Marbella is still accepting new short-term rental applications in 2026. There is no blanket cap and no municipal freeze here, which puts Marbella in a shrinking group of Costa del Sol towns: Malaga city and Manilva have both imposed three-year pauses on new registrations, and Mijas and Fuengirola have layered on extra conditions.

That difference is the single most important fact for any owner weighing up whether to let their property short term. The short-term rental rules in Marbella are not looser than elsewhere in Andalucia, because the licence itself is regional. What is different is that Marbella has kept the door open while its neighbours have started closing theirs.

Is Marbella still granting new short-term rental licences in 2026?

Yes. Marbella town hall has kept oversight case by case rather than imposing a numerical cap, so a new application is still possible provided the property meets the urban plan, the building bylaws and the community rules. Applications are checked individually against the local plan, with extra scrutiny on mixed-use buildings and prime residential blocks in the centre and along the Golden Mile.

The licence you are applying for is the Andalusian one, the VFT, now increasingly written as VUT after the terminology change. It is issued by the Junta de Andalucia, not by Marbella. The town hall's role is the urban-compatibility sign-off that the Junta now expects to see alongside your file. We break the paperwork itself down step by step in our full guide to the touristic licence in Marbella.

Which Costa del Sol towns have paused new licences?

The map has changed sharply in the past twelve months, and it is worth knowing where the lines fall before you buy or convert:

  • Malaga city: a three-year pause since August 2025 on new registrations in 43 saturated neighbourhoods, defined as those where tourist homes already exceed 8 per cent of the housing stock. On 5 July 2026 the council went further and removed automatic approval for tourist accommodation on residential land across the city.
  • Manilva: its own three-year pause on new licences.
  • Mijas: additional conditions rather than a freeze, with apartment communities varying widely in what their bylaws allow.
  • Fuengirola: restrictions aimed at nuisance prevention and building compliance in a market that is heavily apartment based.
  • Marbella, Estepona and Benahavis: still open to new applications, with case-by-case checks. Estepona enforces noise and community rules firmly near the Old Town.
A property that would be refused a new licence in a saturated Malaga barrio can still be licensed in Nueva Andalucia or Elviria today. That gap is the real story of 2026.

Enforcement has tightened everywhere at the same time. In February 2026 the Junta de Andalucia struck 13,037 properties off the official tourism register in one sweep, and Malaga province absorbed 4,731 of those cancellations. We covered that cull and what triggered it in our piece on the Costa del Sol rental crackdown.

What does Marbella actually ask for?

An application that clears first time usually contains the same six things:

  • Proof of ownership, normally a recent nota simple from the Land Registry.
  • The first occupation licence or an equivalent habitation certificate for the property.
  • A responsible declaration of urban compatibility, confirming the flat or villa may legally be used for tourist accommodation at that address.
  • Evidence that the community of owners has not prohibited tourist letting.
  • Compliance with the physical standards: air conditioning and heating in habitable rooms, a first aid kit, tourist information, a complaints book, and a capacity that matches the occupancy on the occupation licence.
  • Police registration for guest reporting, plus the tax registrations that follow.

Once the file is complete, the VFT number is normally issued within a few weeks and you can advertise legally from the day it appears. Advertising before that number exists is what generates most of the fines we see.

What does the community veto rule change?

It changes who can stop you, and it is now the most common reason a Marbella application fails. Since the 2025 reform of the Horizontal Property Law, a community of owners can block new tourist lets in the building with a three-fifths majority of owners and quotas. Existing, already licensed properties are not retroactively shut down, but a new one in the same block can be refused. Our explainer on the 60 per cent community rule sets out how the vote works.

The practical consequence is that the community minutes matter as much as the town hall. Before committing to a purchase in a Marbella or Nueva Andalucia apartment block, read the last three years of minutes and check whether a vote has already been called. A villa in Benahavis or a detached house in Elviria sidesteps this entirely, which is part of why detached stock has held its value so well this year.

How long will the Marbella window stay open?

Nobody can promise a date, and that is precisely the point. Malaga's saturation threshold of 8 per cent of housing stock gives a rough sense of where the pressure builds, and pauses elsewhere on the coast have arrived with little warning. Licences already granted have consistently been respected when new rules arrive, and a licence attaches to the property rather than the owner, which is why an existing VFT now adds real value at resale. We looked at that dynamic in our note on the Costa del Sol licence freeze.

If you have been intending to licence a Marbella property, the sensible reading of 2026 is to file now rather than next season.

How Premavista handles this

We manage 12 short-term properties across Marbella, Estepona and Benahavis, all fully licensed, all on the same 20 per cent net commission with no separate management fees. Compliance is part of the service rather than an extra: we check the community position before onboarding, keep the guest police registrations filed, and hold the licence documentation for every property we run. You can see how that works on our vacation rental management page, or read the area detail for Marbella, Estepona and Benahavis.

If you want a straight answer on whether your specific building and address will clear, send us the address and we will check it. Contact us at premavista.com/contact.html or on WhatsApp at +34 600 543 173.