San Sebastian Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a flat in San Sebastian and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that the city never came after the tourist flats that already exist, so the 1,219 dwellings currently sitting on the Basque register can carry on trading exactly as they are. Unfortunately, if yours isn't one of them, the door has been swinging shut since 2023 and it closed properly in January 2026.

The closure came through planning law rather than tourism law, which is why it catches people out. San Sebastian, or Donostia, sits in Gipuzkoa province inside Spain's Basque Country, and two administrations govern the same flat. The Basque Government runs the tourist register, but it only registers you once the city council has confirmed the use is allowed at your address. So the council is the gatekeeper, and the definitive approval of its planning modification on hospedaje uses, expediente MPGOU-2023-0003, went to the January 2026 plenary.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly: which addresses can still qualify in 2026, what the Basque declaración responsable involves, the paperwork behind it, the tax layers plus the provincial one landing in 2027, how hard any of it gets enforced, and who to call. Every figure below comes from the city's, the Basque Government's or the Spanish state's own published texts, checked in July 2026, and where something is still moving I've said so. Run the property through BNBCalc first.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in San Sebastian

That January plenary ended a three-year process rather than springing a surprise, and the steps in between explain why so many owners were caught mid-purchase. The council formulated the modification on 8 March 2023, then took a suspension agreement at the plenary of 30 March, published in the Boletín Oficial de Gipuzkoa on 18 April. Initial approval followed a year later, on 21 March 2024, and that agreement suspended for two years the granting of "toda clase de aprobaciones, autorizaciones y licencias" on residential, industrial, tertiary and equipment parcels.

Then came provisional approval on 30 January 2025, a favourable report from the Basque territorial planning commission on 8 May 2025, and a December 2025 document that went forward for the final vote. Nineteen articles of the plan's general norms were rewritten along the way. None of it arrived overnight.

What the modification does is simpler than its paperwork suggests. In the city's own citizen-participation document, the selected option is Alternativa 3, and its first line reads that new hospedaje uses in any form are not authorised on the residential parcels and buildings of the city's whole urban area. Not the top floor, not the ground floor, not with an independent entrance. Anywhere residential is out.

The same document then splits the city in two.

• Zone 1 is declared saturated, and no new tourist accommodation establishment of any kind can open in it. The list covers El Antiguo-Ondarreta, Centro, Gros and Ibaeta in full, plus the Egia planning areas EG.01 Paseo de Francia, EG.02 Paseo del Urumea and EG.18 Aldunaene. Those are the neighbourhoods most visitors actually want.
• Zone 2 is everything else, where the ban bites on residential parcels while tertiary and community-equipment parcels can still take hospedaje uses, capped at 5% of the total above-ground buildability of the global zone they sit in.
• Catalogued buildings are the one real exception in both zones. A hospedaje use can go in where the owner justifies that it preserves the building's cultural values better than the alternatives, the Consejo Asesor de Planeamiento Municipal reports on it, and the council decides in favour.

Read that list back and you'll see what's left for an ordinary owner, which is close to nothing.

A flat in a residential block cannot become a tourist flat, and no amount of structuring changes a planning classification.

The pressure behind it shows in the city's own numbers. In 2022 San Sebastian counted 1,769 tourist establishments with 18,705 places, and 1,424 of those establishments, 80.5% of them, were tourist dwellings. Centro alone held 784 establishments, 44.8% of the city's total, while the council put tourist and floating population at 9.91 per 100 residents citywide against 29.43 per 100 in Centro. Tourist numbers had risen 85.26% between 2005 and 2019, then another 16.43% by 2022.

Housing policy has been moving the same way. Donostia became the first Basque capital declared a zona de mercado residencial tensionado in May 2025, for an initial three years, which tells you which way the politics runs.

Existing registrations, mercifully, are still trading. Counting the Basque Government's open export of the tourist-dwelling register, updated 11 August 2026, Donostia holds 1,219 registered tourist dwellings with 5,305 places and another 111 registrations for rooms let inside occupied homes, worth 407 places. Set that against the 1,424 dwellings the council counted in 2022 and the legal stock has shrunk by roughly 205 in four years. So the realistic route into this market is buying a property that already carries a live registration, and paying whatever that scarcity is worth.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in San Sebastian

Buying an existing registration only makes sense once you understand how one is created, because the same mechanism decides whether it survives a change of hands. Licensing sits with the Basque Government under Decreto 101/2018, de 3 de julio. There is no licence as such. What you file is a declaración responsable, a sworn statement that you meet the requirements, and article 7 says that filing it completely registers the dwelling in REATE, the Basque register of tourist businesses, and assigns it a registration number straight away.

