How to Report an Illegal Tourist Flat in Spain (2026)

You do not have to decide whether the flat upstairs is legal. An inspection settles that, with a file open and the paperwork in front of it. What you do have to get right is which counter you take it to, and there is more than one.

That is where it gets tangled. The town hall points to the autonomous community, the autonomous community asks about the dwelling, the property administrator talks about general meetings and majorities, and each of them is right about their own patch. With the added quirk that the neighbour who files the complaint rarely finds out how it ended.

First, a clarification: “illegal” can mean two different things, and it is worth keeping them separate because they are reported in different places.

What “illegal tourist flat” exactly means

An accommodation can be in breach on two levels that have nothing to do with each other:

• It has no tourist licence. It operates without being entered in the tourism register of its autonomous community. That is a breach of the regional tourism law, and the power to penalise it lies with the autonomous community (and, in its urban-planning aspect, with the town hall).
• It does not submit guest reports. Even if it has a licence, it may not be sending its guests’ data to SES.HOSPEDAJES as required by Royal Decree 933/2021. The portal is run by the Ministry of the Interior, but the penalty is imposed by the Government Delegate in the autonomous community. It is a breach of the public-safety act, not of the tourism act, and it runs on its own separate scale of fines: the RD 933/2021 penalties.

As a neighbour, what you normally notice is the first: a constant stream of people with suitcases, key boxes in the entrance hall, noise, a listing on Airbnb or Booking. The missing guest reports cannot be seen from the landing. That is why most neighbour complaints are channelled through the tourism and urban-planning route, not through the guest-report one.

The four ways to report an unlicensed flat

You do not have to choose only one. The usual and most effective approach is to combine them.

1. The town hall (urban planning and activity licence)

The town hall has authority over urban-planning matters: whether tourist use is permitted in that building, whether there is an activity licence when one is required, and whether the area is saturated or has the activity restricted. Many councils in cities under tourist pressure have a unit or a specific channel for reporting irregular tourist dwellings.

The procedure changes a great deal from one municipality to another: a general application, a dedicated urban-planning complaint form, or a plain submission through the electronic register. The exact name comes from the town hall’s electronic office or its information desk, and it is the first thing worth confirming.

2. Your autonomous community’s tourism inspectorate

The tourist licence is a regional matter. Each autonomous community has its own register and its own tourism inspection service, which is the body that can check whether the dwelling is registered and, if it is not, open a penalty procedure.

Almost all autonomous communities have a channel for tourism-related complaints or claims (in the competent department or on the regional tourism website). Again, the exact name of the procedure and the body changes depending on the territory, so confirm it on your community’s tourism website. If you do not know which register applies to that dwelling or which rules apply, our guide to tourist licences by autonomous community points you to the register and the law for each region.

3. The owners’ association and the Horizontal Property Law

If the flat is in a building under a horizontal-property regime, the owners’ association has its own tools, separate from the public administration.

Ley Orgánica 1/2025 reformed the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal (Horizontal Property Law, LPH) with effect from 3 April 2025. Since that date, an owner who wants to put a dwelling to tourist use must first obtain the express approval of the owners’ association. That agreement requires 3/5 of the owners, who must in turn represent 3/5 of the participation quotas¹. Both majorities are required together, not either one: 3/5 of your neighbours but under 3/5 of the quota and the agreement fails.

Where the activity is already running without that agreement, the law puts the first move in the chair’s hands, and any neighbour can trigger it:

“The chair of the association, on their own initiative or at the request of any of the owners or occupants, shall require whoever carries out the activity referred to in the preceding paragraph, without it having been expressly approved, to cease it immediately, under warning of bringing the appropriate legal action, with the provisions of the preceding paragraph being applicable.”

“On their own initiative or at the request of any of the owners or occupants” is the part that concerns you. You do not have to be an owner: a tenant can ask for that formal demand too, and the chair does not have to wait for the next general meeting to sign it.

If the owner persists, the same article points to paragraph 7.2, the one on the cessation action, which is the real lever. The claim is filed together with proof of the certified demand and the certified agreement of the general meeting. From that point the judge can order the immediate cessation of the activity as an interim measure, under warning of the offence of disobedience. And if the judgment upholds the claim, it can order:

• Definitive cessation of the activity and compensation for the damage caused.
• Deprivation of the right to use the dwelling for a period of no more than three years, depending on the seriousness of the breach and the harm caused to the association.
• Where whoever runs the flat is not the owner, the definitive extinction of their rights over the dwelling and their eviction.

In practice, the route is three steps:

1. Bring the matter to the owners’ general meeting and have it recorded in the minutes.
2. Formally require the owner to cease the activity. A burofax from the chair or the administrator is what later proves the certified demand before the court.
3. If it continues, have the general meeting authorise the cessation action and take it to the civil courts. This is where advice from a lawyer and from the property administrator comes in; it is not something resolved by an administrative complaint alone.

