Tourist Licence in Andalusia: Requirements and Process

Registering a vivienda de uso turístico (a holiday rental dwelling) in Andalusia is an online form that gets done in one sitting. What does not get done in one sitting is everything that form takes for granted, and that is where most people fall.

The figure was published by the Consejo de Gobierno (the regional cabinet) in June 2026: since 1 January 2024, more than 15,300 registered holiday rental dwellings in Andalusia have been cancelled, close to 10 % of the total, some 80,000 fewer guest places. A good share come from automated procedures that strike out registrations incompatible with municipal limits, and from data matching with town councils to detect planning breaches¹. The filter, then, is not in the form: it is in what the form takes as already met.

This is the route in the order the Administration checks it: what enables the activity, what the dwelling must meet, what is declared, what cancels it and what operating without having done so costs.

No prior licence in Andalusia: the declaración responsable

The expression “tourist licence” is convenient but does not describe what happens in Andalusia. There is no authorisation the Junta de Andalucía grants or refuses before you start. There is a declaración responsable that you file, and registration is carried out ex officio on the strength of it.

“To begin providing the accommodation service in the dwelling, the person or entity operating this service must file the corresponding declaración responsable electronically with the Consejería responsible for tourism, stating that the requirements laid down in this Decree are met, and may advertise the dwelling as a vivienda de uso turístico from that moment on.”

The head norm is that Decreto 28/2016, de 2 de febrero, which no longer goes by its original name: Decreto 31/2024 rewrote half the text, replaced “viviendas con fines turísticos” with viviendas de uso turístico and came into force twenty days after its publication in the BOJA (the Andalusian official gazette) of 2 February 2024³. Above it sits Ley 13/2011 del Turismo de Andalucía, which supplies the penalty regime.

Three practical consequences of its being a declaration and not a licence:

• You can market the property from the moment you file. There is no wait and no prior decision to await.
• The responsibility for everything being true is yours. The Administration does not check beforehand, it checks afterwards, and what it finds is not a request for corrections, it is a cancellation.
• The registration code is the one the platforms ask for. Which number goes on each portal, and where the obligation to ask for it comes from, is in the registration number on Airbnb and Booking.

The Registro de Turismo de Andalucía and its public search

The register is called the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía (RTA), and it is regional: a single one for the whole community, with no island councils involved as in the archipelagos. When the dwelling is registered it assigns a code of the form VUT/HU/00000: VUT for vivienda de uso turístico, the first two letters of the province (HU for Huelva) and a sequential order number⁴.

That code must appear in all advertising or promotion, in the document handed to the guest on arrival and on the proof of payment.

Take care not to confuse it with the number the form itself returns. The filing receipt arrives with a code of the form CTC-201612345, which identifies the declaration, not the registration: the VUT code appears in the registration decision, downloadable online as soon as the procedure is complete⁴.

The RTA can be consulted by anyone. The Consejería maintains the Buscador de Establecimientos y Servicios Turísticos (search tool for tourism establishments and services), in the Registro de Turismo area of its portal, which lets you filter by the activity “viviendas de uso turístico” and search by registration number, trade name, address or holder. It only shows registered services: a cancelled dwelling disappears from the search tool, which is the fastest way to check whether someone else’s listing is still in order.

Registering in the RTA costs nothing

There is no fee. The Consejería answers without qualification: being registered in the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía is “totally free”⁴.

What does cost money is getting to the point of being able to file it:

• Digital certificate, mandatory. The procedure accepts no other means of identification.
• Up-to-date nota simple (informative extract) from the Registro de la Propiedad (the land registry), required in every case.
• Certificate from the secretary or administrator of the comunidad de propietarios (owners’ association) with the express approval, currently in force, for tourist use.
• Certificado de empadronamiento (proof of residence registration), if the dwelling is offered by rooms.
• Enabling legal title, if the operator is not the possessor.

Requirements for a vivienda de uso turístico in Andalusia

Article 6 of the decree separates the substantive and habitability requirements from the service obligations². The former decide whether the dwelling can be registered, and with how many guest places:

• Municipal planning rules complied with, and a licence or declaración responsable for change of use where planning legislation requires it.
• 14 m² of built floor area per guest place, according to the built area for principal use recorded in the Catastro (the cadastral register), with a minimum of 25 m² per dwelling (or whatever the local plan sets).
• Two bathrooms above five guest places and three bathrooms above eight.
• Direct ventilation to the outside or to ventilated courtyards in bedrooms and living rooms, with some system for darkening the windows; direct or forced ventilation in kitchens and bathrooms.
• Cooling when the declared operating period includes May, June, July and August, cave-type constructions excepted; heating when it includes December, January, February and March, and here incandescent elements and those burning flammable liquids or gases are not admissible. In both cases fixed or portable units will do.
• The annex to the decree, which goes into detail: television, two hobs, oven or microwave, refrigerator, first-aid kit, smoke detector near the kitchen, fire extinguisher, mattresses at least 18 cm thick, beds of 80x190 cm for singles and 135x190 for doubles.