That number is not the end of it, though. Article 8 opens a verification procedure, and inside it the Basque Government asks your council for a report that is preceptive and binding on four points:

• whether the dwelling is residential and compliant with building rules,
• whether the proposed tourist use conforms to municipal planning,
• what maximum occupancy the council has on file,
• and whether environmental requirements are met.

The council has three months to answer, and silence counts as verification. That second point is where San Sebastian now says no.

Miss on something the decree calls a dato esencial and the consequence is not a fine but the end of the activity. Article 9 gives you fifteen working days to cure the defect, and it puts identity, fire and personal safety, insurance and declared capacity in that category. Fail to fix it and the Basque Government resolves that the activity cannot continue, then cancels the REATE entry. The whole procedure has to be resolved within six months of its start, otherwise it lapses and can be reopened.

Two modalities exist, and the second one trips people up. A vivienda de uso turístico is the whole dwelling let out. Habitaciones en viviendas particulares means letting rooms inside a home you live in, and under article 3 only a natural person can hold that activity, they must be empadronado at the address, and they must keep living there throughout.

Breaking that residence rule is an infracción grave on its own. So do check which of the two a listing you're buying is registered as, because they are not interchangeable.

Whichever modality applies, the physical standards are the same and they're specific:

• Eight places maximum, including anyone living there, with default space ratios of 25 m² for one person, 33 m² for two, and 15 m² per person from three upwards.
• One bathroom per four people, and bedrooms that have natural light, direct ventilation and a door that closes.
• Civil liability insurance of €35,000 per place, kept in force for as long as the entry stays in the register.
• An official plaque outside the building identifying it as a tourist dwelling, and a second one inside next to the door of the flat.
• A fire extinguisher, a first-aid kit, an exit plan and emergency numbers including 112, all near the entrance.
• A telephone line answered from 08:00 to 22:00, seven days a week, so guests can reach someone about the flat.
• Heating in bedrooms, bathrooms, living and dining rooms, bed linen and a set of towels per person, and a clean before every arrival.

Article 20 then requires the REATE number in every act of promotion or marketing, and obliges the listing channels themselves to verify it. One more constraint sits outside tourism law altogether. Article 19 bars the activity where the community of owners' registered statutes expressly prohibit it, so read the deeds first. They outrank your plans.

As the rules stand in 2026 the registration has no expiry date, since Decreto 101/2018 sets no term at all. Keep in mind that this is the piece most likely to change.

The Basque Government's draft new tourism law, announced on 25 February 2026, would make new dwellings renew their registration every five years and would prohibit tourist dwellings in stressed housing zones outright. It went to the Economic and Social Council on 29 June 2026 and still has to clear its reports and then parliament, so don't plan around it yet. A bill in consultation is not a rule.

Required Documents for San Sebastian Short-Term Rentals

Whatever that bill eventually says, today's filing carries no fee at all, according to the Basque Government's own declaración responsable procedure page. So the cost of getting the paperwork wrong is time and professional fees rather than a lost application fee. The list is short, though the technical drawing is the item that needs somebody qualified.

• The official declaración responsable form from Annex I of Decreto 101/2018, filed electronically through the Basque Government's sede or on paper at a territorial delegation.
• A scaled plan drawn by a competent technician, showing useful floor area, layout and the maximum number of places you're declaring.
• Photographs of the façade and the interior good enough to identify the dwelling.
• Proof of your right to use the property, whether as owner, usufructuary, tenant or manager. Where you're not the owner, you also have to show you told them the flat is going into tourist use.
• The civil liability policy at €35,000 per place, with a current premium receipt.
• Evidence of effective residence and padrón registration at the address, but only for the room-letting modality.
• The dwelling's catastral reference and your tax identification number, both of which go on the form itself.

Notice what isn't on that list: anything you file with the council. The municipal report is requested by the Basque Government, not by you, which means the planning answer arrives after you've already paid the technician. Make sure you ask the Dirección de Urbanismo Sostenible about your specific parcel before commissioning anything, because that conversation is free and the drawing is not.

