What took effect on 15 August
Law 7/2026 is meant to speed up building permits. The passage that matters to landlords sits right at the back: in BOC no. 163 the eleventh final provision carries the heading "Undécima.- Modificación de la Ley 6/2025, de 10 de diciembre, de Ordenación Sostenible del Uso Turístico de Viviendas." Its paragraphs sixteen and seventeen insert two new articles into Law 6/2025. The full text available online breaks off before this provision; its wording is reproduced here from the analysis published by the Mateos Mateos practice on 20 August 2026.
Two triggers, and one is enough
On that analysis the new article 11 presumes a tourist letting in two cases: where the stay lasts 31 days or fewer — expressly including "una o más veces dentro del mismo año", so even once in the year — or where the dwelling is advertised on a tourism portal, whatever the duration. These are alternatives, not conditions that must coincide: a listing is enough on its own, even under a ten-month tenancy, and the 31 days are enough with no listing at all. Article 11.1 expressly allows evidence to the contrary.
What has to happen before signing
The new article 12 requires three steps. First, before signing, the landlord must ask in writing and with a date why the tenant needs temporary accommodation and how that connects to the length of the let. Second, the reason and "su conexión con la duración prevista" must appear expressly in the contract; "for work reasons" does not do it, on this analysis — what is required is the link to the term: three weeks because the locum post lasts three weeks. Third, the supporting documents must be kept, such as an employer's letter, a medical report or a study place.
1,500 euros or 30,000 — the difference is on paper
If the landlord never asked, the circumstances are taken not to be present ("se entenderá que no concurren"): a minor infringement, up to 1,500 euros. If the reason is missing from the contract, the letting counts as an "arrendamiento de naturaleza turística" — a serious infringement, 1,501 to 30,000 euros. And a genuine reason does not repair the defect: a landlord who proves the tenant stayed three weeks for surgery is still in the serious band if the contract does not say so.
The second deadline: 31 July 2027
The same law, on this analysis, deleted the sixth transitional provision of Law 6/2025 — the route back from tourist to residential use — and inserted a new tenth one. Under it every existing holiday dwelling, consolidated ones included, must file the "comunicación previa de actividades clasificadas" by 31 July 2027; miss the date and the activity ceases and the title is extinguished, with nothing grandfathered. All three regimes are affected: consolidated (open-ended, but lost on any residential use), transitional (five years) and ordinary (five years, ten on El Hierro, La Gomera and La Palma).
The argument behind it
The reasoning is in the preamble to Law 6/2025: the growth of dwellings in tourist use is "una de las causas de disminución del potencial mercado de viviendas de carácter permanente". The preamble to Law 7/2026 gives as its purpose marking the holiday dwelling off more clearly from non-tourist housing, as reported by Iustel's Diario del Derecho. The association ASCAV objected on 31 March 2026, when the rule was still an amendment: it encroaches on state competence and catches legitimate cases such as work postings, hospital stays or film shoots.