On top of that come the holder’s standing obligations: a 24-hour contact telephone, cleaning at check-in and check-out, official complaint forms (hojas de quejas y reclamaciones) with their sign on display, information on the community’s rules of coexistence and a proof of payment bearing the RTA code.

How many guest places a vivienda de uso turístico may have

Article 5 classifies dwellings into two groups and sets the cap for each. The group depends on whether you let the whole dwelling or only rooms:

In both groups the same per-room limit applies: four guest places per room, two of which must be in beds that are not bunk beds. In the whole-dwelling group two convertible places in the living room are also allowed, and they count towards the maximum capacity.

The real cap, almost always, is not that number but the arithmetic of the square metres: a dwelling with 70 m² of built area for principal use gives room for five guest places, not fifteen.

Cadastral floor area replaces the occupancy licence

Here is the change that most confuses anyone who filed a registration before 2024. In the original 2016 wording, capacity was “limited to what the occupancy licence provides”, and holding that licence was the first requirement on the list.

Not any more. Since Decreto 31/2024, capacity is calculated on the built area for principal use recorded in the Catastro’s electronic office, and the planning requirement is worded differently³. If the Catastro has your dwelling wrongly measured or with a use that does not match, that is the fix to make before declaring guest places.

The RTA registration procedure, step by step

1. Ask your town council first. Check that municipal planning rules allow tourist accommodation on that plot and that the municipality has not suspended new registrations. The Consejería notifies the registration to the town council where the dwelling is located, and if the council considers it contrary to its planning rules it informs the Consejería so that it cancels it (article 9.3).
2. Calculate the guest places using the Catastro floor area and check the bathrooms that number requires.
3. Gather the documentation: nota simple, certificate from the comunidad, operating title if you are not the owner, proof of residence registration if letting by rooms.
4. Fill in the declaración responsable in the online office with your digital certificate, including the operating periods.
5. Sign and file. If the dwelling has several owners, each co-owner signs their shared-ownership annex before the whole is filed.
6. Download the decision and note the VUT code. From then on, in every listing.

What you declare and what documentation comes after

The minimum content of the declaración responsable is fixed in article 9.1 of the decree, and it deserves reading as a checklist because each point is a statement that is later verified:

• Identification of the dwelling, including its cadastral reference, and maximum capacity.
• Identification of the operator and the title that entitles them, with a telephone number and email for electronic notifications.
• Identification of the owner, if different.
• That the dwelling is not subject to a public protection regime or has been declassified.
• That it is compatible with the applicable planning rules and holds, where required, the licence or declaración responsable for change of use.
• Express authorisation for data exchange between administrations, including the police and security forces and the tax authorities.
• That the comunidad de propietarios does not prohibit the activity and has expressly authorised it.
• The periods during which the tourist service is provided.

The dwelling’s details become publicly accessible through the Consejería’s open search tools, except for the telephone number and email address.

Only one vivienda de uso turístico per cadastral reference

It is the rule that blocks the most registrations in buildings divided on the inside but not in the Catastro. Article 9.1.a) allows one dwelling per cadastral reference, unless it is proven in accordance with current rules that two or more dwellings exist under that reference³.

In other words: if you have split a large flat into two apartments and the Catastro still sees one, two registrations are not possible. First the cadastral reality gets fixed, then you declare.

The comunidad de propietarios must authorise the activity

Two different filters, and best not to mix them up.

The first is a prohibition: dwellings located in buildings whose constitutive deeds or bylaws expressly prohibit tourist accommodation cannot be viviendas de uso turístico. If that is in the bylaws, no procedure will save the dwelling.

The second is an authorisation, and it is new. Since the decree was amended by Decreto-ley 1/2025, the declaración responsable requires stating that the dwelling “has been expressly authorised by the comunidad de propietarios in the terms required by State legislation”⁵. That State legislation is paragraph 12 of article 17 of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal (the condominium act), which since 3 April 2025 requires, in order to approve, limit, condition or prohibit the activity, the favourable vote of three fifths of all owners who in turn represent three fifths of the ownership shares⁶. The majority is a double one, and the resolution has no retroactive effect on dwellings that were already operating.

