What Airbnb and Booking report to Hacienda: Modelo 238 (DAC7) and how to keep your holiday-let return consistent

Every January, before you have thought about your own return, the platform you let your Corralejo flat through has already filed one about you. It is called Modelo 238, it exists because of a European directive known as DAC7, and it tells the Spanish tax agency — property by property and quarter by quarter — how much it paid you, how many nights it sold for you, the address and cadastral reference of the flat, and the bank account the money went to. Since the 2025 Renta campaign, that file is what generates the aviso that greets a landlord when the fiscal data open in April. This piece explains what is in it, where it goes, and how to make the three returns a holiday let generates — income tax, the non-resident Modelo 210 and the Canary IGIC — say the same thing the platform said.

The rules of the holiday-let business itself — the registry that fell in May, the Canary law that stands, the community vote — are in our piece on holiday lets in the Canary Islands in 2026. This one is about the data.

Who reports, and since when

DAC7 is the seventh amendment to the EU's tax-cooperation directive. Spain wrote it into the General Tax Act in 2023 — additional provision 25 — and completed it with Royal Decree 117/2024 of 30 January, which rewrote article 54 ter of the tax-procedure regulation, and with the ministerial order of 1 February 2024 that approved the form. The obligation falls on platform operators: the software that puts a host in contact with guests and knows, or can reasonably know, what was paid. Airbnb, Booking, Vrbo and their peers are in; so is any Spanish operator of a booking marketplace. A management agency that simply runs your flat for a fee is not a platform, though it may itself use one.

The calendar has three dates worth knowing. The first return covered 2023 and was filed in February–April 2024, within two months of the order taking effect. From then on the return is annual and is filed in January of the following year — the 2025 data went in between 1 January and 2 February 2026, the 2026 data will go in next January. And from the 2024 tax year the old Modelo 179, the return that intermediaries of holiday lets had filed since 2021, was suppressed: the platform's DAC7 file replaced it for everything that concerns the letting of property.

What is in the file

Article 54 ter lists the content, and for a host it is more detailed than most people assume. For every seller who let a property through the platform during the year:

• Identity: name, main address, tax identification number (the NIE or the home-country number), VAT number if any, and date of birth.
• The money: the total consideration paid or credited in each quarter, and the number of bookings it corresponds to — reported per property, not per host.
• The bank: the financial-account identifier the payouts went to, and the name of the account holder when it is not the host's.
• The property: the address of each property listed and its cadastral reference, the number of days it was let during the year, and the type of property.
• The platform's own cut: every commission, fee, deposit, tax and similar amount it withheld or charged, quarter by quarter.
• Residence: each Member State or partner jurisdiction where the platform has determined the host is resident.

Two definitions in the annex to the royal decree decide how the figures look. Consideration is the amount paid or credited to the seller net of the fees, commissions or taxes the platform withheld — that is, the payout, with the platform's cut reported in a separate box. And the seller thresholds that people quote from the sale of second-hand goods — fewer than thirty sales and no more than €2,000 in the year — apply only to goods. For the letting of property there is no threshold at all: one week let through a platform is reported. The only excluded lessor is a company the platform has served with more than 2,000 bookings on the same address, which is a hotel, not a flat in Caleta de Fuste.

Nor does residence keep anyone out. The regulation reports every active seller who is resident in an EU Member State or who lets a property located in one. A British owner of a Fuerteventura apartment is in the Spanish file by virtue of the apartment.

Where the data go

The file lands at the Spanish tax agency, which uses it in two ways. The first is the Renta campaign: since 2025 the agency includes platform income among the avisos it shows a taxpayer on opening the fiscal data, and the press reported that the April 2026 campaign opened with some 3.5 million such notices, 437,000 of them about platform sales and lettings. The second is quieter and matters more to non-residents: under the same directive the agency passes each host's data to the tax authority of the host's country of residence, automatically, and, in broad terms, the OECD's parallel rules do the same job for the United Kingdom. A German owner's Finanzamt and a British owner's HMRC see the Fuerteventura nights too.

The host has duties of their own in this system. Additional provision 25 of the General Tax Act obliges every seller to give the platform the identification data the due-diligence rules require; giving false, incomplete or inaccurate information, or none, is a tax infringement with a fixed fine of €300. And a host who ignores the platform's request has sixty days from the first message and two reminders; after that the platform must close the account and block a new one, or withhold the payouts until the data arrive. The blank NIE field in a host profile is not a private matter any more.

Making your returns say what the platform said

A holiday let produces three returns, and the file touches all three. The principle is the same in each: the platform reports a net payout per quarter and a number of days; your return must show a gross income, the expenses that explain the difference, and days that add up to 365.

