Guide · Letting
The Short-Term Rental Owners Guide
What it takes to let a home short term on this coast in 2026: the registration that counts, the community consent you now need, the standard the property must meet, and what a season actually leaves in your hand.
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Guide · Letting
The Short-Term Rental Owners Guide
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Welcome
Letting a home here is still a good business. It is simply no longer an informal one.
Three separate authorities now have a say in whether your apartment may take a paying guest: the Junta de Andalucía, which registers it, your own community of owners, which since 2025 must consent to it, and the town hall, which decides whether the use fits its planning. This guide sets out what each of them asks, in the order you need to deal with them, and what a season is worth once the costs and the tax have been paid.
Two changes matter more than any other. Since 3 April 2025 a new short-term letting activity in a building held in horizontal ownership needs the express prior approval of the community of owners, by a three-fifths majority, under the reform of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal. And in May 2026 the Supreme Court struck down the national rental register created the year before, so the number that must appear in your advertising is the Andalusian one, not a state code. A great deal of what is still published online was written before both.
JUST Real Estate was founded in Marbella in 2015. Our managing partner has worked this market for 25 years. We are estate agents rather than lawyers or tax advisers, and this guide is not advice on your own position. It is what we tell owners in the first conversation, checked against the rules as they stand at the date shown inside, with the lawyers and managers we work with standing behind the detail.
What this guide covers
- Is your property eligible
- The community of owners
- Registration: what you actually need
- What the property must have
- The money: tax, costs and a worked season
- Presentation, and what a good manager does
- Where you are letting
- Guests, noise, neighbours and insurance
- The calendar of a compliant year
- Working with JUST
The four gates
Is your property eligible
Most owners start with the registration. That is the wrong end. Registration in Andalucía is a declaración responsable, a statement made under your own responsibility that the property already satisfies every condition, so the work is done before you file, and a false declaration is what inspectors look for.
A vivienda de uso turístico, VUT, is a dwelling offered for short stays for a price and marketed through tourism channels, including the online platforms. Decreto 31/2024, in force since 22 February 2024, renamed the old viviendas con fines turísticos and tightened what may be registered. New registrations now carry a code in the form VUT/MA/00000; earlier VFT codes remain valid.
Three things are outside it. A long residential lease under the national tenancy law is not a tourist let. Nor is a seasonal let taken for work or study rather than for a holiday, provided it is not marketed as tourist lodging. And where one operator runs several units in the same building as a business, the file is usually an apartamento turístico rather than a VUT, which is a different and heavier regime.
02 · The community of owners
The consent you now have to ask for
This is the change that catches owners out. Ley Orgánica 1/2025, of 2 January, rewrote article 17.12 of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal with effect from 3 April 2025. A new tourist letting activity in a building held in horizontal ownership now requires the express prior approval of the community, adopted by three fifths of the owners representing three fifths of the participation quotas. Silence is not consent. Without that resolution the activity is unauthorised however complete your other paperwork.
The same majority allows a community to limit, condition or prohibit the activity, and to charge the dwelling more: a special quota or an increase in its share of common expenses of up to 20%, on the reasoning that guests use the lifts, the pool and the security more heavily than residents.
Two protections sit alongside it. The agreements have no retroactive effect, so an activity already being carried on lawfully before the community voted is not caught, a point Spanish courts confirmed again in February 2026 when a community tried to backdate the surcharge. And in Andalucía the registry will not accept a dwelling whose statutes already forbid tourist use, which is a separate and older bar.
In practice this makes the community your first call. Ask the administrator for the statutes, the minutes of the last three meetings, and any resolution on tourist letting.
In sequence
Registration: what you actually need
There is no licence to apply for and nothing to wait for. Andalucía works by declaración responsable, which means the burden sits on you to have everything true on the day you file.
What inspectors look for
What the property must have
Andalucía sets a minimum equipment standard and a minimum capacity calculation, and both are checked against the declaration you filed rather than against what the photographs show.
The list below comes from the decree as amended in 2024. It is the floor and not the finish: an inspection is measured against it, the rate against everything above it.
| Requirement | What the rule asks |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Legally habitable and occupiable, compatible with municipal planning, and not in the asimilado a fuera de ordenación category. |
| Capacity | Fifteen places at most for a whole dwelling, six when letting by room, and at least 14 m² of built area for each place. |
| Climate | Cooling in bedrooms and living rooms where the operating period you declared covers May to August, heating in the same rooms where it covers December to March. Fans do not qualify. |
| Furnishing | Furniture, bedding, linen, towels and equipment for the full declared capacity, with a first-aid kit, and a kitchen equipped for the number of guests or a clear statement of what is given instead. |
| Cleaning | The dwelling cleaned on entry and on exit for every new set of guests. |
| Telephone | A number answered 24 hours a day for guests and for neighbours, which means a real person within reach of the door. |
| Guest papers | Official Hojas de Quejas y Reclamaciones of the Junta de Andalucía in the property with the notice announcing them, and written rules on the community, restricted areas, facilities, pets, smoking, waste and emergency numbers. |
Tax, costs and what is left
The money: a worked season
Rates first, because they decide more than the nightly price does. Residents declare letting income in the annual IRPF return, without the 60% reduction reserved for lettings of a permanent home. Non-residents file Modelo 210.
| Twelve weeks in high season at €3,000 | €36,000 |
| Six shoulder weeks at €1,800 | €10,800 |
| Management and letting commission, assumed at 20% | (€9,360) |
| Eighteen changeovers, cleaning and linen, assumed €150 each | (€2,700) |
| Utilities, wifi and consumables, assumed | (€2,400) |
| Community fees, assumed | (€3,600) |
| IBI and the municipal waste fee, assumed | (€1,400) |
| Buildings and liability insurance, assumed | (€600) |
| Maintenance, safety kit and compliance, assumed | (€900) |
| Non-resident income tax at 19% on the balance | (€4,910) |
| Kept by an EU or EEA owner | €20,930 |
06 · Presentation
What a good manager actually does
The decree tells you to clean between guests. The market tells you something harder: on this coast the rate follows the photographs, the reviews and the speed of the reply, in that order, and all three are bought with somebody’s labour rather than with capital.