San Sebastian Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming your address clears planning and you're able to start hosting, there's still tax to sort out, and the shape of it differs from most of Spain because a fourth layer arrives in 2027. Three of the layers apply today.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
IVA on letting with no hotel-type services	Exempt	Not applicable
IVA where you provide hotel-type services	10%	Spanish tax administration
Non-resident income tax, EU/EEA owner	19% of net income	Spanish tax administration
Non-resident income tax, other owners	24% of gross income	Spanish tax administration
Gipuzkoa tourist stay tax	From 1 January 2027, rate set by municipal ordinance	The accommodation, from the guest

The VAT line is the one people get backwards. Spain's tax agency treats a plain holiday let, keys and clean linen and nothing else, as exempt from IVA. Start offering the services a hotel offers, meaning daily cleaning during the stay, reception, laundry or meals, and the whole let becomes taxable at the 10% reduced rate. Cleaning between guests doesn't cross that line; cleaning during their stay does.

Income tax then splits by where you live. A resident owner declares rental income as rendimientos del capital inmobiliario, and the 60% reduction that applies to ordinary long-term housing lets does not apply to tourist lets. A non-resident owner pays under article 25.1.a) of the non-resident income tax act, at 19% for residents of the EU, Iceland and Norway, who can deduct expenses, and 24% of gross income for everyone else, who cannot. That gap is large enough to change a purchase decision on its own.

Now the new one. Norma Foral 3/2026, de 12 de junio created a tourist stay tax for every municipality in Gipuzkoa. It was published in the Boletín Oficial de Gipuzkoa of 17 June 2026, came into force the following day, and takes effect from 1 January 2027.

The guest is the taxpayer, though you do the work. The accommodation charges the tax and files the self-assessment, and the base is counted in stay units with a maximum of five per person per continuous stay. Tourist dwellings and room lets both sit inside its scope.

Rates, discounts and surcharges are left to each town's fiscal ordinance, with maximum rates applying where a council hasn't approved one. San Sebastian had not published its ordinance when I checked in July 2026, so nobody can quote you a per-night figure yet.

One practical warning about all of this. Airbnb does not collect or remit accommodation tax anywhere in Spain, since the country doesn't appear on its list of places where it handles occupancy taxes, so from 2027 the collecting and remitting is on you. What the platforms do report is your income: modelo 179 was abolished from tax year 2024 and replaced by modelo 238, the Spanish implementation of the EU's DAC7 rules, which platforms file annually on their sellers.

Spain Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Those platform reporting duties are national rather than Basque, and so are four other rules that reach into every San Sebastian let. The biggest change of the last year, though, is a rule that no longer exists.

Spain tried to build a single national rental registry through Real Decreto 1312/2024, which took effect on 1 July 2025 and had hosts obtaining a número de registro from the Colegio de Registradores. The Tribunal Supremo then annulled the registration machinery in three judgments in May and June 2026, on the grounds that the state lacked the competence to create it, and articles 5, 8, 9 and 10 of the consolidated decree now read "(Anulado)".

The digital single window survives. The national number does not, and be aware that some official pages have not caught up, including the Basque Government's own REATE page, which was still pointing hosts at the registradores when I read it in July 2026. For a San Sebastian listing the REATE number is the only one that matters.

• Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 has applied since 20 May 2026. It doesn't create a registration scheme, but where one exists it obliges platforms to make hosts display that registration number clearly in the listing, and it puts data-sharing duties on the platforms themselves.
• Real Decreto 933/2021 makes you report your guests to the Interior Ministry. Traveller data goes through the SES.HOSPEDAJES platform within 24 hours, and the register is kept for three years. This one is easy to forget and easy for an inspector to check.
• Your neighbours can vote your business out. Article 17.12 of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal lets a three-fifths majority of owners and quotas approve, limit, condition or prohibit tourist letting in the building, and the same majority can add up to 20% to your share of common expenses. It has no retroactive effect, so an existing activity survives a later vote, but any new one does not.
• The Basque decree reaches further than it used to. Decreto 52/2025, de 25 de febrero removed the carve-out that kept rurally located dwellings outside Decreto 101/2018, giving affected owners six months to file and comply.

There's one more definitional point worth carrying with you, because it decides whether any of this applies. Article 2 of Decreto 101/2018 presumes the activity is habitual, and therefore regulated, if you advertise through a tourist channel at all, or if you let the place for a continuous period of 31 days or less, twice or more within the same year. Longer seasonal lets, arranged outside the tourist channels, fall under ordinary rental law instead, which is where a fair amount of former Airbnb inventory in the city has gone.

Does San Sebastian Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

That drift towards longer lets happened for a reason, and enforcement is most of it. Yes, San Sebastian checks, though what makes it work is structural rather than a matter of political will.

