Tourist Licences - A Property Asset?

As new licences become harder to obtain, existing transferable rights may be acquiring a value of their own. Over the years I’ve helped many clients in Andalucía buy properties with no intention of ever renting out. Then they realised even just a few high season weeks can cover a substantial part, sometimes all, of annual running costs. Indeed, many North European owners are happy to vacate in the high season, high temperature months and, rather than leave their property empty, they become what I call ‘accidental landlords’.  But the days of guests picking up the keys at the local bar and owners keeping fingers crossed that no emergencies arise are long gone. A tourist rental licence (VUT) is now required and, as I’ve learnt from a recent search for licensed-only properties, they are scarce. This raises the issue of added value, not just for rental investors but also for regular owners because it gives them the option to rent if they wish. 

My recent search divided properties into 3 categories:

1. Properties with a current, transferable licence to operate tourist rentals
2. Properties without a current licence but located in Communities still open to new licences
3. Properties in Communities with permanent bans on future licences. 

If, over time, more Communities move from category 2 into category 3, properties in category 1 will become scarcer.  This suggests that a property with a valid, transferable tourist licence may command a premium. It is difficult to put a precise figure on that premium, but based on what I am seeing in my current search, I estimate it is already in the region of 10% in prime, year-round rental locations and, for several reasons, it seems likely to increase. These include:

• The supply of valid, transferable licences is already limited
• Not all licences are transferable 
• Some Communities enforce minimum stays of as much as one month, reducing flexibility.
• Bans prohibiting new licences will increase scarcity over time

If this happens, there is a possibility that identical apartments in the same location may not have the same investment value if one has a valid, transferable licence and the other doesn’t.

Spain’s central government devolved responsibility for tourism legislation to the autonomous regions in 2013 and, in the years following that decision, it’s became clear different regions take a different approach. At the time, Andalucía was alone of all the main tourism hot spots without any legislation at all covering the issue; the Balearics, Cataluña, the Costa Blanca and the Canary Islands all did. 

Now, Andalucía is probably the most pragmatic region in dealing with the issue. Since April 2025, securing a new licence has become harder because Community approval is required as the first step. However, at the same time Andalucía has clarified that, for qualifying existing VUTs, a purchaser can continue the activity by communicating the change of ownership to the Tourism Register.

In contrast, in Barcelona, the HUT, the equivalent of Andalucía’s VUT, is under threat. Already, no new HUTs are permitted and no renewals of the 10,000 existing licences in 2028 which, if implemented as planned, would remove the city's existing stock of 10,000 HUTs. In contrast, Andalucía will see a diminishing number of new licences being created but protection for qualifying existing licences is secure. And as well as regional differences there are also international variations. One of the motives for my client’s planned purchase in Andalucía is that the tourist licence for their apartment in France is limited to 5 years and is not renewable. This makes Andalucía’s approach to qualifying existing tourist licences very attractive.

Tourist rentals will undoubtedly remain controversial, but regulation and enforcement are two different issues. As the example in my previous blog demonstrated, complaints within a Community can sometimes be generated by a very small number of badly managed properties. In that case, more than 200 apartments included only 24 tourist licences, yet the behaviour of one licence holder was sufficient to put an outright ban on the AGM agenda.

Two recent examples highlight the lack of enforcement: in Mallorca, an owner operating ten unlicensed tourist apartments in Palma is facing proposed fines totalling €800,000. In Mallorca alone, 146 sanction proceedings were initiated in the first seven months of 2026, compared with 104 during the whole of 2025, with proposed fines totalling €4.37 million.  Meanwhile, in Ibiza, an owner has been fined €793,443 for unauthorised tourist use of a residential property. 

There is, however, a potential unintended consequence to increasing restrictions on new tourist licences. If future supply is reduced while qualifying existing rights survive, scarcity increases. Fewer licensed properties + continuing rental demand = increased value of existing licensed properties. That matters not only to investors. It matters to second-home owners who may want to rent for a few weeks each year and even to buyers who have no intention of renting today but may change their minds in the future. Perhaps, therefore, a tourist licence should no longer be viewed simply as permission to rent. In the right property, in the right location and under the right regulatory regime, it may be becoming an asset in its own right.