10 % VAT on holiday lets: start date uncertain · outer limit July 2028. On 2 October 2026 Congress voted down Royal Decree-law 26/2026, which had set 1 December 2026, so that date no longer stands. The outer limit comes from Directive (EU) 2025/516: July 2028. We have it ready for whenever it comes in. Meanwhile we keep handling what is already compulsory today: Form 303 for the reverse-charge VAT on Airbnb and Booking fees, the EU VAT number (ROI) and Form 349.
Two registrations that have nothing to do with each other
Letting a property to tourists in Spain requires, in nearly every region, an entry in a regional tourism register. That entry produces a licence code, which platforms ask for. It is a licensing matter, handled by the regional government, and it tells the tax authority nothing whatsoever.
The tax side is separate. Form 036 is the census declaration: it tells the tax authority that you have started an activity, what kind of activity it is, from what date, and which returns you therefore have to file. Getting it wrong does not usually produce an immediate problem. It produces a problem two years later, when the returns the census expects and the returns you actually filed do not match.
What to have in front of you before you start
- Your NIF, or your NIE if you are a foreign national. If you do not have one, start there.
- The cadastral reference of the property, a twenty-character code printed on your IBI receipt and on the deed.
- The tourist licence code, if your region issues one, and the date of the entry.
- The address at which you want notifications, and an email.
- Your ownership share, if the property is held with somebody else.
- A digital certificate or Cl@ve, or a representative already registered.
The steps
- Open form 036 in the electronic office and select registration in the census of business operators. If you are already registered for something else, this is a modification rather than a new registration — a distinction that matters, because filing a fresh registration over an existing one creates duplicates that take weeks to unpick.
- Declare the start date of the activity. This is the date you begin letting, not the date the licence was granted and not the date you bought. If your first booking is in June, June is the date. Putting the licence date here creates quarters in which the census expects returns and none exist.
- Choose the activity code. Code 685 covers non-hotel tourist accommodation; code 861.1 covers residential letting. Which one is right depends on what you actually provide during the stay, and it is not a formality: it feeds straight into whether your income is treated as letting or as a business, and into what VAT position the census expects of you. The test itself is set out in working out whether you provide hotel services.
- Declare your periodic obligations. This is the part that generates the forms. Today a holiday let without services typical of the hotel trade is exempt under article 20.Uno.23 of the VAT Act, and one with them is taxed at 10 % and brings its rent into the quarterly VAT return, form 303. Royal Decree-law 26/2026 would have put every let of up to 30 nights at 10 % from 1 December 2026, but Congress voted it down on 2 October. That change now has no start date, only an outer limit of July 2028 under Directive (EU) 2025/516, and when it comes it will be a modification of this same form.
- Ask for EU VAT registration at the same time if you will be paying commission to a platform established outside Spain. It is the same form, and doing it now saves a second procedure later. Why it is needed, and when its VAT can be deducted, is explained in joining the EU VAT register.
- Save the receipt. It is the document that proves from what date you were registered, and it is the first thing asked for if there is ever a discussion about a period.
The 10 % on your guests' stays is the one still to come, unless you provide hotel services and have it already. The other is the commission Airbnb or Booking charges you: a service received from a business in another EU country, on which you account for the Spanish VAT under the reverse charge. It applies today even though the rent is exempt, and it is the most frequent gap we find. While the rent is exempt that VAT is a cost; once short stays are taxed it will be deductible on the same return, and the census has to show the commission side from the beginning.
If you are not resident in Spain
A non-resident owner letting a Spanish property is taxed through Modelo 210 rather than through the resident income tax return, and whether a census registration is needed at all depends on how the activity is organised and on the VAT position. Plenty of non-resident owners do need one, precisely because of the platform commission point above. What none of them can do is assume that because their income is declared through Modelo 210, no census obligation exists. The two systems are independent.
The mechanics of Modelo 210 — one return per property and per owner, rental income grouped by year, imputed income for the days the property was at your disposal — are set out in our Modelo 210 guide.
What goes wrong, and how it is fixed
| Mistake | Consequence | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Start date set at the licence date | Returns expected for quarters with no activity, then reminder letters | A corrective 036 changing the date, with the first booking as evidence |
| Wrong activity code | A mismatch between the census and your filings that surfaces in any review | Modification through 036. Do it before rather than after the review |
| Registration filed twice | Duplicate census entries and duplicate expectations | A modification to close the duplicate, usually with a phone call to the managing office |
| Co-owners not registered separately | One owner carrying an activity that belongs to two | Each owner registers their own share. Joint property does not create a joint taxpayer |
| No EU VAT registration despite platform commissions | Unfiled VAT and EC sales list returns, often for several years | Register and regularise voluntarily, which keeps it in surcharge territory rather than penalty territory |
How long it takes
Filed electronically, the census entry is effective immediately and the receipt is issued on the spot. EU VAT registration requested within it is not immediate: the office frequently asks for evidence of the activity first, and it can take several weeks. Plan for that if your first platform payout is imminent.
For clients of ours this is included in the monthly fee: we file it, we choose the boxes and we tell you when it is done. The surrounding tax picture for a holiday let, from the 10 % VAT that is still waiting for a start date to the platform commissions, is on our holiday let tax page.
Marta in Nerja: bookings from June, no tax registration at all
Marta bought a flat in Nerja in March. In April she entered it in the regional tourism register, in May she published the listing and on 1 June the first family arrived. In September the platform asked for her EU VAT number, and she realised she had registered for nothing to do with tax. Nothing serious had happened yet. But every quarter without registration is a quarter in which obligations existed that nobody met, and they do not go away: they pile up until they arrive together, usually as a letter with a surcharge.
Hers is the commonest situation we see when opening a holiday let file. It is not carelessness. The system has two doors and nobody mentions the second one.
Form 037 no longer exists
Since 3 February 2025 there has been no Modelo 037, the shortened version many individuals used to file: Order HAC/1526/2024 abolished it, and everything now goes through a redesigned 036 organised in blocks. Anyone still recommending the 037 is working from out-of-date information.
On the tourism side, the number platforms display comes from the regional register — in Andalucía, the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía. After the Supreme Court judgment 620/2026 of 21 May, which annulled the state-wide single register, the regional register is once again the one that counts. Neither talks to the tax office.
The income tax boxes, if you live in Spain
A resident who simply lets the dwelling, without services during the stay, normally reports the rent as income from real estate in the annual income tax return, with no payments on account during the year. If what you run is a business activity, the 036 asks for the method used to calculate its profit, and quarterly payments on account appear. A non-resident declares through Modelo 210, which does not depend on these boxes at all: 19 % on the rent less costs for residents of the EU, Iceland, Norway or Liechtenstein, and 24 % on gross rent for everybody else, as the Modelo 210 guide explains.
On the VAT side, a holiday let is exempt today unless it comes with hotel-type services, which make it taxable at 10 %. The wider 10 % on every stay of up to 30 nights lost its start date when Congress rejected the decree on 2 October 2026, and July 2028 is the outer limit. And the platform commission, on an exempt letting too, still brings, in every quarter with commission, both a VAT self-assessment and the Modelo 349 listing of intra-EU services received.