There is a limit worth knowing before anything is set in motion: article 17.12 closes by saying that these agreements “shall not have retroactive effect”. An agreement passed now governs what comes next, it does not erase activity that was already being carried on.

This route is independent of the tourism one: an association can act under the LPH even if the administration has not yet imposed a penalty.

4. The platform where it is advertised (Airbnb, Booking)

Regulation (EU) 2024/1028, applicable since 20 May 2026, places three duties on platforms wherever a registration procedure has been established³:

• Ask the host, in the interface itself, whether the unit is in an area with a registration procedure.
• Where it is, require the registration number before allowing the host to offer the accommodation, and display that number clearly in the listing.
• Check randomly and regularly that the declaration and the number are valid.

If that check turns up an incorrect declaration, an invalid number or a number being misused, the platform has to inform the competent authorities without undue delay, as well as the host. That is why Airbnb, Booking and the rest remove listings that do not comply, and they all have a channel for reporting them. If the flat appears without a registration number, with a number that does not match, or hiding it, that channel is where you flag it. The rest of the regulation’s duties and the timetable for the single digital entry points are in Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 and short-term rentals.

It is the quickest way to make the listing disappear, and also the most limited: the platform can withdraw the listing, not penalise. For there to be administrative consequences, you still need the town hall or the regional inspectorate.

Summary: what each reporting route can achieve

What evidence is worth gathering

A complaint with specific details progresses much better than a generic grievance. What tends to help:

• The exact address and, if you know it, the cadastral reference or the floor and door.
• The listing: link, screenshots with the price per night, the photos and, above all, whether a tourist registration number appears or not.
• Specific dates and facts: guest arrivals and departures, the presence of key boxes, check-in signage, noise incidents with date and time.
• Association documentation: minutes where the matter was discussed, the absence of the double 3/5 agreement, statute clauses that prohibit the activity.

You do not need to gather exhaustive evidence or enter the flat: with the address and the listing, the inspectorate already has somewhere to start.

Can you report anonymously in Spain?

Here you have to separate what the law says from what happens in practice.

A formal administrative complaint is not anonymous, and article 62.2 of Law 39/2015 leaves no room:

“Complaints shall state the identity of the person or persons submitting them and the account of the facts brought to the attention of the administration. Where those facts could constitute an administrative infringement, they shall record the date on which it was committed and, where possible, the identification of those presumed responsible.”

That sets the minimum content of the document, and it is short:

• Your identity, with full name.
• The account of the facts you are bringing to the administration’s attention.
• The date they were committed, because renting without a licence is an administrative infringement.
• The identification of those presumed responsible, which the law asks for only where possible. If you know the flat but not the owner, the address is enough.

What can happen is that the information reaches the authorities another way. Under that same article, a complaint is the act by which someone informs the administration of a fact that “could justify the initiation of proceedings on its own motion”. The inspectorate can act on information it receives even without an identified complainant. The difference is that nobody is obliged to: an anonymous tip is a lead, not a case file.

Two consequences tend to surprise people, even when they do identify themselves:

• Reporting does not make you a party to the proceedings. Article 62.5 puts it bluntly: submitting a complaint “does not, in itself, confer the status of interested party in the procedure”. In practice you will usually not be told how it ends, and you cannot appeal the decision.
• They only have to reply to you in one specific case. Where the complaint alleges harm to public assets, Article 62.3 requires the administration to give reasons for not opening proceedings and to notify you either way. Outside that situation, no such duty exists.

If what worries you is having to live next door to this person afterwards, the owners’ association route works differently. The matter is raised at a general meeting and recorded in the minutes, so the initiative is collective rather than one named neighbour’s.

How much is the fine for renting without a licence?

This is the question almost everyone asks first, and the honest answer starts with “it depends on the region”: the fine is imposed by the regional government and each tourism law has its own scale.

Operating without being on the register is usually classified as a serious infringement, which is the bracket that applies most often in practice. To give you a sense of the order of magnitude, six regions with the penalty article of their own law beside them:

The Balearic Islands narrow the bracket for precisely this case. Where the serious infringement consists of advertising, contracting or marketing tourist stays in dwellings that have not filed the responsible declaration of commencement of activity, the fine starts at €30,001 rather than €5,001. It rises above that only if the facts reach the very serious tier⁶.

Very serious ones are reserved for repeat offences or systematic clandestine activity, and they climb a good deal higher: the ceiling is €500,000 in the Balearic Islands and €600,000 in Catalonia, the Valencian Community and the Basque Country¹¹. The full table, with all three brackets and the nineteen regions and autonomous cities, is in renting without a tourist licence: fines by region.

Worth tempering expectations: a region’s bracket reaching six figures does not mean your neighbour is about to be fined the top of it. Within the bracket, the administration grades the penalty by the profit obtained, how long the activity ran, whether any guest was harmed and whether it is a first offence. For a flat that has not been operating long, the low end is the norm.

