in Brussels, spends January to May in her flat on a golf development on the coast, and lets it for seven weeks in July and August. It is the typical Casares pattern: a valuable property with high running costs, enjoyed by its owner for much of the year and let for only a few weeks. With seven weeks let, only 13.4 € of every 100 € of community fees, IBI or depreciation is deductible.
| Hélène's annual cost | Amount | Deductible |
|---|---|---|
| Platform commission (15 %) | 1,543.50 € | In full: 1,543.50 € |
| Seven departure cleans at 80 € | 560.00 € | In full: 560.00 € |
| Development fees | 3,000.00 € | For 49 days of 365: 13,380 × 49/365 = 1,796.22 € |
| IBI | 1,100.00 € | |
| Insurance | 400.00 € | |
| Supplies | 2,400.00 € | |
| Depreciation (3 % of 216,000 € of building) | 6,480.00 € | |
| Total | 15,483.50 € | 3,899.72 € |
Income: 49 nights at 210 €, 10,290 €. Net: 10,290 − 3,899.72 = 6,390.28 €; at 19 %, as a Belgian resident, 1,214.15 €. Imputed income covers the 316 other days, the five months she spends there as much as the months it is shut: a cadastral value of 210,000 € at 1.1 % gives 2,310 € a year, or 1,999.89 € for 316 days, which at 19 % is 379.98 €. Total for the year, 1,594.13 €. Nearly a quarter of it comes from her own use, a heavier share than almost anywhere else on the coast, because cadastral values here are high and owners stay long. More in imputed income.
Subtract the full 15,483.50 € and the letting shows a loss of more than 5,000 €, so nothing is declared. That calculation is rejected on first reading, because costs of the months the flat serves as the owner's home are not letting costs; the result is the tax, interest and usually a penalty. Nor can a letting loss be set against anything on Modelo 210: each return stands alone.
An owner resident in Switzerland, the United States or the United Kingdom would instead pay 24 % on the gross 10,290 €, deducting nothing: 2,469.60 €, plus imputed income at 24 %. Invoices would not change that return, though they still matter for an eventual sale.
Two filings for one flat, months apart
The 2026 rent goes on Modelo 210 between 1 and 20 April 2027, or by the 15th with direct debit. The imputed income for those 316 days is a separate Modelo 210, filed from 1 April to 31 December 2027 (23 December if paid by direct debit). The first is easy to remember and the second easy to forget, especially when someone else manages the letting and nobody sees the imputation.
Boarding passes as evidence, and the development's own letting charge
An apportionment only holds if the let days and the unlet days can be shown. Platforms document the bookings; nobody documents your own stays. Keep boarding passes, flight receipts and a simple annual calendar. Some developments also charge owners who let an extra fee for guest access cards, use of facilities or additional cleaning of common areas. That fee exists only because of the letting and is deductible whole, so ask for it to appear separately on the community receipt.
When the long stays tip into residence
Owners here stretch their stays each year until they spend more time in Spain than at home. Beyond 183 days in a year, or with the centre of her life moved to Casares, Hélène would become tax resident in Spain: worldwide income in the Spanish return, Belgian pensions and investments included, a possible Modelo 720 for assets abroad, and no more imputed income if the flat becomes her habitual residence. That change is prepared before it happens.