Every legal dwelling carries a REATE number, the register is published as open data down to street address and capacity, and the number has to appear in every advertisement. So a listing without one identifies itself, and since May 2026 the EU regulation has pushed the platforms into displaying it too. Anyone can cross-check a listing against the register in about a minute, which is a long way from complaint-driven inspection.

The Basque Government has been using that. In October 2025 it reported revoking roughly 500 illegal tourist-dwelling registrations and taking down more than 700 unlawful listings through the consumer service Kontsumobide, alongside a data-sharing agreement with the Colegio de Registradores giving inspectors property and cadastral records. Tourist dwellings amount to about 0.5% of Basque housing stock, and the enforcement effort is out of all proportion to that share.

The penalties come from the Ley 13/2016 de Turismo. Article 27 defines advertising or running a tourist activity without having filed the declaración responsable as illegal offer and clandestine activity, and article 94 makes clandestine provision of a tourist service an infracción grave. Article 100 then sets the bands: up to €10,000 for a minor infraction, €10,001 to €100,000 for a serious one, and €100,001 to €600,000 for a very serious one, with reincidencia doubling whatever applies.

The money is not the worst of it. Article 101 adds accessory sanctions on top, including losing the effects of your declaración responsable, suspension for one or two years, and closure for two to five years or permanently in the worst cases.

The register's own numbers show the moratorium biting. Going through the REATE export year by year, Donostia added 119 new tourist-dwelling entries in 2023, then 41 in 2024, 18 in 2025, and none dated 2026.

The pipeline is closed.

That is the clearest signal in the whole guide, so watch out for anyone selling you a San Sebastian flat on the promise that a licence can be arranged afterwards.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in San Sebastian

Since no licence can be arranged after the fact, the order below still matters more than it looks, and step one will end the exercise for most addresses. Working through it out of sequence mostly wastes money on technicians.

1. Check the planning classification of your parcel first. Ask the Dirección de Urbanismo Sostenible whether a hospedaje use is authorised at that address under the modified plan. A residential parcel anywhere in the urban area is a no, and Zone 1 is a no even outside residential parcels.
2. If you're buying, verify the seller's registration rather than their story. Look the address up in the open REATE export, confirm the modality and the declared capacity, and confirm the entry is live.
3. Read the community's statutes at the Land Registry. An express prohibition registered there ends the plan, and a three-fifths vote can impose one on any activity that hasn't started.
4. Measure the flat against the physical standards. Eight places maximum, one bathroom per four people, the space ratios, ventilation and a door on every bedroom. Fixing these afterwards is expensive.
5. Buy the liability policy at €35,000 per place and keep the receipt, since a lapse in cover counts as a dato esencial and can cost you the registration rather than earning a fine.
6. Commission the scaled plan and take the photographs, then file the declaración responsable through the Basque Government's sede electrónica. There's no fee.
7. Expect the verification procedure, not a rubber stamp. The council gets three months for its binding report, the Basque Government has six months to resolve, and an inspection visit is possible at any point.
8. Put the number and the plaques up on day one. The REATE number goes in every advertisement, one plaque goes outside the building and another inside next to your door.
9. Set up the guest reporting before your first arrival. SES.HOSPEDAJES within 24 hours of check-in, records kept three years, and a phone line answered 08:00 to 22:00 daily.
10. Diarise 1 January 2027 for the Gipuzkoa stay tax, and watch for San Sebastian's fiscal ordinance setting the rate.

Who to Contact in San Sebastian about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever of those steps you get stuck on, three offices cover almost all of it, and knowing which one owns your question saves a lot of time on hold.

Planning, zoning and whether the use is allowed at all

The Dirección de Urbanismo Sostenible of the Ayuntamiento de Donostia / San Sebastián handles the plan, the hospedaje modification and the binding report that decides your case.

• Address: San Martin 48, 20005 Donostia / San Sebastián
• Phone: 010 from within the city, or 943 483838
• Expediente reference for the modification: MPGOU-2023-0003

General council enquiries and appointments

Udalinfo is the council's front desk and the place to book an appointment with a department.

• Phone: 010 free from within the city, or (+34) 943 481 000
• Hours: 09:00 to 14:00 and 16:00 to 18:00, Monday to Friday, with afternoon opening only at the Ijentea office
• Offices: Ijentea 1, entrance from the Boulevard; rotonda de Morlans 1; plaza de Harrobieta 17, Altza
• Online: the Buzón de la Ciudadanía takes written queries and answers by email

The council recommends booking an appointment rather than turning up, and it says so on that same page.

