Personal income tax (IRPF) on renting out a room in your main home to tourists

Updated on 27 September 2026. The personal income tax (IRPF) treatment has not changed, but the reduction for residential lettings is no longer a flat 60% (and it never applies to tourist lettings). We have added the limit on interest and repairs, the DGT's 2026 criteria, checks through platforms and the annulment of the single register (Registro Único de Arrendamientos) by the Tribunal Supremo (Supreme Court).

Letting a room in the home you live in to tourists is a common way of earning extra income, and also a frequent source of tax questions. Is it an economic activity? Which expenses can you deduct if you still live there? Are you entitled to the reduction for residential lettings?

The Dirección General de Tributos (DGT, the Directorate General for Taxation) examined, in binding ruling V1643-25 of 15 September 2025, the case of a taxpayer who let a room in her main home to tourists for 135 days in 2024. Its criteria still apply and match later rulings on tourist lettings.

How is this income classified for IRPF?

As a general rule, what you receive is income from real estate capital (rendimientos del capital inmobiliario) under Article 22 of Ley 35/2006, the IRPF Act (LIRPF): the income derives from owning the property, not from an economic activity. That changes in two cases:

1. If you have at least one person employed under an employment contract and working full time to manage the letting (Article 27.2 LIRPF), which is very rare with a room in your home.
2. If, during the stay, you provide services typical of the hotel industry, such as meals, regular cleaning or laundry. There is then an economic activity even if you have no employees (rulings V1173-26 of 20 May 2026 and V1572-26 of 15 June 2026).

Handing over the room clean and with bed linen is not a hospitality service. If you offer cleaning or a change of linen during the stay separately, at its own price and at the guest's request, those services are a separate economic activity (Article 27.1 LIRPF): they carry VAT and require you to register with the tax authorities (form 036 or 037), file VAT returns for them and declare them for IRPF as an activity, although the letting itself is still exempt from VAT and taxed as real estate capital income (V1572-26).

If you only let the room, without hotel-type services or paid extras, the letting is exempt from VAT (Article 20.Uno.23.º of Ley 37/1992) and you are not included in the census of businesses (Censo de Empresarios, Profesionales y Retenedores, Article 3.2.a of Real Decreto 1065/2007): no form 036, VAT returns or instalment payments. With hotel-type services you would have an economic activity, with tax registration, VAT (generally the 10% hospitality rate), instalment payments and, if the activity is habitual, possibly registration with the RETA (the self-employed Social Security scheme) under Article 305 of the Ley General de la Seguridad Social (General Social Security Act).

A change in the pipeline: in July 2026 the Ministerio de Vivienda y Agenda Urbana (Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda) announced that it is working on a rule to treat tourist flats as an economic activity taxed at 21% VAT. As of 27 September 2026 nothing has been published in the BOE (Official State Gazette), so what is explained here still applies; if it is approved, it will need checking whether it reaches room lettings.

This article assumes you own the home. If you are a tenant and sublet the room, what you receive is income from movable capital (rendimientos del capital mobiliario, Article 25.4.c LIRPF) and the calculation changes: for example, you do not depreciate the property.

What income you declare

You declare everything the guest owes you for the accommodation: the nightly price, the supplements you set (such as the cleaning fee charged with each booking) and utilities if they are included in the price (Article 22.2 LIRPF). If the guest books through a platform, you declare that full amount, not what the platform pays out after deducting its commission, and you deduct the commission as an expense. The service fee the platform charges the guest for its own service is not your income.

If the home has several owners (or is community property, bienes gananciales), each declares their own share (Article 11.3 LIRPF).

Which expenses you can deduct

The expenses necessary to obtain that income (Article 23.1 LIRPF and Article 13 of the IRPF Regulations, or RIRPF), including:

• Interest on the loan used to buy or improve the home.
• Repairs and maintenance (improvements are recovered through depreciation).
• IBI (the local property tax), the refuse collection charge and other taxes that are not penalties.
• Fees of the community of owners (comunidad de propietarios) and home or third-party liability insurance.
• Utilities, only if you pay them. If you charge them to the guest or they are included in the price, you first count them as income and then deduct them in the corresponding proportion.
• Platform commissions and third-party services linked to the letting, such as cleaning the room between guests.
• Depreciation of the property and of the room's furniture.

Two apportionments: by days and by floor area

As you still live in the home, you cannot deduct 100% of its expenses:

1. By time: only the days on which the room was actually let count, not the days it was advertised but empty.
2. By space: general expenses (IBI, community fees, insurance, utilities without a separate meter, interest, depreciation) are split between the part that is let and the part you use. The DGT sets no formula and refers to what was agreed with the guest; the most common criterion, and the easiest to justify, is the floor area of the room (plus, where applicable, the share of common areas the guest uses) over the total.

Expenses that exist only because of the letting, such as the platform commission, are not split by floor area.

Example. A 90 m² home with a 12 m² room (13.33%) let for 135 days (36.99% of the year). The combined ratio is 4.93%:

Limit on interest and repairs

Interest and repair and maintenance costs, taken together, cannot exceed the gross income from the property in the year. The excess is deducted in the following four years, subject to the same limit (Article 23.1.a.1.º LIRPF).

