Declaring holiday let income in Spain: IRPF and IRNR

How you declare the income from a holiday let in Spain depends first on where you are tax resident. If you live in Spain (as a rule, more than 183 days a year), the income goes in your annual income tax return, the IRPF. If you live abroad, you pay Non-Resident Income Tax (IRNR) on form 210, at 19 % if you live in the EU, Iceland, Norway or Liechtenstein, or 24 % anywhere else, including the UK. The difference is big, because only EU and EEA residents can deduct expenses.

This guide covers both cases. It explains how the tax office classifies a holiday let, which costs you can deduct, how depreciation works, what happens on the days the property is empty, what the platforms report about you (form 238, which replaced form 179) and the VAT change from 1 December 2026. We checked everything on 11 October 2026 against the Spanish Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria, AEAT) website and its 2025 Income Tax Manual, and the laws published in the BOE (Spain's official gazette), including Royal Decree-law 29/2026 of 6 October.

Before anything else: NIE and how the let is classified

To own property and pay tax in Spain you need a NIE, the tax identification number for foreigners. Then comes the key question: is your holiday let just property income or a business?

According to the AEAT, a holiday let is income from real estate capital (rendimiento del capital inmobiliario), in other words property income, unless:

• you provide hotel-type services: reception and ongoing guest assistance, cleaning during the stay, linen changes, laundry, meals and similar; or
• you employ at least one person full-time to run it.

The AEAT states that cleaning when guests arrive and leave, changing linen at that point and one-off repairs are not hotel-type services. A normal holiday flat with a changeover clean is property income.

If you do provide hotel-type services, the let becomes a business, charged at 10 % VAT. A non-resident running it that way is treated as having a permanent establishment in Spain, which brings more obligations (and, if you live outside the EU, a Spanish tax representative). Most foreign owners stay on the simple side.

VAT from 1 December 2026. Until 30 November 2026 a plain holiday let (no hotel-type services) is VAT-exempt. From 1 December 2026, Royal Decree-law 29/2026 (article 7) removes the exemption for furnished homes let to the same guest for 30 nights or fewer, unless it is the home where you yourself live, and taxes them at 10 %. In practice almost every holiday let will carry VAT, with or without hotel-type services, so you will need to charge VAT, issue invoices (see VeriFactu for holiday lets) and file VAT returns. Paying VAT does not by itself turn the let into a business for income tax. A royal decree-law must be ratified by the Spanish Parliament within 30 working days; as of 11 October 2026 it has not been voted on, and an earlier decree with the same content (RDL 26/2026) was rejected on 2 October. Check the outcome with your gestor.

If you are a non-resident (IRNR, form 210)

Tax rates

For EU and EEA residents, expenses are deductible under the same rules as Spanish residents (see below), provided they are directly linked to the income earned in Spain (article 24.6 of the Non-Residents' Income Tax Law). Everyone else pays on the full amount received from the guest, with no deductions. Since Brexit, that includes UK residents. A National High Court (Audiencia Nacional) judgment of 28 July 2025 held that non-EU residents should be allowed to deduct expenses too, but the AEAT opposed it and its instructions still apply the rule above; ask your adviser whether to claim.

When to file

Income is due when the rent becomes payable, or when you are paid if that is earlier. For rental income with tax to pay, the AEAT's form 210 instructions give two options. You can file quarterly, in the first 20 days of April, July, October and January, or group the whole year in one return (annual grouping since 2024 income). Order HAC/623/2026 moves the deadline for rental income to 1–20 April of the following year, starting with income from the last quarter of 2026, so the first window under the new rule opens in April 2027. Check the current instructions before each filing.

Days the property is empty: imputed income

For the days your property is not rented (because you use it yourself or it is empty), Spain taxes a notional income. It is 1.1 % of the cadastral value (the official property value on your IBI council tax bill) if the municipality's values were revised in a general valuation that took effect from 1 January 2012 onwards, or 2 % otherwise. The amount is pro-rated by days, and you pay 19 % or 24 % of it, also on form 210. For 2025 you file between 1 January and 31 December 2026. From 2026 income onwards the window becomes 1 April to 31 December of the following year. Royal Decree-law 29/2026, still awaiting ratification, would replace the flat rate from 2027 with a progressive scale (1.1 %, 1.5 %, 2 % and 3 %) on the total cadastral value of your properties.

Do I need a tax representative?

Not automatically. Under article 10 of the Non-Residents' Income Tax Law, EU residents never have to appoint one. If you live outside the EU and only rent out the property, you must appoint one only if the AEAT requires it (because of the amount or type of income, or because you own property in Spain). It is compulsory if you operate through a permanent establishment, for example a holiday let with hotel-type services, or if you live in a country with no effective exchange of tax information with Spain. In practice, many owners use a gestor to file form 210 for them.

How the net figure is worked out (residents and EU/EEA owners)

Net income = gross income − deductible expenses − depreciation.

Gross income is everything the guest pays for the stay, including any cleaning fee, net of VAT if there is any. If you take bookings through Airbnb or Booking.com, declare the gross booking amount and deduct the platform commission as an expense. That way your figures match what the platform reports.