The tourist register, the declaración responsable and inspections

The Basque Government's Dirección de Turismo y Hostelería runs REATE and the verification procedure. For a San Sebastian property you want the Gipuzkoa territorial office.

• Address: Easo 10, 20006 Donostia-San Sebastián
• Phone: 943 02 25 64
• Email: [email protected]
• Filing: electronically through the Basque Government's sede electrónica, or on paper at that office

Tax

Income tax and IVA questions go to the Spanish tax agency through its published channels, while the tourist stay tax arriving in 2027 belongs to the Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa, whose Hacienda department published Norma Foral 3/2026 and its effective date. The rate itself will come from a San Sebastian municipal ordinance, so ask the council about the number once it exists.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in San Sebastian on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

Because that register is public and the January decision was covered heavily in the local press, the mood among owners here is unusually well informed. What follows is my reading of the recurring themes in public discussion and industry commentary rather than any kind of survey, so do weigh it accordingly.

• Foreign investors have mostly stopped treating San Sebastian as an entry market. The thing people want, a furnished flat in Gros or Centro let by the night, is exactly what the plan removed, and there's no structure or company that gets around a planning classification.
• Existing registrations are being talked about as an asset in their own right. A fixed pool of 1,219 dwellings that shrinks rather than grows, in a city with this much demand, is a scarcity story, and I'd expect it to keep showing up in what a registered flat sells for.
• The community vote is the risk owners underestimate most. Owners who clear planning and the register can still lose to a three-fifths majority of their neighbours, and the same meeting can add 20% to their common expenses.
• Almost nobody argues any more that the rules go unenforced. Five hundred revocations and seven hundred listings pulled ended that debate. What people argue about now is whether the trade-off between tourism and housing has been struck in the right place, which is a different conversation.

Take the second point seriously if you're pricing a purchase, because it cuts both ways. Scarcity supports the resale value of a compliant flat, yet it also means you're paying a premium up front for a permission the city has decided to stop issuing.

That premium is a real number, so check it against what the property can actually earn. The San Sebastian market shows what listings in the city are taking before any of these rules touch your specific address, and running the same flat through BNBCalc on a long-let assumption gives you the comparison that usually decides it.

Whatever city you end up buying in, the lesson from Donostia holds. A permission that can be withdrawn from future owners but not from current ones stops being paperwork and starts being the asset, and that is worth pricing before the furniture is.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in San Sebastian in 2026?

Only if the dwelling already holds a Basque tourist registration. San Sebastian's planning modification on hospedaje uses, taken to definitive approval at the January 2026 plenary, does not authorise new tourist accommodation on residential parcels anywhere in the city's urban area, and declares Antiguo-Ondarreta, Centro, Gros, Ibaeta and parts of Egia saturated. Dwellings registered before the change continue to operate, and 1,219 of them were on the register in August 2026.

How much does a tourist rental registration cost in San Sebastian?

The declaración responsable itself is free. The Basque Government charges no fee to file it or to enter the dwelling in REATE. Real costs sit elsewhere: a scaled plan drawn by a competent technician, civil liability insurance at a minimum of €35,000 per place, the official plaques, safety equipment, and any building work needed to meet the space and bathroom ratios in Decreto 101/2018.

What happens if you rent a San Sebastian flat on Airbnb without registering?

Advertising or operating without filing the declaración responsable counts as clandestine activity under article 27 of the Basque tourism law, and article 94 classes it as a serious infraction. Fines for a serious infraction run from €10,001 to €100,000, doubling on repetition, and accessory sanctions include suspension of the activity and closure. In practice the listing is usually removed first, because the registration number must appear in every advertisement.

Is there a tourist tax in San Sebastian?

Not yet. Gipuzkoa approved Norma Foral 3/2026 on 12 June 2026, published in the provincial gazette on 17 June, and it takes effect on 1 January 2027. From that date the guest pays a stay tax, the accommodation collects it and files the self-assessment, and a maximum of five stay units per person counts for any continuous stay. Each municipality sets its own rate by fiscal ordinance, and San Sebastian had not published one as of July 2026.

Can you rent a room in your own San Sebastian home to tourists?

That modality exists, but it is not a workaround. Under Decreto 101/2018 only a natural person may hold it, they must be registered on the padrón and actually living in the dwelling for as long as the activity runs, and losing that residence is a serious infraction. It also needs the same municipal planning conformity as a whole-flat let, which is what the 2026 modification withdrew for residential parcels. Donostia had 111 such registrations in August 2026.

Last verified: July 2026. Every ordinance, tax rate, state law, and contact detail in this guide links to or comes from its official source.