Tourist Licence Andalucia 2026: The Honest Feasibility Check

The current state of tourist licences in Andalucia, 2026

If you’ve read older blog posts about getting a tourist licence (VUT, vivienda con fines turisticos) in Andalucia, throw most of them out. Since early 2024 the rules have changed three times, and the direction of travel is consistently towards more control, not less. Here is what actually changed, and when.

Decreto 31/2024 (Andalucia regional decree, in force since 2024) tightened the technical requirements for any VUT: a hard capacity cap, a mandatory urban-compatibility declaration, and stricter documentation on habitability and energy performance. This decree applies to every VUT application in the region, in every municipality.

Decreto-ley 1/2025, in force from 3 April 2025, added a much bigger obstacle for apartments inside a community of owners: before you can register a new tourist-use flat, the community itself must formally consent, by a double three-fifths majority. Registrations completed before that date are grandfathered and do not need to go back for consent. Registrations attempted after it, in a community that has not opted in, are blocked.

Malaga city then went further on its own initiative, suspending the registration of new VUT licences in defined zones for up to three years while it studies saturation. This is a local, municipal decision layered on top of the regional rules, and it does not apply the same way in every Andalucian town.

Most recently, the Supreme Court’s judgment STS 620/2026, dated 21 May 2026, annulled the national government’s attempt to impose a single mandatory registry (NRUA) across Spain. That ruling changes nothing for your obligations here: Andalucia’s own VUT registration and code, run through the Junta de Andalucia, was never dependent on the national registry and remains exactly as required as before.

The honest 2026 headline is this: a tourist licence is still achievable for a meaningful share of properties, but “can I get one” is no longer a yes/no question you can answer from a blog post. It is a property-specific, municipality-specific, building-specific question. That is why we lead with a feasibility check rather than a sales pitch.

The Malaga city moratorium, explained

In response to concerns about housing availability and neighbourhood saturation, Malaga City Council suspended the processing of new tourist-use dwelling registrations in defined zones of the city for a period of up to three years. This is not a ban on short-let activity everywhere in the province, and it is not permanent by design, but while it is in force it has real consequences.

• New VUT applications inside the moratorium zones are not being processed, regardless of how well the property otherwise qualifies.
• Existing, already-registered licences inside those zones are not automatically revoked by the moratorium itself.
• Buying a property that does not yet have a licence, inside a moratorium zone, generally means you cannot register it as a VUT until the suspension lifts or is narrowed.
• The moratorium is reviewed periodically; the zones and duration can be adjusted, so a “no” today is not necessarily a permanent “no.”

Can you still get a licence? A decision tree by scenario

Rather than a single answer, here is how the picture typically breaks down by situation. None of this replaces a property-specific check, but it should tell you roughly which camp you are in.

Standalone house or villa, outside Malaga city moratorium zones

This is usually the most straightforward scenario. No community of owners means no double 3/5 majority requirement. You still need to meet the capacity cap, the urban-compatibility declaration, energy certificate, and habitation licence. If the town has not adopted its own moratorium, feasibility is often good.

Apartment in a building with an active community of owners

This is where most of the 2025-2026 friction concentrates. If your registration would be new (i.e. not grandfathered before 3 April 2025), you need the community’s express consent by the double 3/5 majority. Some communities will vote yes readily; others have already voted to ban all new tourist lets outright, which they are entitled to do. Ask before you buy or apply, not after.

Property inside a Malaga city moratorium zone

New registrations are currently frozen here regardless of the property type or the community’s willingness. An existing licence already on the property may still be usable subject to transfer rules (see below); a property with no licence cannot get a new one until the suspension is lifted.

Buying a property that already carries a registered VUT licence

Potentially the best route if the underlying registration is sound, but it requires careful due diligence, covered in the next section, because an existing licence is not automatically portable to a new owner without paperwork.

Pre-April-2025 grandfathered registrations

If a VUT was validly registered before 3 April 2025, it is not required to go back and seek community consent retroactively, even in a building where the community would not approve a new application today. This grandfathering is valuable and worth protecting; changes of ownership or gaps in continuous operation can put it at risk, which is exactly why buying an existing licence needs proper checks.

Buying a property that already has a VUT licence

An existing, valid licence can be a genuine asset, sometimes worth a premium on the sale price. But treat any “comes with a tourist licence” claim as something to verify, not something to trust on the seller’s word. The traps we see most often:

• Registry-cadastre mismatches. If the property description in the Land Registry (Registro de la Propiedad) does not match the description held by the Cadastre (surface area, layout, declared use), re-registering or transferring the VUT can be blocked until the mismatch is corrected. This is one of the most common and most underestimated obstacles in Andalucian property.
• Grandfathering does not always survive a sale. Depending on the municipality and the timing, a change of ownership can be treated as triggering fresh scrutiny, including community consent that was not required for the original registration.
• Moratorium zones freeze re-registration. If the property sits inside a Malaga city moratorium zone, buying it does not guarantee you inherit the ability to keep operating it as a VUT under your name.
• Community rule changes since the original licence. A community can vote, after the fact, to restrict or ban tourist use going forward for new registrations; check the community’s minutes, not just the property’s paperwork.
• Capacity and compliance drift. Building modifications since the original licence was granted (extra beds, layout changes) can put the property out of compliance with current capacity caps under Decreto 31/2024 without anyone realising until an inspection.