Deductible expenses

• Mortgage interest on the loan used to buy or improve the property.
• Repairs and maintenance: painting, fixing the boiler, replacing broken appliances. Improvements are not an expense: they are added to the property's value and depreciated.
• Local taxes: IBI (council tax) and refuse collection.
• Community fees, insurance and utilities you pay.
• Third-party services: cleaning, laundry, management company, gestor, platform commissions, software.
• Depreciation of the building and furniture.

Cap: interest plus repairs and maintenance cannot exceed the gross income from that property (article 23.1.a of the Income Tax Law). Any excess can be carried forward for 4 years, with the same cap each year.

Part-year lets: following the Supreme Court (judgments of 25 February 2021 and 15 September 2021) and the TEAC (the central tax tribunal, ruling of 22 April 2024), annual costs (IBI, community fees, insurance, utilities, interest, depreciation) are deductible only in proportion to the days the property was actually let. Per-stay costs (cleaning, commissions, laundry) and, as a rule, repairs are deductible in full. That TEAC case involved a non-resident EU owner.

Depreciation: 3 % a year

• Building: 3 % a year of the higher of the purchase cost of the building (price plus purchase costs and taxes) or the cadastral value of the building (article 14 of the Income Tax Regulation). The land is always excluded: split it out using the building/land ratio on your IBI bill.
• Furniture and equipment: up to 10 % a year of their cost.

Example: bought for €180,000 plus €18,000 costs and taxes, with a cadastral value of €90,000, of which €54,000 is the building (60 %). The building cost is €198,000 × 60 % = €118,800, which is higher than €54,000. Annual depreciation is €3,564. Let for 200 days, you deduct €3,564 × 200 / 365 = €1,952.88. According to the TEAC (ruling of 18 December 2025, RG 653/2025), total depreciation over the years cannot exceed the purchase cost of the building.

If you are tax resident in Spain (IRPF)

Spanish residents put the net figure above in their annual IRPF return, usually filed between April and June, and pay tax at their marginal rate. Two points to bear in mind:

• No rental reduction. The reductions for long-term residential lets (in the 2025 return, 50–90 %, or 60 % for contracts signed before 26 May 2023) do not apply to holiday lets, as the AEAT states in its manual. Royal Decree-law 29/2026 rewrites them (15–100 %), but still only for lets that are the tenant's main home.
• Imputed income applies to the days not let, at 1.1 % or 2 % of the cadastral value, pro-rated, unless the property is your main home. The Supreme Court confirmed in 2021 that a property waiting for guests also generates it.

Form 238 (formerly 179): what the tax office already knows

Form 179, the return in which intermediaries reported holiday lets, was abolished from the 2024 tax year. Royal Decree 117/2024 replaced it with the EU-wide (DAC7) reporting duty of digital platform operators such as Airbnb and Booking.com, who file form 238 (Order HAC/72/2024) every January for the previous year. You do not file it if you let directly. For each property it shows the address, the cadastral reference, the number of days let and, quarter by quarter, what the platform paid you, the commissions it kept and taxes. The AEAT cross-checks it against your returns, so your figures should come from the same bookings.

How Apartop helps

Apartop has a Renta (income tax) section. For each property and year it shows nights let, income net of VAT, expenses grouped as on the return and pro-rated by days, the interest-and-repairs cap, 3 % and furniture depreciation, net income and imputed income for the empty days. It also produces a list of stays with the old form 179 data, so you can check what the platforms report on form 238. Everything exports to Excel for your gestor, and it is included in the free plan. The figures follow the Spanish resident rules: if you are a non-resident, your gestor can use them as the basis for form 210. It is a guide, and it warns you when data such as the cadastral reference or purchase price is missing.

Income comes from your bookings, and expenses from photographed expense receipts (Pro plan). You can see returns in the statistics, and if your region charges a tourist tax, Apartop calculates it separately.

Start free with up to 2 properties, or see Pro pricing.

Sources

• AEAT: Non-Resident Income Tax on tourist lets, accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT: form 210 instructions, accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT, Non-Residents Manual: EU and EEA countries with exchange of tax information (Iceland, Norway and, since 11 July 2021, Liechtenstein), accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT: changes to form 210 deadlines (Order HAC/623/2026), accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT: imputed income for urban property (non-residents), accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT: representation in Non-Resident Income Tax, accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT, 2025 Income Tax Manual: net income from real estate, accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT, 2025 Income Tax Manual: residential letting reduction, accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT, 2025 Income Tax Manual: imputed income, accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT: tax treatment of tourist lets, accessed 11 Oct 2026
• AEAT: form 179 FAQ (abolished from 2024), accessed 11 Oct 2026
• Royal Decree-law 29/2026 of 6 October, articles 6 and 7 (BOE, 7 Oct 2026), accessed 11 Oct 2026
• Non-Residents' Income Tax Law, RDLeg 5/2004, articles 10, 24 and 25 (BOE), accessed 11 Oct 2026
• Income Tax Law 35/2006, articles 23, 27 and 85 (BOE), accessed 11 Oct 2026
• Income Tax Regulation, RD 439/2007, article 14 (BOE), accessed 11 Oct 2026
• Tax Procedures Regulation, RD 1065/2007, article 54 ter (BOE), accessed 11 Oct 2026
• Order HAC/72/2024, forms 040 and 238 (BOE), accessed 11 Oct 2026