12/04/2026 - Viva Costa del Sol

Three buyers came through our door in a single week last month, each with the same question phrased slightly differently: “If I buy here, can I legally rent it out to tourists?” All three had sensible budgets. All three had good agents. All three got three different answers — and one of them got a firm no. We answered all three for free in under a working day, which is how every enquiry with us starts.

This is the post we wish we could have handed each of them before they started looking.

The short version: in 2026, the most important variable in a Costa del Sol rental-property purchase is not the town. It is the district within the town, the building within the district, and the community-of-owners vote within the building. In other words, a zoomed-out map of “the Costa del Sol” is almost useless for this question. You have to zoom in.

Here is the zoomed-in picture, as we see it on the ground in 2026.

The big picture: why zone matters more than town

Two regulatory forces, working together, decide whether a given property can legally operate as a holiday rental.

The first is municipal zoning and moratoria. The most public example is Málaga city, which has frozen new VUT registrations across most of its districts. But Málaga is not alone — municipalities across Andalucía have the authority to restrict holiday rentals in specific zones, and several have started using it.

The second is the community-of-owners vote, introduced across Spain under Ley Orgánica 1/2025 in April 2025. Under this rule, in any building held under horizontal property (most apartment blocks), tourist rental is prohibited by default unless 3/5 of the owners and 3/5 of the participation quotas vote to allow it. This rule applies everywhere — Marbella, Estepona, Nerja, every town on the coast — and it is the single most common reason a new VUT application fails in 2026.

So when we say “zone” we mean the intersection of those two forces. A property in an open town can still be blocked by its building. A property in Málaga city can still be allowed if it sat on the register before the moratorium. The map is fractal, and the only way to read it is address by address.

If you remember one thing from this post: a property’s rental-eligibility answer is specific to its exact location and building. “Marbella is open” or “Málaga is closed” are shorthand headlines — not safe bases for a purchase decision.

Málaga city — frozen, district by district

The Ayuntamiento de Málaga introduced a moratorium on new VUT registrations in 2024 and has extended and expanded it through 2025 and into 2026. The freeze applies district by district, and the exact list of frozen districts has changed multiple times as the Ayuntamiento has responded to pressure on housing supply in specific neighbourhoods.

As a working rule for 2026: assume any new VUT application inside the boundaries of Málaga city is closed until proven open. That includes the central districts, the Este (with Pedregalejo and El Palo), the coastal strip, and much of the surrounding zone. Properties with an existing VUT that pre-dates the moratorium retain their registration — those are the ones that change hands at a premium. But a property without an existing VUT, inside a frozen district, cannot have one newly issued, full stop.

We check the current moratorium map against every Málaga-city postcode a buyer brings us. The situation evolves month by month, and this is exactly the kind of check that is worth doing before an offer — not after.

The rest of the Costa del Sol, town by town

Marbella Mixed — premium and patchy

No citywide moratorium. Marbella has a long-established tourist-rental market and the licensing pipeline generally functions. The dominant friction in 2026 is the community-of-owners vote, particularly in apartment blocks around Puerto Banús, the Golden Mile and Nueva Andalucía. Purpose-built resort complexes, many older urbanisations, and detached villas are mostly unaffected by the vote. Standard apartment buildings are where most new applications stall.

Benalmádena Largely open

Benalmádena’s housing stock leans heavily towards purpose-built urbanisations and tourist complexes — many of them designed for short-term letting from day one. Those buildings are typically straightforward to register. The friction appears in older apartment blocks in Arroyo de la Miel and central Benalmádena Costa, where the 3/5 vote bites just as it does everywhere else.

Mijas Three different realities in one town

Mijas is really three markets. Mijas Pueblo (the hilltop village) and the rural hinterland are mostly VFT territory — the rural classification under a different decree. Mijas Costa (La Cala, Calahonda, Riviera del Sol) operates more like the rest of the coastal strip, with VUT as the default and the usual community-vote dynamics. Golf resorts across the municipality often have their own rules built into the complex CC&Rs, which can either clear a path or block it entirely. The classification question we covered in the due-diligence checklist matters here more than anywhere.

Fuengirola Dense coastal, vote-dominated

No municipal moratorium. Fuengirola’s central coastal strip is dense apartment-block territory, and the single biggest question for a new purchase is whether the building’s community has already voted — or is likely to. Buildings with pre-existing tourist-rental activity usually have their estatutos settled; newer blocks and residential-mixed buildings are where applications fail.

