What is the sustainable tourism tax on tourist stays?

Since 1st July this year the new sustainable tourism tax on tourist stays has begun to be

applicable, in accordance with the 2/2016 Act 30th March. This means that, from this moment

on, the agents of the different types of accommodation for tourists will have to register with

the tax census and start to collect this new tax, with an amount which may vary between 0.5

and 2 euros per tourist per night.

How to declare the collected amount

Agents and owners can use two different methods in order to declare the collected amount:

the direct assessment method and the objective assessment method.

In the first case, the tax will be collected according to the total number of days of stay of a

specific tourist, regardless if he or she is a resident or not. This means that the agents will have

to keep all the documentation so that the Tax Agency can control carefully the number of days

each client has spent in the accommodation site. The amount of the tax might vary depending

on whether the season is high or low and it might also decrease from the ninth day of stay of a

certain tourist. Some authorities from the Balearic Tax Agency claim that this system is the

most complicated one for the declarants in formal terms.

In the second case, it is not necessary to count the days of stay of the tourists; instead, the Tax

Agency performs an assessment based on official data from the Spanish National Statistics

Institute (INE) and the Ibestat (Balearic Statistics Institute). As a result, it is possible to obtain a

days-of-stay average during which a tourist has been occupying a bed of every category and

type. Then, a module is created (the average) which is applied to the number of beds of each

accommodation site. The Tax Agency claims that this is a much simpler method.

How to register with the census

It is possible to do it for free through Internet. Log in the Tax Agency website (www.atib.com),

go to the tax on tourist stays section and fill in the 017 model. Agents and owners must

register before July 31.

How does it affect vacation rentals?

When must tourists pay the corresponding amount?

At any time during the stay.

Which is the most advisable declaration method?

Either the direct assessment method or the objective assessment method can be used, but the

latter has a large amount of interesting advantages and conveniences, because it allows to

simplify formalities a great deal. Within this method, owners may choose between five

options:

There are five modules which are respectively applied to a certain opening period.

Furthermore, in each case the amount is also estimated according to the number of beds that

every accommodation site has. A reduction in the total real number of beds is performed as

well: two beds are substracted from the real total number, since it is presumed that the two

first beds are occupied by adults, while the rest of beds tend to be occupied either by adults or

children. Therefore, two beds are withdrawn from the real total number of occupied beds and

the result is multiplied by 0.65%. Then, this result is multiplied by the corresponding opening

period module. The final result would be the annual amount to be paid.

For example:

For a vacation apartment or house with five beds, two of them would be substracted, the

result would be multiplied by 0.65 and this result would be multiplied by the opening period

module.

How does it affect illegal rentals?

Since the 8/2012 Act 19th July was enacted during the last term, it has become extremely

difficult for many owners to legally rent their properties as vacation apartments because the

Act does not allow them to commercialize their apartments through the most common tourist

commercial resources, such as websites. In order to comply with the law, these owners have

the only choice of leasing their properties adhering to the Spanish Urban Tenancy Act (LAU)

without using those tourist commercial resources. This has led to a situation in which many

owners keep leasing their apartments outside the law. However, the new sustainable tourism

tax also affects them.

Why?

The Tax Agency authorities presume that those apartments which are rented during a period

inferior to two months have been commercialized as vacation apartments; therefore, a tourist

stay is taking place and the tax must be applied.

How could someone prove that there is no such tourist stay taking place?

If the property is not rented as a vacation apartment, it must be proved before the tax

administration that there is a contract and that the deposit has been duly paid; this will serve

as evidence that the rental is subject to the LAU. In this case, the sustainable tourism tax will

not be applied.