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This article provides a general overview on regional laws and regulations that may affect hosts in Basque Country. Besides these laws, municipalities may have approved zoning regulations and/or restrictions that can impact your activity. You’re required to make sure that you follow the laws and regulations that may apply to your specific circumstances and locality.
We recommend that you do your own research, as this article isn’t comprehensive, and doesn’t constitute legal or tax advice. Also, as we don’t update this article in real time, check each source and make sure that the information provided hasn’t recently changed. Consult with your legal and/or tax advisor for your specific case.
The Regional Government of the Basque Country has specific regulations for tourist accommodations. According to the Regional Decree on the matter, “tourist accommodations” are understood to be those properties that are offered, advertised, or temporarily made available in their entirety as accommodation for tourist purposes, on a repeated or regular basis, in exchange for a price, and under conditions of immediate availability.
Tourist accommodations in the Basque Country will need to be offered as an entire place (single unit).
All tourist accommodations rented out for less than thirty-one (31) days, two (2) or more times within the same year, must comply with the obligations and requirements foreseen in the regulation mentioned above. Otherwise, it will fall under a different category of accommodation, such as a “seasonal rental."
Also, the Basque Country regulation foresees tourist accommodations in rooms within private houses (“alojamientos en habitaciones de vivienda particular”), understood as tourist accommodations, as defined above, that are offered, advertised, or made available by rooms by the host (who is required to live in the property while it's rented out).
In the Basque Country, you need to register any accommodation that you plan to offer as a tourist accommodation, either as a tourist accommodation or as a tourist-use accommodation in a private house within the Tourism Register of the Basque Country. As part of the process, you will first need to submit a statement of responsibility to the correspondent General Directory that declares compliance with current regulations and any other requirements foreseen at regional and local levels.
After you successfully complete the registration process, a registration number will be assigned to your tourist accommodation (Example: ELL00000).
To become familiar with specific requirements, obligations, or any other relevant topics you should be aware of as a host, you can refer to the Frequently Asked Questions provided by the Regional Government of The Basque Country.
In order to host in Spain, you may have an obligation to obtain a national registration number with the Property Registry and display it when listing your properties on Airbnb.
Review this article for further information on your national registration obligations and other relevant topics.
The Basque Country requires you to display your registration number, as well as the conditions regarding the reservation policy, on any form of advertisement for your tourist accommodations, including Airbnb. There’s a field that you can use to include your registration number in the Listing details section.
To learn more about Basque Country tourist-accommodation regulations that may be applicable to you or to your own property, you can contact the Territorial Delegation of Tourism, Commerce, and Consumption.
We're committed to working with the local authorities to make the regulations clearer in the context of a collaborative economy, and to help them keep in mind the benefits of Airbnb to our community. Whenever necessary, we will continue to defend any changes to allow private individuals to rent their dwellings.