The 30-Night Rule: When Does a Furnished Rental in Spain Become Subject to VAT?
From 1 December 2026 a furnished rental in Spain is subject to 10% VAT when the stay for the same tenant is 30 nights or fewer, or when hotel services are provided. Where the 30-night line falls, how it treats seasonal and mid-term lets, the room-in-your-home exception, and why the number decides your whole tax position.
By Jacob Salama, international tax lawyer (Bar no. 11.294, Málaga)
10/10/20263 min read
By Jacob Salama, international tax lawyer (Bar no. 11.294, Málaga)
The 30-Night Rule: When Does a Furnished Rental in Spain Become Subject to VAT?
After RDL 26/2026, a single number governs whether your furnished rental in Spain carries VAT: 30 nights. From 1 December 2026, if a stay for the same tenant is 30 nights or fewer, the letting is taxable at 10% VAT; if it comfortably exceeds 30 nights and you provide no hotel services, it stays VAT-exempt. Everything else — your registration, your invoices, your pricing — flows from which side of that line a given booking falls on. This article is about reading the line correctly.
Where the rule comes from
RDL 26/2026 rewrites article 20.Uno.23.º.e') of the Spanish VAT Act. A furnished apartment or dwelling letting is excluded from the VAT exemption — and so becomes taxable — when either the landlord provides complementary hotel-industry services (the long-standing test) or "its duration in favour of the same tenant does not exceed 30 nights". Two independent triggers; either one is enough.
How to count the 30 nights
The test is per booking, per tenant. A guest who stays 5 nights is caught; a guest who stays 29 nights is caught; a guest who stays 30 nights is caught (the rule says "does not exceed 30"). A single tenant whose stay runs to 31 nights or more is, on the face of it, outside this time-based trigger. The reference is the same-tenant stay, not your annual pattern: a flat you let 20 times a year in weekly blocks is 20 short, taxable stays, not one long one.
Do not try to game it by splitting or stitching
Two temptations arise, and both are risky. Splitting one genuine short stay into paperwork that looks longer does not change the real duration. Stitching several short stays by the same guest into a nominal "long" contract, while the reality is a rolling holiday let, invites the tax authority to look at substance over form. The safe approach is to align the contract with what actually happens and price the VAT accordingly.
Seasonal and mid-term lets: the grey zone worth understanding
Between the nightly holiday let and the year-round home sits a spectrum: the digital nomad who takes a flat for six weeks, the winter visitor who stays three months, the professional on a four-month posting. Where these are genuine single-tenant lets exceeding 30 nights and you provide no hotel services, they fall outside the new VAT trigger. This is a meaningful planning point: converting part of a portfolio from nightly tourist use to longer single-tenant stays can move it out of VAT — and, separately, out of the tourist-use IBI surcharge and into the income-tax reductions reserved for residential letting. The reform is deliberately built to make that shift attractive.
The hotel-services trigger still stands
Do not forget the other half of the rule. Even a longer stay becomes taxable if you provide services "proper to the hotel industry" — daily cleaning during the stay, linen changes, laundry, reception, meals. A three-month let with a weekly maid service can be dragged into VAT through the services door even though it passes the 30-night test. Know which services cross the line before you advertise them.
The room-in-your-home exception
There is one carve-out. Where the short stay takes place in the apartment or dwelling in which the landlord has their habitual residence, it remains exempt. Rent a spare room in the home you live in and the 30-night trigger does not pull you into VAT. The exception is narrow and personal to the landlord's own home; it does not extend to a second flat, however close by.
Worked examples
A week in August, tourist flat in Marbella. 7 nights, same guest, no hotel services — 7 ≤ 30, so taxable at 10% VAT.
A digital nomad takes a Málaga flat for 10 weeks. 70 nights, single tenant, keys-only — exceeds 30 and no hotel services, so outside the new VAT trigger.
Winter visitor, 3 months, with weekly cleaning included. Over 30 nights, but the hotel-service door is open — taxable through the services trigger.
A spare room in the flat where you actually live, let for weekends. Short stays, but in your habitual residence — exempt.
Not sure which side of the line your bookings fall on?
Getting the 30-night classification right is worth a five-minute check before you invoice.
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