Estepona Broadly open, still growing

Estepona remains one of the more welcoming municipalities for new VUT applications in 2026. The town has invested heavily in tourism infrastructure and has not introduced a moratorium. New-build developments on the eastern edge towards Cancelada and the golf corridor are often registered straight from the developer, which sidesteps the vote question. Older apartment blocks in the old town centre are subject to the same 3/5 rule as anywhere else.

Torremolinos Established tourist, building-by-building

Torremolinos has been a tourist town for longer than most. Many buildings have long-settled tourist-rental histories and the vote is not in dispute. Others — particularly in residential pockets inland from the beach — have held the vote recently and blocked new registrations. It is a town where two apparently similar apartment buildings on adjacent streets can give opposite answers.

Nerja Smaller, friendly — but the vote still applies

Nerja has no moratorium and an economy that leans heavily on tourism. Most complexes in and around the centre and up the hillsides are receptive to holiday rental. The 3/5 community vote applies here exactly as it does everywhere else — the smaller scale of the buildings often makes votes easier to convene, which can cut either way.

Building types that still work, almost anywhere

Zooming out from geography to structure, these are the building types where a new VUT application in 2026 is most likely to go through:

Purpose-built tourist complexes and resort-style developments where tourist use is baked into the CC&Rs from inception.
Urbanisations (gated or otherwise) whose estatutos already contemplate short-term letting — common along the western coast and in Mijas Costa.
Detached villas and plots not under horizontal property. The 3/5 vote does not apply. A villa’s constraints are municipal-level only.
Adosados and bungalows in tourist-designated zones, provided the community (where one exists) has not voted to restrict.

Building types where applications most often fail

Standard apartment blocks under horizontal property with no prior tourist-rental vote — the largest category on the Costa del Sol, and the one where the 3/5 rule does most of its work.
Buildings where a vote has already gone against short-term lets. Ley Orgánica 1/2025 is not retroactive, so pre-existing registrations are safe; new ones are not available.
Any property inside a Málaga-city district covered by the current moratorium, regardless of building type.
Properties with habitability or cadastral irregularities — even in open zones, these fail on the Junta’s own checks, not on municipal or community ones.

How to read the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía

The Junta de Andalucía maintains a public register of every VUT, Apartamento Turístico and VFT in the region. It is searchable by address and by registration number. This is the first check we run for any buyer who sends us a postcode — it is free, it takes minutes, and it tells you straight away whether you are looking at a rental property or a residential-only one.

Three signals we look for:

Does the property itself have an existing VUT? If yes, what is its classification and is it held by the seller or a prior owner? This is the single most valuable piece of information for a transaction, and it takes minutes to verify.
How many VUTs are already registered on the same street or within the same community? Density is a signal, not a guarantee — but high density usually means the building has an established position on tourist rental, and low density usually means the vote hasn’t happened yet (which can go either way).
What is the classification trend in the immediate zone? A postcode trending towards Apartamentos Turísticos rather than VUT can mean a local operator is consolidating; a postcode full of VFTs means you’re in rural-category territory and the rulebook is different.

What we check on your postcode

We run two levels of check. The first one is free — and most buyers never need more than that.

The free first check Free · no obligation

Send us an address, or even just a postcode. Within a working day we come back with a plain-English answer: open, mixed, or closed, based on the municipal status, any active moratoria, and what the Registro de Turismo de Andalucía says about the property and its neighbours. No fee, no obligation, no long form to fill in. This is how almost every conversation with us begins, and for many buyers it is the only check they need — either the answer is a clear yes, or it is a clear no and they move on to the next listing.

The full pre-purchase check Paid · credited back

If the first answer is open or mixed and you want to move forward with confidence, we go deeper. We reach the administrador de fincas for the community’s most recent position. We verify the habitability certificate against the cadastral description. We check the seller-side VUT cap. We pull the basic operating math. You get a full written report with specific conditions called out, not generalities.

That deeper check runs at a couple of hundred euros — the equivalent of two bookings — and we credit the fee against your first year of property management if you go ahead with the purchase and we manage the property. In other words: if we end up working together on the rental, the exhaustive check is effectively free as well.

First check · free

Thinking of a specific postcode?

Send us an address — or just the postcode. The first check is free and usually comes back within a working day.

Check my postcode →

Or call or WhatsApp +34 628 65 49 96

Day: 12 April 2026

Where You Can Still Get a VUT Licence on the Costa del Sol — and Where You Can’t