Spain’s rental registration number annulled by the Supreme Court: what changes and what still applies

What was Spain’s single rental registration number?

Spain’s single rental register (Registro Único de Arrendamientos), which issued the rental registration number known as NRUA, was created by Royal Decree 1312/2024 of 23 December. It came into force on 2 January 2025 and took effect on 1 July 2025. It implemented EU Regulation 2024/1028 and covered short-term rentals advertised on online platforms: lets for a short period, for tourist purposes or not, including seasonal lets under art. 3.2 of the Urban Leases Act (art. 2.a).

The mechanism was simple. The owner applied at the Land Registry — or the Movable Property Registry, for a boat — for a registration number that was assigned automatically and immediately (art. 9.3), and without it the property could not be marketed on platforms (art. 10.6). According to the Spanish Association of Registrars, each application cost €27 plus taxes, and by June 2025 more than 100,000 numbers had been generated.

NRUA and the Supreme Court: what was annulled, and why?

The Third Chamber of Spain’s Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo) decided three challenges against the decree, and all three rulings have been published in the BOE, Spain’s official gazette:

• Judgment of 19 May 2026, appeal 1/143/2025 brought by the Valencian regional government (BOE of 8 June 2026).
• Judgment of 21 May 2026, appeal 1/54/2025 brought by APARTUR and ATA (BOE of 26 June 2026), clarified by an order of 11 June 2026.
• Judgment of 1 June 2026, appeal 1/144/2025 brought by the Region of Murcia (BOE of 18 July 2026).

The first judgment annuls the provisions “referring to the single rental registration procedure and the obligation to register with the Land Registry or the Movable Property Registry in order to obtain a registration number” (our translation). Arts. 5, 8, 9 and 10, art. 12(b) and (c) and the second additional provision fall, together with the registry-related parts of arts. 1, 2 and 6 and the first final provision, and “any other provisions or mentions referring to the single register”. The 1 June judgment has the same scope; the 21 May judgment, as clarified, annuls art. 6 only in its mentions of the register and the number.

The ground is one of competence. According to the press release of the General Council of the Judiciary (in Spanish), the State lacks the constitutional power to regulate in detail a national register that overlaps with the existing regional registers. The court adds that the EU Regulation does not require a Member State’s registration procedure to be national.

Since these rulings there is no compulsory national registration number in Spain for advertising a short-term let, and as of 26 October 2026 we have found no new rule in the BOE replacing it: Royal Decree-law 29/2026, covered below, does not create another register. What has not changed are the regional obligations: in Andalusia, a holiday rental home still has to be entered in the Andalusian Tourism Register.

What still applies from Royal Decree 1312/2024?

Not all of the decree fell. The Supreme Court dismissed the challenges as regards the Digital Single Rental Window (Ventanilla Única Digital de Arrendamientos), the online platforms’ data-transmission obligations and data transmission for statistical purposes, which the State may regulate under its powers over the coordination of economic activity and statistics (art. 149.1.13 and 149.1.31 of the Constitution).

• The Digital Single Rental Window (art. 7), run by the Ministry of Housing, remains the national gateway for data exchange with platforms.
• Platforms must send monthly activity data for each unit — nights rented, guests per night and their country of residence (art. 2.l) — with the address and the URLs of the listings (art. 6.f). Small and micro platforms report at the end of each quarter.
• Order VAU/653/2025 says the data are sent within the first fifteen calendar days of the month after the reference period (art. 3.3).

How art. 6 reads now, without the mentions of the registration number, is a matter of legal interpretation: the consolidated BOE text warns that “any other provisions or mentions referring to the single register contained in other sections” are also annulled.

The EU Regulation, applicable since 20 May 2026

Above all this sits EU Regulation 2024/1028, which under its art. 19 has applied since 20 May 2026 and is directly applicable in every Member State (Spanish text in the BOE). Its art. 4.1 says that any registration procedure, “whether at national, regional or local level”, must comply with it, and art. 7.1(b) requires platforms, where the unit is in an area with a registration procedure, to make sure the host provides the number and displays it in the listing. The European Commission explains in its news item of 20 May 2026 that the Regulation works in “opt-in/opt-out” mode: Member States are not obliged to apply it, but if they introduce a registration system or request data from platforms, they must do so through it. Whether Andalusia’s tourism register now serves as that procedure towards platforms has not been confirmed in any official source we checked.