Andalucía now recognises the professional operator formally. A dwelling may be run by its owner or by an empresa explotadora, and where several units in one building are let, a single operator must be named. That is worth knowing when you interview managers, because the responsible party on the file is a legal position and not a courtesy.
What a commission of a fifth of gross should buy: the listing built and priced across the platforms rather than on one; professional photography reshot when the furniture changes; the 24-hour telephone answered in the guest’s language; pre-arrival identity collection so the SES.Hospedajes report goes in on time; changeover cleaning with hotel linen and a stock of consumables; a maintenance response that does not wait for your approval on a Saturday; and an owner statement each month that reconciles to the bank.
What it should not buy is a calendar filled at any price. Ask a prospective manager for the rate and the occupancy achieved last year in your own building, not across a whole portfolio, and ask what they turned down. The good ones have an answer.
Marbella, Benahavís, Estepona
Where you are letting
Andalucía sets the standard, the community gives or withholds consent, and the town hall decides whether the use belongs in your street at all. The third layer is the one that changes fastest, and it changes by ordinance rather than by announcement.
In February 2026 the Junta de Andalucía reported that it had removed 13,037 tourist dwellings from the regional register out of 151,048 registered across the region, with 4,731 of them in the province of Málaga. That was not a ban. It was an audit of files that did not meet the conditions their owners had declared.
Sanctions under the Andalusian tourism law run from fines for a serious infringement to substantially heavier ones and temporary closure for the most severe, and unregistered letting, a missing registry code in advertising, absent guest reporting and failure to meet the minimum standard are all reachable. Councils may separately require an activity declaration or a compatibility report, and may set limits by building, zone, density or floor level under the 2024 decree.
Guests, neighbours and risk
Guests, noise, neighbours and insurance
Register every traveller, every stay. Real Decreto 933/2021 has applied to accommodation since 2 December 2024 and it is more than the old police form. You collect an expanded set of traveller and transaction data, transmit it through the Interior Ministry’s SES.Hospedajes platform within 24 hours, and retain the records for three years. Guests aged fourteen and over are identified in their own right, younger children through the adult with them. Automate it: collect the documents at booking rather than at the door.
Handle the data properly. You are holding passport images and payment details for strangers, which makes you a data controller. Give guests a privacy notice, keep the records where only the people who need them can reach them, delete on schedule, and choose a check-in provider that will sign a processor agreement. This is the obligation owners take least seriously and the one with the widest exposure.
Manage noise before it manages you. Almost every complaint that ends in a community resolution against an owner began as noise at night. Publish quiet hours in the house rules and repeat them at check-in; cap the party size at the registered capacity and say so in the booking terms; use a decibel monitor that reports a level rather than recording audio; and answer the neighbour who calls, at once, from the number the decree already requires you to keep staffed. A community that sees problems dealt with has far less appetite for a three-fifths vote against you.
Insure for the use you are actually making. A standard household policy written for an owner in residence is not a policy for paying guests. Tell your insurer what the property is doing, carry public liability cover, check that theft and damage by guests are addressed and that the community’s own policy is current, and keep a dated inventory with photographs so a deposit dispute is a matter of record. Andalucía does not oblige a VUT owner to carry liability cover. Nothing makes it optional in practice.
Keep the file. The registration, the community resolution, the guest contracts and receipts, the SES.Hospedajes confirmations, the complaints book, the insurance policy and the tax returns, in one place and in date order. An inspection is short when the folder is complete, and the owners who have trouble are rarely unlucky: they are the ones who could not produce it on the day somebody asked.
How it runs
The calendar of a compliant year
The same shape every season. Almost all of the work sits in the first row, and almost all of the trouble comes from owners who did that row last instead of first.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Do I need my community’s permission to let my property short term?
Yes. Since 3 April 2025 a new tourist letting activity in a building held in horizontal ownership needs the express prior approval of the community, by three fifths of owners representing three fifths of the quotas.
How do I register a short-term rental in Andalucía?
By filing a declaración responsable with the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía, a statement made under your own responsibility that the property already meets every condition. There is no licence to wait for.
What tax do I pay on short-term rental income?
EU and EEA owners pay 19% on net letting income with expenses deductible. Owners from elsewhere pay 24% on gross income with no deductions.
Is there a cap on how many guests I can host?
Fifteen places at most for a whole dwelling, six when letting by room, with at least 14 square metres of built area for each place.
What happens if I let without registering?
Sanctions under Andalusian tourism law run from fines for a serious infringement to substantially heavier ones and temporary closure for the most severe. In February 2026 the Junta removed 13,037 tourist dwellings from the regional register for not meeting declared conditions.
Does the national rental registration number still apply?
No. The Supreme Court annulled that procedure in May 2026. The number that must appear in Andalusian advertising is the regional RTA code, not a national one.