Want to let your property to holidaymakers? You need a tourist licence
What the licence is, how a tourist home differs from a tourist apartment, and how you apply for it in Andalusia.
Holiday letting is a more attractive business every year, but to be on safe ground you need the corresponding tourist letting licence. The days of letting a holiday home without a permit are gone: the Spanish authorities now take this kind of letting more seriously than ever.
On top of that, they have other tools at their disposal — such as form 179 (the quarterly information return on the transfer of homes for tourist use) or tourism inspections — to catch anyone working in this sector without a letting licence.
The licence is simply a permit granted by the competent authority allowing the owner to run the property for tourist use.
Bear in mind that the requirements depend on the autonomous community you live in. The procedure, however, is similar across Spain.
Tourist home or tourist apartment?
They may sound like the same thing, but for the authorities they are entirely different. Tourist apartments are establishments within blocks of flats, groups of villas, bungalows or equivalent buildings, given over exclusively to providing short-term accommodation.
Every registered tourist apartment must display a plaque outside showing the letters AT and the number of keys awarded to the property (the keys are the equivalent of a hotel’s stars).
Tourist homes, also known as VUT, are properties whose owners can let them regularly but whose use is not strictly commercial — put another way, the owner can live there if they wish.
Worth noting: within tourist homes there is also a separate category for those in a rural setting.
Tourist licence in Andalusia
The decree covering tourist accommodation in Andalusia requires every tourist home to file a declaration of responsibility with the regional tourism department.
To file it there are a few requirements:
- Holding an occupancy licence
- A document proving ownership of the property
- Being furnished and equipped with what is needed for immediate use, in keeping with the number of places offered
- Cleaning the property on arrival and departure of each new guest
- Providing bed linen
The procedure can be completed online through the Junta de Andalucía’s virtual office, and you will need a digital certificate.