Andalusia: holiday rental homes still need their own registration

In Andalusia, the register that counts is the regional one. What used to be called viviendas con fines turísticos (VFT) have been called viviendas de uso turístico (VUT) since Decree 31/2024, in force since 22 February 2024, and are governed by Decree 28/2016. They are homes equipped for immediate use, offered for a price, habitually and for tourist purposes; that purpose is presumed when the home is marketed through tourist channels, including those that allow booking (art. 3.1). A home let for more than two consecutive months to the same tenant is not a VUT (art. 1.2.b).

To start letting it you must file an electronic responsible declaration (declaración responsable) with the regional tourism department, and from that moment it may be advertised as a VUT (art. 9.1). Among other things, the declaration covers:

• The cadastral reference and capacity: only one home per cadastral reference is accepted.
• Planning compatibility and, where required, the licence or declaration for change of use (art. 9.1.e).
• A statement that the statutes do not prohibit the activity and that the community of owners has expressly authorised it under national law (art. 9.1.g).

The home’s data are public: the regional government’s holiday-home page (in Spanish) has a search engine for registered properties (filter by “viviendas de uso turístico”) and a helpline, 900 10 15 70. The code of entry in the Andalusian Tourism Register must appear on the document given to guests (art. 7.1) and on the payment receipt (art. 6.2.e.2º). Advertising or providing the service without having filed the declaration is clandestine activity (art. 28.4 of the Andalusian Tourism Act 13/2011), classed as a serious infringement.

Town halls can limit new VUT

Art. 2.2 of the decree, as worded by Decree 31/2024, allows town halls, for an overriding reason of general interest, to cap the number of VUT per building, sector, area, period or zone. And art. 6 of Decree-law 1/2025 adds that, where justified, residential use is not enough: the town plan must provide for tourist use to be compatible, and while the plan is being processed the town hall may suspend VUT licences and declarations for up to three years. Before taking on a property for holiday lets, ask the town hall whether limits apply in that area.

Do you need your community of owners’ approval?

Yes, since 3 April 2025. Organic Law 1/2025 added art. 7.3 to the Horizontal Property Act (LPH): an owner who wants to use the home for the activity in art. 5.e of the Urban Leases Act — the temporary letting of the whole furnished home, marketed through tourist channels and subject to tourism regulations — must first obtain the community’s express approval. Without it, the community president can demand that the activity stop immediately, under threat of legal action.

The agreement requires the majority in art. 17.12: the favourable vote of three-fifths of all owners, who must also represent three-fifths of the ownership shares. The same majority applies to approving, limiting, conditioning or prohibiting the activity, and to setting special fees or raising that home’s share of common costs, provided the increase is no more than 20 %. These agreements are not retroactive, and the second additional provision lets owners who were already operating under the tourism rules before that date carry on.

The statutes matter too: a home cannot be a VUT if the building’s founding deed or statutes expressly prohibit tourist accommodation (art. 1.3.b of Decree 28/2016). Even before the annulment, the Directorate General for Legal Certainty and Public Faith had published in the BOE decisions on tourist numbers refused or suspended by registries in Marbella and Málaga because of prohibitions in the statutes.

Does it affect seasonal or long-term lets?

The decree also covered seasonal lets advertised on platforms (art. 2.a), but not long-term residential leases under the Urban Leases Act (art. 4.2.a); for those there was a voluntary number (second additional provision), which the judgments of 19 May and 1 June also annulled. The community approval in art. 7.3 LPH refers to the activity in art. 5.e of the Urban Leases Act: the whole home, marketed through tourist channels and subject to tourism regulations. And in Andalusia, a let of more than two consecutive months to the same tenant is not a VUT (art. 1.2.b of Decree 28/2016).