In practice the paper the Consejería asks for is a certificate from the secretary or administrator with that express approval, currently in force.

Planning compatibility: the filter that blocks most filings

This is the point where Andalusia has genuinely tightened, and not through tourism rules but through planning rules. The requirement, as it now reads:

“Comply with municipal planning rules and hold, where applicable in accordance with article 6 of the Decreto-ley de medidas urgentes en materia de vivienda, the licence or declaración responsable that makes tourist use of the property possible, as provided in planning legislation.”

The decree-law it refers to is 1/2025, de 24 de febrero, and its article 6 does two things that change the map⁵:

1. It breaks the equivalence between residential use and tourist use. In municipalities where overriding reasons of general interest apply, duly justified and declared, the fact that a plot has residential use no longer enables tourist accommodation on its own: the local plan must expressly provide for that compatibility, and the corresponding licence must be obtained or the corresponding declaración responsable filed. The town council can define this by buildings, areas, zones or sectors.
2. It allows registrations to be suspended for up to three years. While it processes the planning instrument, the town council may resolve to suspend licences and declaraciones responsables for viviendas de uso turístico, across the whole municipality or in specific zones, and exceptionally already in the resolution that opens the procedure, with a maximum suspension of three years. The resolutions are notified to the Consejería de Turismo.

Added to that is a cap that comes not from the decree-law but from Decreto 28/2016 itself, and it is the one that blocks registrations one at a time: its article 2.2 allows town councils, for overriding reasons of general interest, to set proportionate limits “as regards the maximum number of viviendas de uso turístico per building, sector, ambit, period, area or zone”, with clear, unequivocal and objective criteria published before they apply². That per-building maximum is what the register’s automated cancellations enforce.

That second point explains why one city’s search results look nothing like the neighbouring city’s. In July 2025 the Consejo de Gobierno recorded that Cádiz, Chiclana de la Frontera, Córdoba, El Puerto de Santa María, Granada, Málaga and Seville had resolved suspensions while amending their general plans⁷. The RTA itself now warns citizens when they try to register in a municipality with restrictions, and has automated procedures to cancel registrations that breach those limits¹.

The scale of the change can be read in the numbers the decree-law itself records: Andalusia went from 95,507 viviendas de uso turístico in December 2022 to 139,163 in December 2024⁵. In 2025, with the measures already in place, growth stayed at 3.12 % against 16.89 % in the previous period¹.

When the RTA cancels a dwelling’s registration

Cancellation is not a penalty, it is the withdrawal of the enabling registration, and it runs on its own track. Article 9.2 orders it, after a hearing, when the Consejería finds any of the following:

• Essential inaccuracy or falsehood in a piece of data, statement or document in the declaración responsable.
• That the dwelling has ceased to meet the conditions for being registered.
• Failure actually to provide the service during the declared periods.
• Absence of the licences or authorisations required by sectoral rules, especially planning or land-regime rules.

There are two further routes, both municipal: if the dwelling turns out not to comply with planning rules, the town council informs the Consejería so that it cancels; and the planning-enforcement administrations report any action that entails the cessation, provisional or definitive, of tourist use.

There is an added consequence that Decreto-ley 1/2025 wrote into Ley 13/2011 itself, as paragraph 4 of its article 38: the reasoned cancellation decision may bar a new registration with the same object for one year, and information on compliance with planning legality that turns out to be incorrect, inaccurate or false is deemed essential for these purposes⁵.

And a calendar trap that is not in the decree but in the register’s mechanics: if, when declaring your operating periods, you do not tick that they repeat every year, you will have to notify the period before 1 January of each year to avoid exposure to a penalty or cancellation procedure⁴. And article 3.1 of the decree treats marketing the dwelling outside those periods as clandestine activity.

Fines for letting without registering in the RTA

The decree sets no amounts: it refers to Title VIII of Ley 13/2011. What it does do is classify the conduct, and it leaves no room for interpretation.

“The provision of the accommodation service defined in article 3 of this Decree shall be deemed clandestine activity when the holder has begun the tourist activity without filing a declaración responsable in the terms of article 9, such provision being classified as a grave offence by article 71.1 of Ley 13/2011, de 23 de diciembre.”

