Building Licence Fee Mallorca

How much does the building permit cost in Mallorca?

The building licence fee in Mallorca is, in truth, not one levy but two: the municipal construction tax ICIO (Impuesto sobre Construcciones, Instalaciones y Obras — tax on constructions, installations and works) and, alongside it, your municipality's processing fee for the building permit, the tasa por licencia urbanística. A tasa is, under Spanish tax law, a fee for a specific administrative service, not a tax — it covers the town hall's costs for review and decision.

Both items are calculated based on the construction value, and both are set by the Ajuntament — the town hall of your municipality — in its own fiscal ordinance, the ordenanza fiscal. What you ultimately pay therefore depends less on Spanish law than on which of the island's municipalities your property is located in. The calculator above does the searching for you: it draws on the rates that are verifiably documented for your municipality, and states openly if no evidence is available for either of the two items.

How it's calculated

The most expensive mistake happens right at the first step. The assessment base is not your builder's quoted price, but the pure construction cost value — in Spanish coste de ejecución material, usually listed in your architect's documents as presupuesto de ejecución material (PEM): the estimated costs of the pure building work. Explicitly not included are:

• the Spanish VAT (IVA),
• the fees of the architect, site supervisor and other specialist planners,
• the builder's contractor profit,
• and the municipal fee itself.

Anyone who enters the total price from the building contract will therefore systematically calculate too high a figure. Take the number from the proyecto, not from the invoice.

From there, the calculation proceeds in this order:

• Construction value (PEM) × municipal tax rate = cuota íntegra, the full tax liability before any deductions. Each municipality sets its own rate; the law only imposes an upper limit of 4%.
• Construction value (PEM) × municipal fee tariff = tasa. Many bylaws set a minimum amount for this, which applies to small projects.
• Offsetting, where the bylaw provides for it: Some municipalities deduct part of the fee paid from the tax. The deduction is calculated based on the fee paid, not on the tax liability — this is the point where most rough calculations found online diverge.
• Bonificación — a reduction in the tax — only applies afterwards, if the bylaw, as in Palma, explicitly mandates the offsetting beforehand. The order is not set out in the law but in the respective ordenanza fiscal; it noticeably changes the result.

The tax can be reduced to zero through the offsetting, but never below that. The fee remains unaffected by this — it is offset against the tax, not waived. For municipalities whose bylaw does not provide for offsetting, it simply does not exist; the calculator does not invent it either.

Calculation examples

Rather than typing out figures here that would be outdated by tomorrow, the calculator above runs through the examples itself: a project in a municipality with offsetting, one in a municipality without it, and a case where only the tax rate is documented but not the fee tariff. Click on them — each example calculation shows you all the intermediate steps, i.e. the assessment basis, the full tax liability, the fee, the offsetting and the final amount. This way you can see directly which step makes the difference for your own project.

Special cases

Reductions (bonificaciones). The law allows municipalities several reductions on the tax but does not obligate them to grant any of them. Whether they exist in your municipality, under what conditions, and whether several apply together, is decided solely by the ordenanza fiscal. The statutory maximum rates are generous: up to 95% for construction projects that the municipal council declares to be of special municipal interest, up to 95% for the installation of systems to use solar energy, up to 90% for measures to improve accessibility, and up to 90% for electric vehicle charging points. These reductions build on one another: each one is applied to the result of the previous one. So don't assume that the highest individual rate is a statutory upper limit — what is actually possible, and whether several reductions apply together, is determined by your municipality's bylaw, not by the law.

Smaller projects without a formal building permit. Not every project requires a licencia de obras, the formal building permit. For simpler works, a comunicación previa — a prior notification to the town hall — or a declaración responsable often suffices, a self-declaration in which you confirm under your own responsibility that all requirements are met. This spares you the approval procedure, but not the levies: the tax still arises in this case too, and the municipality may also charge a fee for checking the notification.

Building without a licence. A widespread misconception is that no tax arises without a granted permit. The law states the opposite: the tax arises the moment building work begins — even if the corresponding permit was never applied for or has not yet been granted. The relevant date is therefore the start of construction, not the decision and not the turn of the year. That's why the calculator asks for the date construction began and reads the municipal rates applicable on that exact day: bylaws change, and the version in force at the start of construction applies to your project. Incidentally, the tax liability is the smallest problem with building without a licence — the town-planning consequences are not.

Deadlines and forms

There is no single island-wide form: both the tax and the fee are handled through the town hall of your municipality, and each municipality has its own forms, its own portals and its own payment deadlines. What is the same everywhere is the two-stage process.

First, the provisional assessment. When the permit is granted, the notification is received, or — if neither exists — construction begins, the municipality sets a provisional amount. This is based on the cost estimate you submit, provided it has been checked (visado) by the relevant professional body, or on a flat-rate module value if the bylaw provides for this. Many municipalities require this by way of self-assessment (autoliquidación): you calculate the amount yourself, submit the declaration and pay the amount — it is only checked afterwards.

Then the final assessment. Once construction is complete, the town hall checks the actual building costs incurred. If they are higher than estimated, an additional payment is demanded; if they are lower, a refund is issued. This subsequent review is the reason why clean final invoices pay off: it is the point at which you can still correct the municipality's assessment with supporting documents. Keep the building contract, amendments and final invoices together in such a way that the pure building cost value can be derived from them without dispute.

Exactly when payment is due and with which form is set out in the bylaw and the information sheet of your municipality. If in doubt, ask the Ajuntament directly about the applicable ordenanza fiscal — it is public and is published in the Official Gazette of the Balearic Islands.

Legal basis and status

The framework for both charges is set out in the Spanish local finance law, the Texto Refundido de la Ley Reguladora de las Haciendas Locales (TRLRHL, Real Decreto Legislativo 2/2004):

• Art. 100 — what is taxed at all, even without a granted permit.
• Art. 101 — who owes the tax.
• Art. 102 — the assessment base as a pure construction cost value, the tax rate with a statutory upper limit, and when the tax arises at the start of construction.
• Art. 103 — collection in two stages, the possible reductions, and the offsetting of the fee against the tax.
• Art. 20 and 24 — the basis for the municipal fee and the rule that its revenue may not exceed the cost of the service.

The specific rates aren't set out in this law itself but in the bylaws of each individual municipality. The values in the calculator are documented separately for each municipality from the respective published ordenanza fiscal; where no source is available, the calculator shows no figure rather than estimating one. Palma, for instance, has since late October 2025 been offsetting part of the fee paid against the tax — following the revision of its bylaws, and there explicitly before the reductions are applied. This is permitted under Art. 103.3 TRLRHL; no municipality is obliged to do so.

Status of this page: September 2026. It does not replace advice from a gestoría, a tax adviser, or your architect — it's meant to give you a reliable ballpark figure before you go into a conversation.

Frequently asked questions

Related calculators

The charges around the building permit are a one-off — after that, the ongoing costs begin. What your finished building costs the municipality year after year can be worked out with the calculator for IBI, the Spanish property tax; this too is set individually by each municipality, and here too it's worth checking your own municipality's bylaws.

If the land purchase is still ahead of you, notarisation and registration in the land registry belong in the same planning stage: the calculator for notary and land registry costs shows you what adds up in the purchase itself, before the first digger even arrives.