The infringement also prescribes, and the period changes by region:

That clock rarely runs in favour of someone still letting the flat, because in several of those laws it does not even start while the activity continues. Catalonia and the Basque Country declare infringements that consist of breaching a permanent obligation to be exempt from prescription altogether. Andalucía does count the period, but does not start it until the activity ceases where the conduct implies a permanent obligation on the holder. The Balearic Islands count continuing infringements from the last act and permanent ones from the moment the unlawful situation is removed.

What other consequences someone operating without a licence faces

The fine does not come alone. The regional tourism laws set out measures alongside it that weigh on a tourist flat more heavily than the amount does:

• Suspension of the activity or temporary closure of the establishment. In Andalucía it can be attached to a serious infringement as an accessory penalty, for a period of under six months⁵. In Catalonia it can replace the fine where the nature and gravity of the infringement make it advisable, up to a maximum of one year⁸.
• Withdrawal of the listing by the platforms, usually the first thing anyone notices.
• A heavier penalty on repetition. In the Basque Country the applicable penalty is increased by one hundred per cent¹¹.

And if the dwelling does have a licence but does not submit the reports, a separate regime is added on top, the state one. Ley Orgánica 4/2015 punishes a report that arrives late, the minor infringement, with €100 to €600, and one that never arrives, the serious one, with €601 to €30,000. That €30,000 is the ceiling of the bracket, not the fine for a first offence: Article 33.2 requires the fine at the minimum degree, which for serious infringements runs from €601 to €10,400, and it rises to the medium degree only if one of four closed circumstances is proven, in practice recidivism declared by a final administrative decision within two years. For serious infringements the fine can also carry closure of the establishment for up to six months¹⁹.

It is imposed by the Government Delegate in the autonomous community, competent for serious and minor infringements under Article 32.1.c) of that same law: the Ministry of the Interior runs SES.HOSPEDAJES and only sanctions very serious infringements, which this regime never reaches. The line between a late report and one that never goes out is in the penalties for not submitting the guest report.

The administration does not penalise automatically: it opens a procedure, checks and resolves. And it does so against a clock. The maximum period for notifying the decision is the one set by the rules governing each procedure, and it cannot exceed six months unless an act of parliament sets a longer one. Where those rules set none, it is three months. If it expires with no decision notified, the penalty procedure lapses and is filed away: articles 21 and 25.1.b) of Ley 39/2015²⁰. That is why specific details from the start are not a nicety, they shorten the checking stage.

If you are the owner: how to regularise the property

If you have reached this point because you are the one renting and you fear being outside the rules, regularising yourself almost always works out better on your own initiative than waiting for a formal demand. There are two separate obligations, and neither replaces the other:

• The tourist licence of your autonomous community. In almost all of them this is a free responsible declaration on the electronic office, and you have the step-by-step register by register in the guide to tourist licences by autonomous community.
• The guest report. Once you operate within the rules, each guest generates a submission to SES.HOSPEDAJES within 24 hours; the SES.HOSPEDAJES guide explains the whole circuit.

Frequently asked questions

Can you report an illegal tourist flat anonymously in Spain? Reporting an illegal tourist flat anonymously is not possible through the formal administrative route: article 62.2 of Ley 39/2015 requires the complaint to state the identity of the person filing it. What can happen is that the inspectorate acts on its own initiative using information that reaches it without an identified complainant. But then nobody is obliged to open a file: an anonymous tip is a lead, not a procedure.

Does reporting a tourist flat make you a party to the procedure? Reporting a tourist flat does not make you a party to the procedure. Article 62.5 of Ley 39/2015 states that filing a complaint does not in itself confer the status of interested party, so you will normally not be told how it ends and you cannot appeal the decision. The one exception is a complaint alleging harm to public assets, where the administration must notify you whether or not it opens a file.

How much is the fine for renting a tourist flat without a licence in Spain? The fine for renting a tourist flat without a licence is set by the regional government, and each tourism act has its own scale. Operating without being entered in the register is usually classed as a serious infringement, with very serious reserved for repeat offending or systematic clandestine activity. The amounts for all three tiers, region by region, are in the guide to fines for renting without a tourist licence.

How long does the administration take to resolve a complaint about an illegal rental? The administration takes as long as the rules governing each procedure allow, which cannot exceed six months unless an act of parliament sets a longer period. Where those rules set none, the period is three months. If it expires with no decision notified, the penalty procedure lapses and is filed away.

What evidence do you need to report an illegal tourist flat in Spain? The evidence you need to report an illegal tourist flat is whatever identifies the property and establishes the activity. The exact address including floor and door, screenshots of the listing with its URL and its registration number if shown, specific guest arrival and departure dates, and any prior communication with the owner or the residents’ association all serve. The more specific the account, the sooner the inspectorate can act.

This article is for informational purposes and does not replace professional legal advice. The channels, forms and competent bodies vary by municipality and autonomous community: always confirm the specific procedure with your town hall and with your community’s tourism website before filing a complaint.