Balearic tourist tax: what holiday rental owners must pay

If you rent out a holiday apartment or finca on Mallorca with an ETV licence, you are not the debtor of the Balearic Tourist Tax, but rather its collection agent: the guest pays, you collect it and pass it on to the Balearic tax authority ATIB. This role as sustituto del contribuyente brings its own obligations – from the correct calculation per day of stay, through the low-season bonus, to the timely self-assessment. In this guide you'll learn which rate actually applies to holiday rentals (viviendas turísticas de vacaciones), how discounts for the low season and long-stay guests can be combined, how often you need to report to ATIB, and why instalment payment is explicitly not provided for with this tax. At the end you'll find a checklist as well as the honest current status of the reform under discussion.

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What is the ITS – and why does it affect you as a landlord?

The official name of the levy is Impuesto sobre Estancias Turísticas (ITS), colloquially known as the Ecotasa. Its legal basis is Ley 2/2016, in force since 1 July 2016, applicable across all four inhabited Balearic islands. For holiday landlords with a valid ETV licence, the decisive rate is set out in Art. 13.1: it applies per guest and per day of stay commenced, regardless of whether you rent out directly or through a property management company. If you don't yet hold a licence or want to transfer an existing one, you'll find the basics in our guide to the ETV licence Mallorca.

Note: The ITS is an autonomous tax of the Balearics, not a national levy. There are no municipal surcharges – the rate is uniform across the whole island.

The rate for holiday landlords: Art. 13.1 at a glance

The table below shows the complete statutory rate schedule. For the target audience of this guide, the row for Viviendas turísticas de vacaciones is the most relevant – but comparing it with hotels and apartamentos turísticos helps you sanity-check your own rate.

Note: If rural hotels, agrotourism establishments, guesthouses or inland tourism properties have opted for a star classification, the rate for that star category applies under Art. 13.5, rather than the flat-rate line – this mainly affects larger agrotourism businesses with a hotel classification.

The off-season discount: 75 percent less, fixed by law

Under Art. 13.2 a) in conjunction with Art. 13.3, the cuota íntegra for stays in the off-season is reduced by 75 percent. This off-season is not just administrative practice, but legally defined:

For an ETV property, this means: only a quarter of the high-season rate is due in the off-season. This discount applies automatically based on the calendar date, regardless of the actual weather or occupancy of your accommodation.

Long-stay guests: the additional discount from the ninth day

In addition to the low-season allowance, Art. 13.2 provides for a second reduction: 50 per cent on the ninth and every subsequent day, provided the stay in the same establishment exceeds eight days.

Important for the calculation: The two allowances are cumulative, not alternative. The long-stay reduction of 50 per cent is applied to the amount that has already been reduced by the low-season allowance, if applicable – not to the original full rate.

How is a "day" calculated? The twelve-hour rule

According to Art. 12, a day of stay is the period from 12.00 noon to 12.00 noon the following day; for cruise ships, each 24-hour period from the start of the stay applies. A detail that is missing from many abbreviated accounts: Shorter stays already count as a full day as soon as they exceed twelve hours. So if one guest checks out in the morning and a new one only moves in late in the afternoon, this can become relevant for billing – if in doubt, check every check-in/check-out time against this twelve-hour threshold.

Your obligations as a landlord: collecting, remitting, reporting

The central point for holiday landlords is found in Art. 14: You are the sustituto del contribuyente – the guest owes the tax, you collect it and pay it over. Legally, it's not "your" tax, but it is your administrative duty, and the ATIB holds you responsible for it.

How often you file depends on the taxation procedure you've chosen:

1. Calculate the amount per guest and stay-day using the applicable rates and bonifications.
2. Collect the amount from the guest (typically on arrival or departure).
3. Keep records of guest numbers, length of stay, and amounts collected.
4. Submit the self-assessment at the chosen frequency (quarterly or annually) to the ATIB.
5. With estimación objetiva, also remember the advance payment in September.

If a property management company organises your holiday rental, it often also handles the settlement of the tourist tax in practice – one more reason to look for experience with ETV properties when choosing a provider. You can find suitable providers in the Property management directory. You can also read more about the ongoing management of your holiday property in the guide Property Management Mallorca.

What happens if you don't file (on time)?

If you don't submit a self-assessment, the ATIB is not obliged to wait for your filing: it can set the tax ex officio based on the modules of the estimation procedure (estimación objetiva). In practice, this means a flat-rate assessment is made, which, if in doubt, may turn out higher than your actual occupancy.

Attention – a point missing from many guides: Under Art. 14.6, deferral and instalment payment are expressly excluded for the ITS. Applications for deferral are not accepted for processing, and their mere submission prevents neither the commencement nor the continuation of enforcement proceedings. So don't rely on being able to arrange instalment payments with the ATIB – this option does not exist for this tax.

The state of the reform: what was proposed and what actually applies

In March 2025, the Balearic government proposed an increase in tourist tax rates. This proposal required parliamentary approval and has still not come into force to this day. The consolidated version of Ley 2/2016 in the BOE still shows Art. 13 as at 31 December 2022, in force since 1 January 2023 – there is no more recent version of the rates. Should you read on other portals about an increase that has already been decided, new amounts for 2027, or a halving instead of the statutory 75 percent bonus: check this information critically. For your ongoing accounting as a landlord, the rates and bonuses mentioned in this guide currently apply unchanged.

Most common mistakes when settling accounts

• Discounts not combined: The low-season and long-stay bonuses are calculated separately instead of consecutively.
• Twelve-hour rule ignored: Short transitional stays are wrongly not counted as a full day, or conversely wrongly charged twice.
• Wrong procedure chosen: Landlords report annually, even though under the standard regime (estimación directa) they should actually file quarterly.
• Hoped for a deferral: An application for instalment payment is not processed for the ITS and does not halt enforcement – unlike with some other Spanish taxes.
• Taken reform reports at face value: Announced but not yet decided tariff increases are adopted into one's own price communication to guests.

Checklist for holiday landlords

What comes next?

Besides the tourist tax, as a holiday let owner you are generally also subject to further ongoing obligations: guest reporting via the state reporting system, and taxation of the rental income itself. These topics are deliberately not part of this guide, so that the ITS isn't mixed up with other levies – for that, take a look at our guides on Guest reporting SES.Hospedajes, on VAT on holiday letting and on Taxation of rental income as a non-resident. You can also find a general overview of the Ecotasa from a holidaymaker's perspective in the guide Tourist tax Mallorca (Ecotasa).

Conclusion

As a holiday let owner with an ETV licence, you are responsible for the tourist tax without bearing it economically: you calculate the statutory rate of 2 euros per person per day, apply the low-season and long-stay bonifications correctly and cumulatively, count days of stay according to the twelve-hour rule, and file with the ATIB at the appropriate frequency. Deferral is not an option with this tax – all the more reason for clean, ongoing accounting rather than subsequent corrections. The proposed increase currently under discussion is so far only a proposal, not applicable law; until a legislative amendment is published in the BOE, the rates stated here remain unchanged.

Official sources

• Ley 2/2016, de 30 de mayo, de Impuesto sobre Estancias Turísticas – consolidated version: https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2016-4175
• ATIB – Agència Tributària de les Illes Balears: https://www.atib.es/
• Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE): https://www.boe.es