Sofía is a nurse at a hospital in Málaga and, since spring 2026, has been letting through Airbnb a studio she inherited from her grandmother in the El Palo neighbourhood. She offers no breakfast, no cleaning during the stay and no reception: she hands over the keys, collects the money and cleans between guests. A colleague told her that, since letting a home is exempt from VAT, Modelo 303, the quarterly VAT return, had nothing to do with her. Another told her the opposite. Both are partly right, and the second will be wholly right the day holiday lets carry VAT, a day that has no date yet. Sofía's case is the best way to understand how you decide whether someone has to file the 303.
The real question is not how much you invoice
The 303 has no income threshold. It is filed by anyone who, as a business or professional, carries out transactions on which they have to pay VAT in Spain. That happens in two very different situations:
- When you charge VAT on your invoices because your activity is subject to VAT and not exempt: a plumber, a designer, a lawyer, someone letting commercial premises.
- When you are the person liable for a service someone else supplies to you, under the reverse charge mechanism (inversión del sujeto pasivo). The typical case is services invoiced to you without VAT by a company in another European Union country.
An exempt activity takes you out of the first situation, but not the second. That is the key to Sofía's case.
Why Sofía does file a 303 even though her letting is exempt
Letting a home is exempt from VAT as long as no complementary services typical of the hotel trade are provided. Sofía provides none, so her holiday letting is, for VAT purposes, an exempt transaction: she does not charge VAT to her guests. So far, the first colleague is right.
But Airbnb charges her a commission on every booking, and that commission is invoiced by a company established in Ireland. A service between businesses in two EU member states is treated as supplied where the recipient is, that is, in Spain, and the person who must pay the Spanish VAT is Sofía, by charging it to herself. Because her activity is exempt, moreover, she cannot deduct it: that VAT comes out of her own pocket.
Her figures for the third quarter of 2026
- Airbnb commissions in the quarter: €540.
- VAT self-charged: 540 × 21 % = €113.40.
- Deductible VAT on that item: €0, because her activity is exempt.
- Result of the 303: €113.40 payable, from 1 to 20 October.
- Over the year, with about €1,620 of commissions: €340.20 of VAT she does not recover.
On top of that come two obligations that usually go together: registering in the ROI, the register of intra-community operators, so that the platform invoices her without foreign VAT, and Modelo 349. The guide on the reverse charge explains it in detail, and the one on Modelo 303 for holiday lets sets out the specific boxes.
Your case in one row
| Situation | Do you file a 303? | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Self-employed person or professional invoicing with VAT | Yes, every quarter | You charge VAT |
| Letting commercial premises or a warehouse | Yes | Letting premises is not exempt |
| Long-term letting of a home, with no platforms | No, in principle | Exempt transaction and no intra-EU services |
| Holiday let without hotel services, with commissions from a European platform | Yes, for the commissions | Reverse charge; the letting itself stays exempt until the 10 % VAT comes in |
| Holiday let with services typical of the hotel trade | Yes, every quarter, with VAT at 10 % | With hotel services the letting is not exempt |
| Retailer under the equivalence surcharge scheme | As a rule, no | The supplier pays the VAT through the surcharge |
| Exempt activity with no purchases from other countries (doctor, regulated education) | No, in principle | There is no VAT to pay |
The equivalence surcharge scheme (recargo de equivalencia) is the one most small shops fall under: the supplier adds an extra percentage to the invoice and the shopkeeper does not file VAT returns. The line between a holiday let with and without hotel services is the one that raises most doubts, and it is examined in the guide on hotel services and VAT. It still decides short stays too: Royal Decree-law 26/2026 would have put every stay of up to 30 nights at 10 % from 1 December 2026, hotel services or not, but Congress voted it down on 2 October and it never took effect. The start date is now uncertain, with July 2028 as the outer limit under Directive (EU) 2025/516. When it comes, Sofía will charge each guest 10 %, deduct the VAT on her costs and on the commissions, and file a 303 with the rent in it. What the decree provided, and what applies meanwhile, is in the 10 % VAT on holiday lets.
What the second colleague did not tell Sofía
Being obliged to file the 303 is not just paying when there is tax due: it means keeping to a calendar. Anyone who appears in the tax register (the censo) with an obligation to file periodic VAT returns has to file them for every period, including when they come out at zero, plus the annual summary, Modelo 390, in January. If your only VAT transaction is a platform's commissions, how you appear in the register and which periods you have to file depends on what was declared on your Modelo 036, the registration form, and it is worth checking your registration details before taking anything for granted. Since 3 February 2025 Modelo 037 no longer exists: any registration or change goes through the 036.
If you are not sure which row of the table you are in, tell us on the self-employed form: with four details about your activity we can tell you whether you have a 303, how often, and which other returns go with it.
«My activity is exempt» is the sentence many VAT regularisations begin with, and for short holiday lets it is living on borrowed time, though nobody can say today how much: July 2028 at the latest. The exemption describes what you sell; the reverse charge, what you buy from businesses in other countries. They are two different things, and the second obliges you to file the 303 even though the first frees you from charging VAT. Platform commissions, subscription software invoiced from another EU member state and social media advertising usually fall into this category.
If you start halfway through the year
The obligation to file the 303 begins with registration in the censo. Someone who registers in August files their first 303 for the third quarter, in October, even if they have only invoiced for one month. And there is something many people do not know: VAT on purchases made before you started invoicing (the computer, the machinery, the refit of the premises) can also be deducted, as long as those purchases were made with the intention, shown by objective evidence, of using them in the activity. Keeping the invoices in your name and with your NIF, your tax identification number, from day one is what allows you to recover that VAT.
Anyone who ceases the activity has the mirror-image obligation: they file the 303 for the quarter in which they stop and the 390 for the year, and they report the deregistration on the 036. Stopping filing without reporting the deregistration means you are still obliged in the eyes of the register, and the empty quarters pile up as failures to file.
Between registration and deregistration, the normal frequency is quarterly. You only move to monthly filing if your turnover in the previous year exceeded €6,010,121.04 or if you register voluntarily for monthly refunds, which makes sense for anyone who is regularly owed a refund, like some exporters. For an autónomo (self-employed person) or a holiday-let owner, the calendar is the first twenty days of April, July and October, and until 30 January.
A note on income tax
The 303 is only the VAT side. The income from Sofía's holiday letting is also taxed in her income tax return, alongside her salary, normally as income from real estate capital if there are no services typical of the hotel trade. With no withholding and no payments on account, the income tax bill arrives in full in June. Setting aside part of each payment now will save her a nasty surprise.