No booking needs to have come in, because the Andalusian act puts the advertisement itself inside the conduct:

“Advertising through any medium, or the actual provision of tourist services, without having complied with the duty to file the declaración responsable provided for in article 38.2, the notification provided for in article 54.4 of this Act or, where applicable, without the corresponding authorisation provided for in article 54.2 having been granted, shall be deemed clandestine activity.”

A listing published without a filed declaration is clandestine from day one, without anyone having booked anything, and article 11 of the decree already refers it to article 71.1 as a grave offence. The brackets are set by article 78⁹:

Four nuances that change the figure that ends up being paid:

• Operating without registering falls in the grave bracket, 2,001 to 18,000 euros. The 150,000 euros belong to muy grave offences, reached through repeat grave offences or through notorious damage to Andalusia’s tourism image.
• Repeat offending is counted on a short clock: it means committing any offence of the same class within one year of notification of an earlier penalty that became final in administrative proceedings.
• The ceiling can rise. The fine may be increased up to three times the price of the services affected by the offence, so that breaking the rules does not pay better than following them.
• It can also fall. When the harm is minor, the competent body may impose the penalty of a leve offence on a grave one, giving its reasons.

Penalties are imposed by the Delegaciones Provinciales (provincial offices) of the Consejería responsible for tourism for leve and grave offences; muy grave ones go up to the Dirección General, and to the head of the Consejería if they exceed one hundred thousand euros or consist of definitive closure or cancellation of the RTA registration. Offences become time-barred after six months for leve, one year for grave and two years for muy grave⁹.

The contract-style document signed on arrival

The decree does not end at registration. Every stay generates one more piece of paper, and it is the one fewest people have ready because no platform asks for it: the contract-style document of article 7, handed to the guest at the moment of reception.

“A toda persona usuaria, en el momento de su recepción, le será entregado un documento, a modo de contrato, en el que conste, al menos, el nombre de la persona o entidad explotadora de la vivienda, el código alfanumérico de inscripción en el Registro de Turismo de Andalucía, el número de personas que la van a ocupar, las fechas de entrada y salida, el precio total de la estancia y número de teléfono previsto en el artículo 6.j)”

Six items at minimum, none of them optional:

• Name of the person or entity operating the dwelling, who need not be the owner.
• RTA registration code, the VUT/XX/00000 from the registration decision, not the CTC from the filing receipt.
• Number of people who will occupy the dwelling.
• Check-in and check-out dates.
• Total price of the stay.
• 24-hour contact telephone. The reference to article 6.j) keeps the 2016 numbering; when article 6 was rewritten in 2024 that obligation moved to 6.2.a), but it is the same number: the one that answers and resolves immediately any query or incident concerning the dwelling.

Paragraph 3 of the same article turns that sheet into a filing obligation. The copy, “once completed and signed by the user”, is kept for one year at the disposal of the Junta de Andalucía, “having evidentiary value for administrative purposes and the status of a contract”². Signed by the guest, not merely handed over. The decree imposes no format and no official model: a single sheet in duplicate, one copy for the guest and one for whoever operates the dwelling, with the six items and the signature, is enough, provided that second copy stays available throughout the year.

Two questions a manager asks before the first guest, and which the decree answers even if it does not look like it:

• When it is signed. “At the moment of reception”. The rule is written for a hand-over in person and neither provides for nor forbids remote check-in. If arrival is by key box with nobody at the door, the signature still has to be collected: on paper on entry, or electronically before arrival. Our reading is that a prior signature serves the article’s purpose, that the guest knows price and conditions before occupying and that proof exists, as long as the document is still in their hands when they walk in.
• If the booking comes from Airbnb or Booking. The document is still yours. The decree binds “la persona o entidad explotadora” and, unlike the Aragón or Extremadura rules, grants no exemption when an intermediary is involved. The platform’s confirmation does not replace it: the guest does not sign it, it is not kept by you at the Junta’s disposal and, on Airbnb, the price it shows includes the service fee the platform charges the traveller, which is not the price of the stay.

Do not confuse it with the two other receipts the same decree requires, because all three look alike and only one is signed²:

Booking, deposit and cancellation terms are whatever is agreed, but the decree requires them to be detailed and published before contracting, and where nothing has been agreed it applies its own default regime (article 8.3 and 8.4)²:

• The deposit taken as a down payment may not exceed 30 % of the total stay.
• If the guest cancels more than ten days ahead, up to 50 % of the deposit may be withheld; with fewer than ten days, the whole deposit.
• If the operator cancels, they return the deposit and, with fewer than ten days’ notice, also compensate the guest with 30 % of the price of the stay booked.
• Duly justified force majeure carries no penalty for either party.

