The register comes first
You file a responsible declaration with the Consejería de Turismo of the Junta de Andalucía, the regional government, and the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía issues a code in the form VUT/MA/00000 for the province of Málaga. The code goes in your listings. The Supreme Court judgment 620/2026 struck down the national single register; the Andalusian one survives and is the one that is checked.
In Mijas a detached house often sits on a plot whose planning classification is not the same as that of a flat in the town. That classification does not decide your tax, but it can decide whether the property can be let at all, and it is worth confirming before money is spent. It is an address-level question, so we look at yours rather than generalise.
Which return is yours
| Your position | What you file |
|---|---|
| Resident in Spain | The net rental profit in your income tax return |
| Self-employed for this activity | Modelo 130 and 303 quarterly, Modelo 390 in January |
| Non-resident | Modelo 210 per property and per owner, rental income annually and imputed income for days at your disposal |
Nineteen per cent with deductible costs for residents of the European Union, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein; 24 % on gross rent with no deductions for everyone else, which since 2021 includes British owners. Mijas ownership is heavily British and Irish, so the two halves of that sentence describe two very different tax bills on identical houses.
The weeks you keep for yourself are not free
Owners of a Mijas villa typically use it themselves for several weeks a year, and often leave it empty around those weeks rather than turning it over. For a non-resident every day the property stands at your disposal produces imputed income, calculated on the cadastral value. A large house has a large cadastral value, so the cost of keeping it idle is real and it is charged whether or not anyone slept there.
VAT: the villa extras are back in the frame
The decree-law published in the BOE on 30 September 2026 (Royal Decree-law 26/2026) put furnished homes let for up to 30 nights at 10 % VAT, and Congress threw it out two days later. With a villa, that means the extras that threaten the exemption — pool maintenance during the stay, gardening, a cook, a mid-week clean — once again change the rate on a one-week booking. They equally decide whether a longer let is exempt or taxed, and our note on holiday let tax sets out that boundary.
When the general 10 % does arrive (the date is open; July 2028 is the limit in Directive (EU) 2025/516), those extras will have an upside as well: the VAT the gardener, the pool company and the cleaners charge you will be deductible on a quarterly Modelo 303. Platform commissions keep their own duty today: Airbnb from Ireland and Booking from the Netherlands, self-assessed by you through the ROI register and Modelo 349.
Costs, pools and the apportionment by days
A house with a pool and a garden has a cost base that a flat does not: pool chemicals and servicing, garden maintenance, a larger insurance premium, higher water and electricity, and more frequent repairs. All of it is deductible in proportion to the nights actually let, which makes the occupancy calendar the most valuable document in the file.
Depreciation of the building deserves a mention of its own, because it is the deduction owners most often forget and the largest one available on a house of this kind. It is computed on the construction value, not on what you paid in total, and it needs the purchase deed and the cadastral breakdown to be done properly. We set it up once and it runs every year afterwards.
Urbanisations, communities and municipal charges
Since 2025 a community can limit or condition tourist letting with three fifths of the votes. In Mijas that applies to the urbanisation communities as much as to blocks of flats: shared pools, private roads and gated entrances all generate the sort of complaint that leads to a meeting. Statutes, minutes and any recent resolution are worth reading before you buy or invest.
The waste charge and the planning treatment of tourist properties are decided by the city hall and differ between municipalities, so we check the ordinance that governs your address instead of repeating a figure from elsewhere.
The day you sell the house
Villas in Mijas are frequently bought as a retirement plan and sold a decade later, and the sale is where the letting history finally shows up. If the seller is not resident, the buyer withholds 3 % of the price on Modelo 211 as a payment on account; where the real gain is lower, the balance is reclaimed, and where there is no gain at all the whole 3 % comes back. The gain itself is computed from the deed, the costs of purchase and sale, the improvements you can document and the depreciation you deducted while letting, which reduces the acquisition value. Municipal capital gains tax on the land value is a separate matter, with two calculation methods and the lower of them payable. Everything in that paragraph depends on records kept years earlier, which is the practical reason for running the letting properly from the start rather than tidying it up at the end.
What we do for Mijas owners
Recurring compliance with the arithmetic done properly: depreciation set up, costs apportioned to real nights, personal-use days accounted for, drafts shown to you, returns filed on time. From 60 € a month plus VAT, and no tie-in. Pricing · Tell us about the house.
Twin townhouses in Calahonda, one owner in Leeds and one in Dublin
Mark lives in Leeds; Siobhan in Dublin. They own identical townhouses with a shared pool on the same Calahonda street. In 2026 each let theirs for 120 nights at 140 €, 16,800 € of income. Their costs are the same too: platform commission at 15 % (2,520 €), thirty cleans at 55 € (1,650 €) and 7,400 € of annual running costs (urbanisation fee 1,800 €, IBI 650 €, insurance 350 €, utilities 1,900 € and depreciation 2,700 €). Both have a cadastral value of 95,000 €.
| Step | Mark (United Kingdom) | Siobhan (Ireland) |
|---|---|---|
| Income | 16,800 € | 16,800 € |
| Direct costs | Not deductible | 2,520 + 1,650 = 4,170 € |
| Annual costs for 120 days | Not deductible | 7,400 × 120 / 365 = 2,432.88 € |
| Taxable rent | 16,800 € | 10,197.12 € |
| Rate | 24 % | 19 % |
| Tax on the rent | 4,032.00 € | 1,937.45 € |
| Imputed income, 245 days (95,000 × 1.1 % × 245 / 365 = 701.44 €) | 168.35 € | 133.27 € |
| Total 2026 | 4,200.35 € | 2,070.72 € |
Mark pays double for the same house. It is neither a penalty nor a mistake: Spanish law only lets non-residents living in the European Economic Area deduct costs, and Britain left that group. His invoices do nothing for his Modelo 210, though they still matter the day he sells and the gain has to be computed. Both bands are compared in living inside or outside the EU. Each owner files the 2026 rent between 1 and 20 April 2027 (by 15 April with direct debit), and co-owners file one return each for their share.
The costliest mistake in the municipality belongs to the Briton who gradually stayed: most of the year here, a doctor and a car in Mijas, and still a Modelo 210 as though home were England. Spend more than 183 days a year in Spain, or have the centre of your interests here, and you are a Spanish tax resident who must declare worldwide income, not just the rent. Putting several years right at once costs far more than getting the first one right. See dual residence conflicts.
A couple with a foot in each country
A common urbanisation story: he has retired and lives in Mijas all year; she still works in England and comes out for holidays. With the house owned 50/50, each half follows its owner's regime. He declares his half in Spanish income tax with his share of costs; she files Modelo 210 at 24 % on her half of the gross. One booking ends up in two different taxes, and both calculations must start from the same income figures. He, and not she, also has to consider whether his UK assets must be reported on Modelo 720.
The village house against the coastal one
Mijas Pueblo, with its steep whitewashed lanes, draws a different visitor: two or three nights to walk the sierra. Occupancy is lower and stays shorter. The mechanics are identical, but the weights shift: with few nights, the imputed income on idle days grows in importance and fixed costs are deducted in a small proportion. Sometimes a seasonal or long let works out better; see letting or leaving it empty.
General community, phase communities, old statutes
Many urbanisations are organised as a general community with sub-communities for each building phase, each with its own statutes and house rules, and older statutes may carry restrictions of their own on top of the three-fifths rule. Before listing, find out which community the house belongs to and what its registered documents say.