Registering it properly
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). The Registro de Turismo de Andalucía issues a code which in the province of Granada reads VUT/GR/00000, and it has to appear in your advertising. Judgment 620/2026 of the Spanish Supreme Court annulled the single state register and left the Andalusian one in force.
The municipality contains several distinct areas — the town itself, the beach developments and the outlying coastal settlements — and the planning classification of your address is not uniform across them. That classification is municipal, it can decide whether a property is capable of being let at all, and it is checked address by address from the deed and the planning certificate.
Which return applies to you
| 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, with imputed income for the days at your disposal |
Non-resident rates are 19 % with deductible costs for residents of the European Union, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, and 24 % on gross rent with nothing deductible for everyone else. Motril owners are predominantly Spanish residents, so most files run through the personal income tax return, where the practical question is how much of the year's cost the letting can carry.
VAT: the summer let is still outside it
Letting here is typically a self-managed summer arrangement with cleaning between guests and nothing more, and for years that has sat comfortably inside the VAT exemption. Royal Decree-law 26/2026 of 29 September would have changed the position by taxing stays of up to 30 nights at 10 %, however simple the service. Congress refused to ratify it on 2 October 2026, and the rule we work to is the old one.
The first question, when the change does come, will be price. A summer week advertised at 700 € would contain 63.64 € of VAT unless you raised it to 770 €. Then the paperwork: an update on Modelo 036 and an invoice per stay. No date has been set; the European limit is July 2028. If you let through Airbnb or Booking, the reverse charge on their commissions applies today, with an EU VAT number on the ROI register and a Modelo 349. Owners who let only through a local agency or by word of mouth may escape that part.
A two-month season and what it costs you
Playa Granada and Carchuna fill in July and August and go quiet quickly afterwards. Deductible costs are apportioned by the nights actually let, so a property working 60 nights recovers about a sixth of its annual community fees, IBI, insurance, waste charge, supplies, mortgage interest and building depreciation. The remaining five sixths are not deductible anywhere.
That is the strongest argument for extending the season rather than raising the nightly rate: a higher rate improves the revenue line only, while extra nights improve the revenue line and the deduction ratio on every cost simultaneously. And for a non-resident owner, the months with no letting generate imputed income on the cadastral value, so idleness is not free.
Deductions people forget
Two in particular. Depreciation of the building, computed on the construction value rather than the purchase price, is usually the single largest deduction available and it requires the deed and the cadastral split to be set up correctly once. And the costs of getting the property ready to let — the tourism registration itself, the guest registration system, insurance extensions, the smoke detectors and the first inventory — are costs of the activity, not personal spending, provided they can be documented and tied to the letting.
Against that, two things that are not deductible in the way owners hope: works that improve the property rather than repair it, which are recovered through depreciation instead, and any cost relating to periods when the property was reserved for the family.
Communities and the town hall
Since 2025 a community of owners can limit or condition tourist letting with three fifths of the votes and quotas. In the beach developments, where summer flats and permanent homes sit in the same block, that majority is reachable and the meetings often happen out of season. Reading the statutes and the last minutes before buying is worth the hour it takes.
Waste tariffs and the planning treatment of tourist properties are decided by the town hall, vary between municipalities and change over time. An assessment that looks wrong can be challenged within a short window, so the bill is worth reading. We check the ordinance in force at your address.
The annual bills, and which of them count
A holiday flat attracts a predictable set of yearly charges: the IBI property tax, the waste charge, the community fee, the insurance premium, the supply standing charges and, where there is a mortgage, the interest. All of them are deductible in proportion to the nights actually let, and all of them arrive whether or not the property was ever occupied. What is not deductible is the capital repaid on the mortgage, which is not a cost at all, nor any charge relating to a period when the property was reserved for the family. Owners frequently deduct the whole mortgage instalment and are surprised to learn that only the interest part of it counts. Separating the two is a matter of reading the bank's annual certificate, which is issued for exactly this purpose.
What we look after each year
We take on the recurring compliance: depreciation set up properly, costs apportioned against real nights, imputed income calculated for the closed months, drafts shown to you before filing. From 60 € a month plus VAT, and no tie-in. Pricing · Tell us about the property.
Carmen and Paco's forty-five summer nights on Playa Poniente
A couple who live in Motril, with their own home in the town centre and, since inheriting it from his parents, a beach apartment they let for a few weeks in summer. Barely 4,000 € a year, and the question is always the same: does this really have to be declared? It does, and done properly the bill is small, because costs can be deducted. Both are Spanish residents owning the flat 50/50. In 2026 they let it for 45 nights in July and August at an average of 95 €:
| Step | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Income | 45 × 95 € | 4,275.00 € |
| 2. Platform commission (15 %) | in full | − 641.25 € |
| 3. Nine cleans at 35 € | in full | − 315.00 € |
| 4. Annual costs: IBI 380, community 600, insurance 180, utilities 700, depreciation 1,650 (3 % of 55,000) | 3,510 × 45/365 | − 432.74 € |
| 5. Net rental income | 2,886.01 € | |
| 6. Imputed income for 320 unlet days | 60,000 × 1.1 % × 320/365 | 578.63 € |
Each declares half. At a marginal rate of 30 %, the letting itself costs them around 866 € between them. The imputed income, though, would be due anyway with the flat shut all year, and would then be higher: 660 € of base instead of 578.63 €. Letting those 45 nights did not add imputed income; it trimmed it slightly. What the letting truly adds is the net rent. The comparison is set out in letting or leaving it empty.
Platforms report what each host collects, with the host's tax number and the property's cadastral reference, under the EU directive known as DAC7 (in Spain, Modelo 238), alongside the information returns filed by intermediaries. An undeclared 4,000 € shows up in those cross-checks exactly as 40,000 € would. The difference is that the tax to put right is small while the interest and penalty are not, in proportion. With past years outstanding, the orderly route is regularising before they write.
Port contractors in October
The port and local industry bring in posted workers who need a room for some weeks, a useful way to fill quiet months on the coast. A worker staying a month or two under a contract for that period, with no services during the stay, is normally a seasonal lease rather than a tourist let. For income tax it is still rental income and the days count as let. What cannot happen is advertising as tourist, signing as seasonal and declaring as neither. If the worker's employer pays, it will want an invoice: you may issue it without VAT, stating that the supply is exempt, provided no hotel-type services are supplied.
An inherited flat and the figure that feeds depreciation
Many beach flats here are inherited, and the inheritance fixes the acquisition value: the value declared for inheritance tax plus the costs and taxes of the inheritance, leaving out the land, which never depreciates. Without that figure depreciation is miscalculated or skipped, and it is among the largest deductions available. The same value, less depreciation taken, will serve when the flat is sold; see how the gain on a sale is worked out. The heirs own it from the date of death, not from the signing of the acceptance deed, so imputed income and any rent in that first year are shared out from that date, a detail easily missed when the paperwork takes months and the flat keeps being let meanwhile.
The garage space by the beach
A garage or storeroom with its own cadastral reference produces its own imputed income when not let, and if it is included in the holiday let its share of costs joins the apportionment. A small line almost everyone forgets.