The Supreme Court in Madrid has dealt a severe blow to the Spanish government over its single registry for short-term home rentals and has ruled that it must be scrapped. Spain was the first country in the European Union to comply with Brussels’ requirement to implement measures to control the unchecked rise in tourist apartments and seasonal rentals by creating the Single Rental Registry.
Under the legislation Landlords had to use the digital platform—known as the VUDA (Ventanilla Única Digital de Arrendamientos / Digital One-Stop Rental Window)—to register their properties and obtain a mandatory marketing code.
According to a report in El Pais, the High Court considers that the state lacks the authority to establish this national registry—managed by property registrars—which lists apartments offered through tourist or seasonal rental platforms.
According to the newspaper the Administrative Litigation Chamber considers that this procedure promoted by the Ministry of Housing “duplicates existing regional registries regarding the registration of properties intended for tourist rentals.”
The census was launched on January 2, 2025, but it officially took effect on July 1 of that year, following a six-month trial period. It requires the identification and monitoring of properties rented to tourists on platforms such as Airbnb or Booking, as well as any other property marketed as a short-term rental, in accordance with European regulations on the collection and exchange of data related to short-term accommodation rental services. Since that date, more than 341,000 properties have been successfully registered: 258,000 tourist apartments and 83,000 seasonal rentals.