Community of owners consent: the double 3/5 majority

Since Decreto-ley 1/2025, starting a new tourist rental use in an apartment inside a community of owners requires the community’s express consent, and that consent must be obtained through two separate three-fifths majorities voted at a properly convened owners’ meeting:

• Three-fifths of the total number of owners, counted by head.
• Three-fifths of the total participation quotas (coeficientes), which weight larger or more valuable units more heavily.

Both thresholds must be met, not just one. In practice this means a handful of large-quota owners voting against can block a proposal even if a simple headcount majority favours it, and vice versa. Communities can also proactively adopt a blanket rule banning or restricting tourist use for the future, which then applies to any new applicant regardless of their individual vote.

Registrations completed before 3 April 2025 are grandfathered and exempt from this requirement retroactively. If you are relying on an existing pre-2025 registration, keep the dated registration paperwork; it is your evidence that the grandfathering applies.

Requirements when a licence IS possible

Assuming your property clears the moratorium, ownership, and community hurdles above, the substantive requirements under Decreto 31/2024 and standard Andalucian tourism regulation are:

• Capacity cap. A maximum of 15 people for a whole dwelling let as a VUT, with further per-bedroom occupancy limits based on habitable surface area.
• Urban-compatibility declaration. A formal declaration that the dwelling’s use as tourist accommodation is compatible with its urban planning classification, and, where applicable, with the community’s own statutes.
• Energy performance certificate (certificado energetico). A valid, in-date certificate rating the property’s energy performance.
• Habitation licence (cedula de habitabilidad or licencia de primera ocupacion). Proof that the dwelling is legally habitable under the relevant municipal or regional authorisation.
• RTA registration. Formal registration in the Junta de Andalucia’s Registro de Turismo de Andalucia, which issues the VUT code you must display in every advert. Registration itself carries no government fee; the cost is in getting the supporting documentation in order.

The annulled national registry: what STS 620/2026 actually means

On 21 May 2026 the Supreme Court annulled the central government’s attempt to require a single national short-let registry (NRUA) with its own mandatory identifying code, on the grounds that it exceeded the state’s competence over a matter that belongs to the regions. Some owners have understandably read the headlines and assumed short-let regulation has been rolled back. It has not, at least not in Andalucia.

The ruling struck down the national layer, not the regional one. Andalucia’s own VUT registration and its VUT code, issued through the Junta de Andalucia, sits entirely outside the annulled national scheme and remains the valid, required identifier for advertising and operating a short-let property in this region. If you already display a valid Andalucia VUT code, nothing in your day-to-day compliance changes because of this judgment.

Penalties and enforcement, the 2026 reality

Enforcement of tourism regulation in Andalucia has become noticeably more active since 2024, alongside the tightened rules. Under the region’s tourism sanctions framework, penalties scale by severity:

• Minor infractions (documentation gaps, minor labelling failures) carry the lowest tier of fines.
• Serious infractions (operating without full compliance, capacity breaches) sit in a middle tier.
• Very serious infractions, including operating entirely without registration, ignoring a closure order, or repeated non-compliance, can reach fines of up to 600,000 euros.

Beyond the fine itself, unregistered or non-compliant operators risk closure orders, removal from listing platforms under platform-level compliance checks, and difficulty enforcing rental contracts if a dispute with a guest ever ends up in court. The financial exposure of getting this wrong is now large enough that a 150-euro feasibility check is, in almost every case, the cheaper option.

Alternatives when a VUT is genuinely not possible

If your feasibility check comes back negative, meaning your property sits inside a hard moratorium zone or your community has voted against tourist use, you still have legitimate options for generating rental income:

• Seasonal lets (alquiler de temporada). Lets of a defined season, commonly interpreted as arrangements outside the short tourist-stay pattern, fall under a different legal regime than VUT tourist accommodation and are not subject to the same registration rules, though they carry their own tax and contractual requirements and should not be used as a disguised short-let workaround.
• Room rental within an owner-occupied home. Renting rooms while you remain resident in the property follows a different set of rules than letting a whole separate dwelling as a VUT.
• Long-term rental at a premium. With Malaga’s rental market as tight as it is, a well-presented long-term let (LAU contract) at a strong market rent can outperform a blocked or heavily-compliance-burdened short-let strategy, without any VUT exposure at all.

Each of these has its own legal and tax treatment; we cover the realistic option for your property in the feasibility report if a VUT is not viable, rather than leaving you with just a “no.”