Depreciation

• Property: up to 3% a year of the higher of the acquisition cost (price plus purchase costs and taxes) and the cadastral value, excluding the land (Article 23.1.b LIRPF and Article 14 RIRPF). If you do not know the value of the land, use the land-to-building ratio shown on the IBI bill. Then apply the two apportionments.
• Furniture in the room: up to 10% a year, over a maximum of 20 years (Order of 27 March 1998), in proportion to the days let.

Following Supreme Court judgment 1502/2025 of 20 November 2025, the Income Tax Manual of the Agencia Tributaria (AEAT, the Spanish Tax Agency) accepts an annual deduction of between 1% (minimum) and 3% (maximum). When you sell, the acquisition value is reduced by the depreciation you have deducted and, in any event, by the minimum depreciation, even if you did not deduct it (Article 35.1 LIRPF and Article 40 RIRPF).

Does the reduction for residential lettings apply?

No. Article 23.2 LIRPF reduces the income from residential lettings: by 50% as a general rule for contracts signed on or after 26 May 2023, and by 60%, 70% or 90% in specific cases (Ley 12/2023); earlier contracts keep the 60% rate.

That reduction requires the letting to meet the tenant's permanent housing need. A tourist letting meets a temporary need and is excluded, as ruling V1643-25 and the AEAT's Income Tax Manual point out, the latter citing the decision of the Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Central (TEAC, the Central Economic-Administrative Tribunal) of 8 March 2018 (RG 00/05663/2017). By contrast, if you let the room to someone who lives there on a stable basis, as their permanent home, the reduction can apply: V1643-25 itself says so, referring to ruling V3660-16, and the DGT confirmed it in ruling V0412-25 of 20 March 2025, for a flat let by rooms under main-residence contracts.

How and when to declare it

• In your income tax return (declaración de la renta), under real estate capital income, with the cadastral reference, the days let, the income and the expenses. Income for 2026 (income that falls due that year, which is normally that of stays in 2026) is declared in the spring 2027 campaign (Article 14.1.a LIRPF).
• There are usually no withholdings or payments on account: the tax is paid with the return.
• You will almost always have to file: this income is not among the types that let you skip filing with a salary of up to €22,000; you are only exempt if your gross income (from employment, capital and business activities, plus capital gains) does not exceed €1,000 a year in total and you have no capital losses of €500 or more (Article 96 LIRPF).
• The tax authorities already have your data: since tax year 2024, platforms have reported what their hosts earn using form 238 (DAC7 rules), which replaced form 179, and the 2026 Annual Tax Control Plan (Plan Anual de Control Tributario) announces more checks on lettings managed through platforms.

Common mistakes

• Deducting 100% of the home's expenses, or those of the whole year.
• Exceeding the limit on interest and repairs without carrying the excess forward.
• Continuing to apply the main-home purchase deduction (purchases before 2013) to the whole home: once you start letting, the DGT only accepts it for the part you use and the common areas (ruling V2869-20).
• Not keeping invoices or the apportionment calculation: the tax authorities can review each tax year for four years (Article 66 of the Ley General Tributaria, the General Tax Act).

Other obligations that are not tax-related

• Single register, annulled. In May and June 2026 the Supreme Court annulled the single register of Real Decreto 1312/2024 and the obligation to hold a registration number to advertise short-term lettings, rooms included; the annual information return under its Article 10 falls with it. The Ventanilla Única Digital de Arrendamientos (Digital Single Window for Rentals), through which platforms send activity data, remains.
• Tourism rules. They depend on your autonomous community and local council. In the Comunidad de Madrid, tourist dwellings (viviendas de uso turístico) are let in their entirety, not by rooms: check which regime applies to you before advertising.
• Community of owners. The community's prior approval (Article 7.3) and the three-fifths majority (Article 17.12) of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal (Horizontal Property Act) refer to whole tourist dwellings, but if the statutes prohibit the activity, the community can demand that it stop (Article 7.2).
• Guest registration. Real Decreto 933/2021 requires anyone who offers accommodation for a price, "whether professionally or not", to send the Ministry of the Interior the details of bookings and guests within 24 hours at most.

In short

Letting a room in your main home to tourists:

• Is taxed as income from real estate capital, unless you have a full-time employee or provide hotel-type services.
• Allows expenses and depreciation to be deducted in proportion to floor area and days let, subject to the limit on interest and repairs.
• Does not qualify for the reduction for residential lettings.

The square metres the guest uses or the actual days let change the result. If you want to review the apportionment of expenses and depreciation before your next return, you can book a tax consultation or write to us.

Legislation and sources

• Ley 35/2006, IRPF Act (Articles 11, 14, 22, 23, 25, 27, 35 and 96)
• Real Decreto 439/2007, IRPF Regulations (Articles 13, 14 and 40)
• DGT, binding ruling V1643-25
• DGT, binding ruling V1572-26
• AEAT, 2025 Income Tax Manual: reduction for residential lettings
• Ley 37/1992, VAT Act (Article 20)
• Real Decreto 1065/2007, General Regulations on tax management and inspection (Article 3)
• La Moncloa, press release from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda, 2 July 2026
• Supreme Court judgment of 19 May 2026 (Real Decreto 1312/2024)
• Real Decreto 933/2021, guest registration