Registering a Vera Playa property
A responsible declaration to the Consejería de Turismo of the Junta de Andalucía, the regional government, places the property on the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía and produces a code in the VUT/AL/00000 format for the province of Almería. It has to appear in your advertising. The Supreme Court judgment 620/2026 annulled the single state register and left the Andalusian one untouched.
Check the title before you check the tax
Parts of this coast and its hinterland carry a history of planning disputes affecting individual developments, and the position varies from one property to the next. Before registering a property for tourist letting it is worth confirming what the deed, the register and the planning certificate actually say about it. We do that first, because no tax planning is worth anything on a property that turns out not to be capable of being let.
Which form, and at what rate
| 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 |
Nineteen per cent with deductible costs for residents of the European Union, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein; 24 % on the gross with nothing deductible for everyone else. Since 2021 British owners are in the second group, and Vera Playa has a great many of them, so this is the first calculation we run on a file from here. French, Belgian, Dutch and German owners remain in the first group.
VAT: wherever the owner lives, exempt for now
Royal Decree-law 26/2026 (BOE of 30 September 2026) applied VAT at the reduced rate of 10 % to furnished homes let for stays of up to 30 nights, and Congress voted it down before it took effect. Many owners in Vera live in northern Europe, which will make no difference when the measure returns: VAT depends on where the property is, not on where the owner lives. That return has no date; the European limit is July 2028.
Where the urbanisation provides services to your guests as part of the package, the question today is whether they break the exemption, and only then who invoices them. The reverse charge on platform commissions continues: Airbnb invoices from Ireland, Booking from the Netherlands, and the Spanish VAT on those commissions is self-accounted by you through the ROI register and Modelo 349; it is deducted on the same return only if your letting is taxed.
A concentrated season, and what it leaves on the table
Vera Playa works hard from June to September, with a useful spring and a quieter autumn. Deductible costs are apportioned by the nights actually let, so a property letting 90 nights recovers roughly a quarter of its annual urbanisation fees, IBI, insurance, waste charge, supplies, mortgage interest and building depreciation. Urbanisation fees here are not small, which makes that quarter a larger absolute loss than it would be in a plain block of flats.
For a non-resident owner the other nine months are not neutral either: every day the property stands at your disposal generates imputed income on the cadastral value. Owners who keep the flat free for their own visits in May and October are paying for that flexibility twice, once in forgone rent and once in tax.
Urbanisation communities and the three-fifths rule
Since 2025 a community of owners can limit or condition tourist letting with three fifths of the votes and participation quotas. These developments are communities like any other, with pools, gardens and private roads, and their meetings are frequently held when most owners are in another country. That is a structural risk, and the answer is either to attend or to delegate the vote in writing. Statutes and recent minutes are worth reading before you buy.
The bills from the town hall
Waste tariffs and the planning treatment of tourist properties are municipal, they vary between councils and they change over time. An assessment that looks wrong can be challenged, and the window for doing so is short, so the bill deserves reading. We check the ordinance in force at your address rather than repeating one from another town on this coast.
Bookings in sterling, tax in euros
A meaningful share of bookings here is taken in a foreign currency, or paid out by a platform after a conversion of its own. The return is in euros, and the amount to declare is the income converted at the rate applicable when it arose, not at the rate on the day you happened to move the money to your home account. The same applies to costs paid in another currency. Where an owner leaves funds in a foreign account for months before transferring them, the gap between the two rates is not a tax adjustment; it is simply your own currency risk. Keeping the platform payout reports, which show the gross amount, the commission and the conversion applied, is what makes this straightforward instead of an annual argument.
What we look after for you
Recurring compliance for Vera owners: title and register position confirmed at the outset, the non-resident rate band identified, costs apportioned against real occupancy, imputed income kept correct, and returns filed on time with the draft shown to you first. From 60 € a month plus VAT, and no tie-in. Pricing · Tell us about the property.
Leeds against Dublin: the same flat, two tax bills
Two identical apartments in the same Vera Playa building, let the same nights at the same price. One belongs to a couple from Leeds, the other to a teacher from Dublin. Until 2020 a British owner filed like any EU citizen, deducting costs and paying 19 % on profit; since the UK left, British owners are taxed as third-country residents, 24 % on gross income with not one euro of cost deducted. Many still file as before, and that is the problem. Both flats were let 120 nights at 120 €: 14,400 € each.
| Item | Owners in Leeds | Owner in Dublin |
|---|---|---|
| Income | 14,400.00 € | 14,400.00 € |
| Platform commissions (15 %) | Not deductible | − 2,160.00 € |
| Cleaning (24 at 45 €) | Not deductible | − 1,080.00 € |
| Key-holding service (10 %) | Not deductible | − 1,440.00 € |
| Annual costs apportioned (5,700 × 120/365) | Not deductible | − 1,873.97 € |
| Taxable base | 14,400.00 € | 7,846.03 € |
| Rate | 24 % | 19 % |
| Tax on the rent | 3,456.00 € | 1,490.75 € |
The Irish owner's annual costs are IBI 500 €, community 1,000 €, insurance 250 €, utilities 1,100 € and depreciation at 3 % of 95,000 € of building value, 2,850 €. The gap on the rent alone is 1,965.25 € a year. Both also declare imputed income for the 245 empty days: 80,000 € cadastral value at 1.1 % gives a base of 590.68 €, which is 141.76 € at 24 % and 112.23 € at 19 %. For a British owner, no amount of good bookkeeping fixes this, but it can be priced in: rate, occupancy and even the decision to let change when nothing is deductible. Try the Modelo 210 calculator.
A UK resident who keeps deducting commissions, cleaning or IBI on Modelo 210, as before 2021, is under-declaring: 1,965.25 € a year in the example. The tax office can review the years not yet time-barred, normally the last four, and claim the difference with interest and a possible penalty. Correcting on your own initiative costs markedly less than waiting for the letter; see voluntary regularisation.
Filing from England, proving residence in Ireland
A UK-based owner can file the responsible declaration for the VUT/AL code with a digital certificate or through a representative. The state register created by Royal Decree 1312/2024 was annulled by the Supreme Court; the Andalusian one remains, and platforms keep sharing data with the authorities. For her part, the Dublin owner can only deduct costs at 19 % if she can prove Irish residence, which is what the residence certificate for Modelo 210 is for; it also protects against double taxation at home.
Winters in Vera and the 183-day line
Many owners from Leeds or Manchester winter in their apartment and let it the rest of the year. Those months are days at their disposal, carrying imputed income, not letting. There is a second effect: anyone spending more than 183 days in Spain in a calendar year becomes Spanish tax resident, obliged to declare all income here, British pensions included. Counting your own days matters as much as counting nights let. The 2026 rent goes on one Modelo 210 from 1 to 20 April 2027 (15 April with direct debit), the imputed income between 1 April and 31 December 2027 (23 December with direct debit), and spouses file one each for their share.
Selling up and staying in England
On a sale the rules differ from letting: a non-resident's capital gain is taxed at 19 % whatever the country of residence, British sellers included. The gain is the sale price less the purchase price, costs and improvements, adjusted for the depreciation deductible while the flat was let. The buyer withholds 3 % of the price on account of your tax, and if the real gain is smaller the difference is reclaimed; see selling as a non-resident.