Non-compliance has its own offence in Ley 13/2011. Failing to keep mandatory documentation for the prescribed period is a leve (minor) offence, up to 2,000 euros¹⁰; refusing to give a guest who asks for it “the documentation evidencing the terms of the contract” is grave (serious), from 2,001 to 18,000 euros¹¹.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a tourist licence take to be granted in Andalusia? A tourist licence in Andalusia takes no time to be granted because it is not granted: the entitlement arises from the declaración responsable you file. The filing receipt proves you have met the obligation and you can provide the service straight away, and the registration decision with the VUT code is downloaded online when the procedure ends. The only thing with a deadline is the supplementary documentation: if it is not provided with the declaration, it is requested and there are 10 working days to file it.

How much does a tourist licence cost in Andalusia? A tourist licence in Andalusia costs nothing: registration in the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía is free and there is no fee attached to registering, amending or ceasing. The real expense sits around the procedure, not in it: the mandatory digital certificate, the nota simple from the Registro de la Propiedad, the certificate from the comunidad de propietarios and, when the dwelling is offered by rooms, the certificado de empadronamiento.

How many guest places can a vivienda de uso turístico have in Andalusia? A vivienda de uso turístico in Andalusia can have up to 15 guest places if registered in the whole-dwelling group and up to 6 if registered by rooms, with a maximum of 4 guest places per room, two of them in beds that are not bunk beds. The effective limit is usually a different one: 14 m² of built area for principal use per guest place are needed according to the Catastro, with a minimum of 25 m² per dwelling, plus two bathrooms above five guest places and three above eight.

Is an occupancy licence needed to register a vivienda de uso turístico? An occupancy licence is no longer the document that underpins the registration of a vivienda de uso turístico in Andalusia. The current wording of the decree anchors capacity in the built area for principal use recorded in the Catastro and requires compliance with municipal planning rules, plus the licence or declaración responsable for change of use when planning legislation requires it. What is still needed is for the municipality’s local plan to allow tourist accommodation in that dwelling.

Can a VPO be let as a vivienda de uso turístico in Andalusia? A VPO (subsidised social housing) cannot be let as a vivienda de uso turístico in Andalusia, neither whole nor by rooms. The decree expressly excludes dwellings subject to a public protection regime, and does not allow them to be used for that purpose either whole or by rooms, in accordance with their specific rules. The declaración responsable requires stating that the dwelling is not subject to that regime or has been declassified. Declaring this falsely is an essential inaccuracy and opens the way to cancellation.

What is the fine for letting without being registered in the RTA? The fine for letting without being registered in the RTA is the one for a grave offence under Ley 13/2011, from 2,001 to 18,000 euros, plus possible suspension of the activity or temporary closure for under six months. A listing published without a filed declaración responsable is enough, because that is already clandestine activity. It moves up to the muy grave bracket, 18,001 to 150,000 euros, through repeat grave offences.

Do you have to sign a contract with the guest in a vivienda de uso turístico in Andalusia? In a vivienda de uso turístico in Andalusia you do have to hand the guest, on arrival, a contract-style document with at least six items: the name of whoever operates the dwelling, the RTA registration code, the number of people, check-in and check-out dates, the total price and the 24-hour contact telephone. The guest signs it and the copy is kept for one year at the disposal of the Junta de Andalucía, with evidentiary value and the status of a contract. It makes no difference that the booking came through Airbnb or Booking: the platform confirmation does not replace it. It is separate from the booking receipt and the proof of payment, which the decree also requires.

After RTA registration, the parte de viajeros remains

Registration in the RTA settles the regional entitlement and nothing more. The same article 7 that governs the contract-style document says so in its paragraph 2: the user must present their identity document so that the corresponding entry report can be completed in accordance with the current rules on registers and entry reports for travellers².

Those rules are State-level, apply equally in the seventeen regions and the two autonomous cities and have nothing to do with the tourism register: they are Real Decreto 933/2021, and the channel through which the partes de viajeros (guest reports) are sent today is SES.HOSPEDAJES. They are two separate obligations, with two separate administrations and two cumulative penalty regimes, as broken down in tourist licence, NRUA and guest registration.

Whoever has just received their VUT code therefore has a second obligation open from the first guest who walks through the door. The regional brackets for operating without registering are compared in renting without a tourist licence, and the procedure in the other regions in the guide to tourist licences by region.

This article is for information purposes. It does not replace professional legal advice. Andalusian tourism rules and municipal planning rules change frequently: check the details with the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía and with your town council before filing.