The Supreme Court You have landed a decisive blow against the model of centralised control of the Holiday Homes in Spain. In his Judgment No. 620/2026, delivered on 19 May by the Contentious-Administrative Chamber, the high court annuls the precepts of the Royal Decree 1312/2024 which they created Register of Short-Term Leases, considering that the State lacks the competence to impose a national system that overlaps with existing regional registers.
The judgment partially upholds the appeal lodged by the Generalitat Valenciana, which had the backing of the Junta de Andalucía and the Government of the Canary Islands. The ruling is surgical: it does not annul the decree in its entirety, but exclusively the precepts that frame the single registration itself, including the obligation to obtain a state registration number to advertise housing on platforms such as Airbnb o Booking. What remains in force are the provisions relating to the single digital gateway, the data transmission obligations of online platforms, and the exchange of information for statistical purposes.
The Supreme Court's legal reasoning is compelling. The court considers that the Ministry of Housing it went far beyond establishing common ground: it regulated in a «detailed» the entire registration procedure, from the required documentation to the automatic assignment of a registration number and error correction mechanisms. This level of detail, in the magistrates' opinion, exceeds the state's economic and tourism responsibilities. The ruling also dismisses the argument of European transposition: the Regulation (EU) 2024/1028, claimed as a cover by the Executive, does not require the registration system to be nationwide, nor does it alter the internal distribution of powers within each Member State.
The legal appraisal of the lawyer Juan Ramón Méndez Martos Summarise the four vectors that led to the annulment:
- Invasion and overreach of state powers into regional ones regarding tourism.
- Duplicate records, with overlap on systems already operational in various communities.
- Limitations to Market Unit Guarantee.
- Attribution of a public-law nature to Land Registries, which lack that administrative character.
Political reactions reflect the depth of the institutional conflict. The Ministry of Housing defends that the registration brought to light more than 110,000 illegal rental contracts —26.000 only in Andalusia— and which, during their validity, were registered 258,000 tourist flats y 83,000 seasonal rentals. Official sources are now shifting responsibility to the autonomous communities, urging them to «speed up checks and inspections.» From Valencia, the regional minister Marián Cano He claimed the immediate enforcement of the sentence and the opening of a new stage of institutional dialogue.
For the sector of Flexible Accommodation, the ruling opens up a scenario of greater regulatory fragmentation in the short term: operators and platforms will have to navigate between disparate regional frameworks, without the reference of a single registration number. The challenge that remains on the table is the same one that the Supreme Court acknowledges as legitimate: to articulate effective coordination mechanisms between administrations that identify assets and owners, but without that coordination leading to unconstitutional centralisation. How to solve that equation —and within what timeframe— will determine the next phase of the regulation of Flexible Accommodation in Spain.