What Royal Decree-law 29/2026 adds

After the rulings came another rule. Royal Decree-law 29/2026 of 6 October, in force since 8 October 2026, does not bring back the national register, but it changes three things for anyone taking on rentals:

• Listings. Every rental offer or advert must include at least the reference rent index if the home is in a stressed residential market area, the rent cap where one applies, “the number, code or identifying title of the let unit, where applicable” (our translation) and, where applicable, whether the landlord is a large holder (gran tenedor) (art. 20).
• Temporary lets. The contract must state why the tenant is temporarily relocating, and that reason must be real and provable; the let must last more than thirty-one days and, as a general rule, no more than twelve months. If the contract does not state the reason, it is governed as a primary-residence lease (arts. 7.2 and 9 bis of the Urban Leases Act). Seasonal contracts signed before 8 October keep their previous regime until the agreed term ends (eighth transitional provision of the Act).
• Holiday lets. The letting under art. 5.e of the Urban Leases Act, the one governed by tourism rules, may never exceed thirty-one days. The Act also gains a penalty regime for platforms that breach their data obligations towards the Digital Single Rental Window (Title V).

For an Andalusian VUT, the identifying code that exists is the one from its entry in the Andalusian Tourism Register. As a royal decree-law, it has to be validated by Congress (art. 86 of the Constitution).

What is still unclear

As of 26 October 2026, several questions have no official answer:

• The Ministry of Housing’s pages on short-term rentals still present the registration number as an essential requirement and do not mention the rulings.
• There is no official statement from the Ministry or the Association of Registrars on what happens to numbers already issued or to the €27 paid for each application.
• There is no official word on whether the annual information return that Order VAU/1560/2025 set for February is still required; its legal basis, art. 10, has been annulled.
• We have found no rule from the Government replacing the annulled register.
• Nor is it official how the Andalusian register now fits with the EU duty on platforms to display a number.
• Nor is it clear what “number, code or identifying title” art. 20 of Royal Decree-law 29/2026 requires in the advert for a holiday let, or whether that article applies to it at all.

Meanwhile, the prudent course is not to promise an owner either that their national number is still valid or that it has disappeared for all purposes, and to rely on what has been published: regional registration, the community’s agreement and the platforms’ data obligations.

A checklist for agencies before taking on a holiday let

1. The statutes and the community’s agreement

   Ask for the statutes and — unless the activity was already running under the tourism rules before 3 April 2025 — the owners’ meeting agreement with the three-fifths majority. Without it, the president can demand that the activity stop.

2. Entry in the Andalusian Tourism Register

   Check in the regional search engine that the home is listed as a VUT and note its code, which must appear on the guest document and on the payment receipt.

3. Planning compatibility

   Ask the town hall whether there are limits on, or suspensions of, new VUT in the area (art. 2.2 of Decree 28/2016 and art. 6 of Decree-law 1/2025).

4. No national numbers

   Do not ask for, or promise, the single-register number as a requirement for advertising: the judgments annulled it.

5. The listing

   If you advertise residential lets, each advert must include what art. 20 of Royal Decree-law 29/2026 requires: the reference index in a stressed area, the rent cap where one applies, the identifying number or code where applicable, and large-holder status.

Domuspace does not handle tourism registrations or rental registers. What it does help with is order: on the cadastral map, the owner’s contact stays linked to the cadastral reference, the same key the responsible declaration uses (one home per reference). With the contracts module, from the Professional plan, you prepare the brokerage agreement “for rent” with the contact and property data already filled in, and under “Other contracts” you can import your own template.

If the owner ends up selling rather than letting, they will want to know who pays plusvalía when you sell and how the arras deposit contract works; and for any deal, how to request and read a nota simple. If you work in the area, see Domuspace on the Costa del Sol.

This article is for information only and is not a substitute for advice from a legal professional. The data were checked on 29 September 2026 against the official sources linked above; Royal Decree-law 29/2026 and the open questions, on 26 October 2026.