🎯 STRisker: Bulletin - Spain
The Supreme Court struck down Madrid's one-stop registry on jurisdictional grounds. Regional licensing, EU data-sharing, and city-level caps all survive intact.
Hundreds of Thousands of Spanish Listings Cleared to Return as Court Voids National Registry
Photo by Jorge Fernández Salas on Unsplash
Spain's Supreme Court has struck down the national short-term rental registry that had pulled more than 341,000 properties into a single state system, a 21 May ruling that reopens the platforms to thousands of owners blocked under the scheme. The court found that the central government had no authority to run a nationwide registry layered over the registries Spain's regions already operate.
The annulled system was built on Royal Decree 1312/2024 signed on 23 December 2024 and in effect from 2 January 2025. It created the Ventanilla Ăšnica Digital de Arrendamientos (VUDA), a centralized platform that issued each property a mandatory NRUA number before it could appear on booking platforms. To obtain the number, owners had to submit their regional tourist licence, a certificate of habitability, and the property's cadastral reference. Compulsory from 1 July 2025, the registry had absorbed roughly 258,000 tourist apartments and 83,000 seasonal rentals with more than 20% of applications reportedly rejected outright and stripping those listings from platforms entirely.
The Valencian Community filed the challenge in May 2025 and was joined by other PP-governed regions that had long held the same position that tourism regulation belongs to the autonomous communities and Madrid had overstepped. The court agreed on both counts and none of that softens the enforcement picture elsewhere. Months before the ruling dropped, Airbnb was fined €64 million in December 2025 for carrying more than 65,000 unlicensed listings, with six times the profit earned from those properties after official warnings went out. That penalty is now before the courts.
The ruling struck down the registry but left two pillars standing including platforms' continued obligation under Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 to share listing data with authorities through the digital single window the court explicitly preserved. Regional regimes are a separate matter entirely: Catalonia and the Balearics still run their own frameworks with fines reaching €600,000, Barcelona's 2029 phase-out of tourist licenses was upheld by the Constitutional Court in March 2025, and in AndalucĂa over 20,000 properties are now reported clear to relist once regional compliance is confirmed.
One question the ruling leaves open is what happens to the annual information return under Order VAU/1560/2025 which required owners to file a declaration of the prior year's bookings each February. Whether that obligation survives the annulment has not been addressed by the court, and legal experts caution operators not to assume it has lapsed. This is a concern that sits alongside a separate issue entirely as owners blocked under the national scheme despite holding valid regional licences are now reportedly exploring compensation claims against the state.
⦿ Scale: 341,000+ properties were in the registry (258,000 tourist, 83,000 seasonal); 20,000+ in AndalucĂa cleared to relist.
⦿ What changed: National VUDA registry and NRUA number annulled on jurisdictional grounds, 21 May 2026.
⦿ Survives: Regional licensing, fines up to €600,000, Barcelona 2029 phase-out, EU data-sharing duties.
⦿ Who benefits: Regionally compliant owners blocked under the national scheme.
⦿ Emerging risk/claim: Delisted owners reportedly preparing state compensation claims.
⦿ Action: Confirm regional/municipal compliance before relisting. are these information correct
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