Spain Re-Enacts Its Housing Decrees and Extends the Fund Purchase Ban to 2030

Spain's government re-enacted its two housing decrees on 6 October 2026, four days after Congress voted both down, and used the second attempt to extend the ban on residential purchases by investment funds and large holders from 2028 to 31 December 2030. Real Decreto-ley 29/2026 was published in the Boletin Oficial del Estado on 7 October and took effect on 8 October. Its companion, Real Decreto-ley 28/2026, was deliberately written not to take effect on publication.

What it means for a foreign buyer

If you own a Spanish property you let to holidaymakers, your tax position changes on 1 December 2026. From that date a furnished home rented to the same tenant for thirty nights or less carries 10 percent VAT, unless the property is your habitual residence. The trigger is the length of the individual let, not your residency status or how many properties you hold, so a single non-resident owner with one apartment is inside the regime from day one. A council in a designated stressed residential market can also now add an IBI surcharge of up to 50 percent on a home used for tourist accommodation, rising to 100 percent at two or more such properties and 150 percent at four or more. Price your 2027 season on the new figures, and check your municipality's stressed-market designation before assuming the surcharge does not reach you.

If you are buying rather than letting, the relevant change is the extended prohibition on acquisitions by investment funds and by owners of more than ten homes, which now runs to the end of 2030 rather than 2028. That removes a class of competing bidder for another two years, and closes the exit route for anyone expecting to sell a small portfolio to an institutional buyer. The one piece of this package that is not yet law is the tenancy side: Real Decreto-ley 28/2026, which governs stability and automatic extension of residential leases, only applies if the Diputacion Permanente validates it before 15 November 2026, and the arithmetic there is tight.

Treat the whole package as provisional until the validation votes are counted.

What changed

The pair of decrees the cabinet approved on 29 September fell in Congress on 2 October. Real Decreto-ley 26/2026 was rejected by 178 votes to 172, and Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 by 184 to 166. Both lost their legal effect on that vote, annulling the package gazetted on 30 September.

The replacements are not identical. The purchase ban aimed at investment funds and large holders, previously running to 2028, now runs to 31 December 2030, and large holders are defined as owners of more than ten homes. Tenants gain an income tax deduction on rent paid, worth roughly 1,000 euros a year on an average 800-euro monthly rent. The government attached 280 million euros in guarantees for industrialised housing and 400 million for social housing providers, and announced Tu Casa, a 10 billion euro facility of interest-free loans covering up to 20 percent of a purchase price, capped at 50,000 euros over ten years and administered through the ICO.

The measures carried over intact are the ones already in force. Annual rent updates falling between entry into force and 31 December 2027 are blocked where the rent already exceeds the maximum under the reference price index system; otherwise the increase is whatever the parties agree, and absent agreement it cannot exceed 2 percent. Evictions of vulnerable households with no housing alternative are suspended until 31 December 2030, with any individual suspension capped at three years.

The mechanism

Real Decreto-ley 29/2026, de 6 de octubre, is titled urgent measures for the protection of the social function of housing and the expansion of affordable housing supply, and appeared in BOE num. 249 on 7 October 2026. Article 7 amends Ley 37/1992, the Spanish VAT act, to apply the reduced 10 percent rate to short furnished lets from 1 December 2026. Article 8 amends article 72 of the consolidated local finance act, the TRLRHL, to create the tourist-accommodation IBI surcharges. Article 2 carries the eviction suspension.

The instrument matters here more than usual. A decree-law takes effect on publication but must be validated by parliament, and the Cortes were dissolved for the election called for 29 November. Validation therefore falls to the Diputacion Permanente, a standing body of 69 members in which the government bloc holds 35 seats against 34 for the opposition grouping of PP, Vox and Junts. Because that margin is one vote, the government wrote Real Decreto-ley 28/2026 to commence only on validation and set its entry into force at 15 November 2026, rather than let a second rejection strike down rules that had already been applied.

Context

Spain has no general bar on foreign ownership, and the much-discussed 100 percent surcharge on non-EU buyers has never been enacted. What foreign owners face instead is a thickening layer of use-based taxation: stressed-market zones that unlock rent ceilings and IBI surcharges, regional tourist-let licensing, and now a national VAT charge keyed to the length of each booking. The golden visa route closed in 2025, so residency no longer attaches to a purchase, and the underlying ownership rules for foreigners are unchanged by this week's decrees. The tax treatment of a Spanish home now depends more on how it is used and where it sits than on who owns it.