Costa Blanca tourist flats: VT-CV still required

Right. Pull up a lounger. This is the boring one, and it is the one that matters if you are letting a flat on the Costa Blanca.

Someone in the community WhatsApp has almost certainly said the national registration number is gone, so the flat can go back on Airbnb. They heard half a sentence. The Supreme Court did strike down the national registry, Sentencia 620/2026. The NRUA, the extra number Madrid invented on top of the regional one, is not what you need to advertise. That part is true. The rest of the sentence is not.

What lists a tourist flat in the Valencian Community is the regional number

The VT-CV. Decreto-ley 9/2024 is still the working rule, in force since 8 August 2024. A vivienda de uso turístico is a whole flat, let for a price, ready to walk into, for tourist use, for 10 days or fewer to the same guest. Not eleven. Not a room with a shared kitchen and a hopeful listing. Room-by-room is banned. The registration is not forever. It lasts five years, and the renewal wants a fresh declaration in the month before it runs out, with an up-to-date compatibility report. The old “I registered in 2019 and nobody has asked” is not a plan.

Ley 3/2026, in force since 3 July, tightened the community a bit. Before you inscribe, you declare that the community of owners has expressly agreed to the tourist use, under the horizontal property law. For a licence from 3 April 2025 onwards, that agreement is a three-fifths majority of owners and a three-fifths majority of the shares. Buying the flat before that date does not grandfather you. The date that counts is the licence. A community that has not met in years is not a free pass either.

Then there is the town hall, which is where the Costa Blanca North version lives. The Generalitat will not register a new tourist dwelling without a favourable municipal compatibility report. Alicante city switched that report off, and it stays off into 2027. Calp, Altea and Benidorm have had their own blocks and zoning stops. 

Already-registered flats are a different question from a new one. This year Alicante has opened 57 investigation files on tourist lets, 26 of them sanctioning, nine suspensions. The days of nobody checking are the bit that has actually ended.

Guest reporting to the Interior Ministry, the SES hospedajes system, did not die with the NRUA. If you are still handing over keys and not filing the travellers, that is a separate fine.

Madrid, because you will see the headlines. Two housing decrees came in at the start of October. Seasonal lets needing a real reason, room rents pulled into the tenancy law, 10% IVA on furnished stays of 30 nights or fewer from 1 December. Congress threw both out on Friday 2 October. PP, Junts and Vox, with UPN, voted them down. Reports this morning say the government has approved them again and will try for validation inside 30 days. Until a text is in the BOE and has survived a vote, do not plan a contract around them.A renewal is not the same as a contract already signed.If you are mid-let, ask the gestor before you believe a headline.

None of this is a licence to ignore the community, the town hall, or the tax. Non-resident owners still file Modelo 210. The deadline moved: rental income for 2026, declared as a year, is due in the first 20 days of April 2027. EU and EEA residents are taxed on the net at 19%. UK and other non-EU residents are taxed on the gross at 24%. That difference is the one people still miss.

If you have a registered flat, check the expiry, not the group chat. If you have not got the VT-CV, you are not “waiting for the national number to come back.” You are unregistered. And if the president of the community says a nod in the lift was agreement, it was not.

I’m not your lawyer. The decrees may move again before Friday. The 10-day rule and the regional number will not.

I hope this has helped, after years renting property here its best to make sure your property paperwork is up to date, don’t take chances.

Joanne

SunSeaSangria 

Don’t forget the Friday Terrace Newsletter — free, every Friday, straight to your inbox. Local news, foodie finds, red tape bits and terrace chat before the weekend starts. Pull up a lounger and subscribe here.