Renting your Costa del Sol property to one tenant for months at a time is the simplest income a holiday home can produce, and the rules behind it are less frightening than most owners expect. Long term rental taxes and contracts on the Costa del Sol come down to three questions: which contract you sign, how much of the rent the Spanish tax office keeps, and who holds the deposit. Non resident owners who are tax resident in the EU or EEA pay 19% on net rental income after deductible costs. Owners resident outside the EU and EEA currently pay 24% on gross rent with no deductions at all. Neither route requires a tourist licence.
That last point surprises people. A mid term or long term let needs no VFT registration, no licence number and no entry in the Junta de Andalucía's tourism register. Your obligations are fiscal and contractual, not touristic. For owners in communities that have voted to restrict holiday lets, that is often the whole reason to switch.
How much tax do you pay on long term rental income in Spain?
Non resident owners declare rental income on Modelo 210. If you are tax resident in an EU or EEA country, you are taxed at 19% on net income, which means you deduct the real costs of letting on a pro rata basis for the days the property was actually rented. Deductible items include IBI, community fees, buildings and contents insurance, mortgage interest, repairs, any utilities you pay, agency and management fees, and depreciation of roughly 3% of the construction value each year. Owners in the United Kingdom, the United States or anywhere else outside the EEA are taxed at 24% on the gross rent, with nothing deductible. A 2025 Spanish court ruling called that difference discriminatory, but the legislation has not yet been changed, so the old treatment still applies for the current filing season.
The filing calendar has just moved, and this one catches people out. Since the 2024 tax year, non resident rental income has been declared once a year between 1 and 20 January. From the 2026 tax year onwards, Order HAC/623/2026 shifts that window to 1 to 20 April of the following year. The rent you earn during 2026 is therefore declared between 1 and 20 April 2027. The same order widens what you must report: precise identification of the property, gross income, the deductions applied and the resulting net figure. Keep every invoice, including the cleaning bill between tenants.
Spanish tax residents file through IRPF instead, where long term residential lets attract a reduction on net income that can reach 90% in designated stressed housing zones. Marbella is not currently a declared stressed zone, so most owners here will not reach that figure, but the designations change and it is worth raising with your gestor each year.
Which contract does your tenant actually get?
Spanish law splits residential letting into two very different animals, and the one you sign decides how long your tenant can stay.
- Contrato de vivienda habitual, the classic long term contract for someone making the property their permanent home. The tenant has the right to stay for five years if the landlord is an individual, or seven if the landlord is a company, followed by a further three year tacit extension. You cannot simply decline to renew at month twelve.
- Contrato de temporada, the seasonal or mid term contract used for stays with a defined temporary purpose, typically 2 to 11 months. There is no minimum duration protection and the contract ends on the agreed date.
The temporada contract is the one most foreign owners on the coast should be using, and it is also the one most often drafted badly. Spanish courts have tightened up on it: if a tenant can show the property was in fact their habitual residence, the protective five year regime applies no matter what the paperwork says. The defence is documentation. A temporada contract must state the temporary purpose of the stay and be backed by evidence, such as a fixed term work posting, a university enrolment, or a winter stay by someone whose main residence is abroad.
A temporada contract that does not document why the stay is temporary is a five year contract wearing a costume. The wording is the whole product.
What changed for deposits in Andalucía in 2026?
Quite a lot, and in the owner's favour. The legal deposit under Article 36 of the LAU is one month's rent for a habitual residence contract and two months' rent for non residential use, which includes temporada lets. Any additional guarantee is negotiated separately.
Until this year, Andalusian landlords had to lodge that deposit with AVRA, the regional housing agency. Under Law 5/2025 on housing in Andalusia, contracts signed after 23 January 2026 no longer require the fianza to be deposited with the Junta. The landlord holds it directly and returns it at check out, less any documented damage. It is a real simplification, but it removes the neutral third party, so a dated inventory with photographs at check in is now the only thing standing between you and an argument about a scratched worktop.
What should you sort out before the tenant moves in?
Rent levels on this coast support the effort. A two bedroom apartment in Marbella typically lets long term at €1,200 to €2,500 a month depending on the address, with one bedroom flats in Nueva Andalucía starting around €1,100 and Old Town apartments closer to €2,300. Furnished properties command roughly 15% to 25% more than the same flat let empty, which is precisely why the mid term market suits owners who already have the place kitted out for guests.
Before anyone gets a key, get five things in order: an energy performance certificate, proof that IBI and community fees are current, a contract in both English and Spanish, a signed inventory with photographs, and verified evidence of the tenant's income. At Premavista we screen every applicant on payslips or proof of self employed income, previous landlord references and identity checks before an offer reaches the owner, because a single bad tenant costs far more than any management fee. Our mid and long term rental service charges one month's rent plus IVA as the placement fee, paid by the tenant on mid term lets and by the owner on long term lets as Spanish law requires, with optional full management at 10% of the monthly rent plus IVA if you would rather never hear from the tenant again.
Rent is always paid by the tenant straight into the owner's account, never through ours, which keeps your bank statements clean for exactly the Modelo 210 reporting described above. We work across Marbella, Nueva Andalucía, San Pedro de Alcántara, Benahavís and Estepona.
None of this is tax advice for your specific situation, and a good local gestor costs a few hundred euros a year. What it gives you is the shape of the thing, so you can ask the right questions. For a straight answer on what your property would earn on a temporada or long term contract, ask us at premavista.com/contact.html or send a WhatsApp to +34 600 543 173.