Residents — IRPF. Income from letting a home for short stays is rendimiento del capital inmobiliario, declared in the annual return the following spring. There is no exemption threshold for it: article 96 of the Income Tax Act leaves rental income out of every "need not file" case, so a host with any platform income files unless all their income together stays under €1,000. The gross to declare is what guests paid for the accommodation — the payout plus the platform's fee — and the fee comes back as a deductible expense under article 23, next to community charges, IBI, insurance, repairs, supplies and the 3 % amortisation, all prorated to the days let. The 50 % reduction for long-term letting does not apply to a holiday let, whatever its length. For the days the flat stood empty, the return carries imputed income instead — 2 % of the cadastral value, or 1.1 % where the value was revised recently — for the part of the year not let. The platform's day count is the number the agency will use to check that split.

Non-residents — Modelo 210. The non-resident return follows the same logic with two bases. An owner resident in the EU or the EEA deducts the same expenses as a resident and pays 19 % on the net; an owner resident anywhere else — the United Kingdom included — pays 24 % on the gross, with no expenses at all. The gross, again, is payout plus fee, so a British owner who copies the platform's payout into the 210 has under-declared by exactly the platform's commission. Rental income is filed quarterly until the third quarter of 2026 and annually, between 1 and 20 April, from the 2026 tax year; the imputed income for the empty days is filed in its own window, and from the 2026 tax year that window runs from 1 April to 31 December of the following year. Two different forms, one set of days.

Everyone — IGIC. In the Canaries a holiday let is a supply of accommodation and carries 7 % IGIC, declared to the Canary tax agency on the quarterly Modelo 420 and the annual 425 — the mechanics are in our piece on IGIC versus IVA, including the small-business regime (REPEP) for turnover up to €30,000, which takes the quota out of the picture. The IGIC base is the gross too. A platform payout that does not reconcile with the 420 bases of the same four quarters is the easiest mismatch in the whole system, because the file is quarterly by design.

A worked example: one flat in Corralejo, 120 nights

A two-bedroom flat in Corralejo, cadastral value €60,000, let for 120 nights in 2025 through one platform. Guests paid €14,000 for the accommodation; the platform withheld a €1,400 host fee and paid out €12,600. The Modelo 238 for the flat therefore shows a consideration of €12,600 split over four quarters, fees of €1,400, 120 days, the address, the cadastral reference and the payout account. Other expenses for the year — community, IBI, insurance, supplies, the amortisation of the building — come to €1,900 once prorated to the 120 days. Imputed income for the 245 empty days: €60,000 × 2 % × 245/365 = €805.

• A resident owner declares €14,000 gross, €3,300 of expenses (the fee plus the €1,900), a net of €10,700 with no reduction, and €805 of imputed income. At a marginal rate of 30 % that is about €3,450 of income tax. Declaring the €12,600 payout as gross and forgetting the fee would have cost the same tax on €12,600 minus €1,900 — €10,700 again — so the resident is protected by arithmetic, not by design.
• A German owner files the 210 on the same net of €10,700 at 19 % — €2,033 — plus €805 of imputed income at 19 %, €153. Total: €2,186.
• A British owner files the 210 at 24 % on the gross €14,000 — €3,360 — plus €193 on the imputed income. Total: €3,553. Had she declared the €12,600 payout as her gross, the return would be €336 short and one comparison away from a letter.
• All three owe IGIC on the €14,000 gross — €980 at 7 % — unless the small-business regime applies to them.

When the numbers do not match

The mismatch arrives as a notice in the fiscal data, a requerimiento, or a proposed assessment after a limited check. What it costs depends entirely on who moved first. A host who files or corrects a return late but before any notice pays the surcharge of article 27 of the General Tax Act — 1 % plus 1 % for each full month of delay, or 15 % plus interest after twelve months — and no penalty. Once the agency has written, article 191 applies: a penalty of 50 % of the unpaid tax for a minor infringement, 50 % to 100 % where there is concealment above €3,000, and 100 % to 150 % with fraudulent means. Accepting the assessment cuts the penalty by 30 % and paying it in the voluntary period cuts what is left by a further 40 %. On the British owner's €336 the arithmetic is small; on three years of undeclared nights it is not, and the platform's file reaches back to 2023.

Where we come in

Our tax desks in Caleta de Fuste and Costa Calma reconcile the platform statements with the 210, the Renta and the IGIC returns before they are filed, keep the day count consistent across the three, and correct past years under article 27 while that is still the cheaper route. See our tax advisory and property management services, or book a consultation — we reply within one business day, in your language.

Common questions

Does Airbnb report me to Hacienda if I only let a few weeks a year?

Yes. For the letting of property the reporting rules have no minimum: the thresholds people quote — fewer than thirty sales and €2,000 — apply only to the sale of goods. Every active host who is resident in the EU or lets a property located in the EU is in the platform's Modelo 238, with the payouts per quarter, the days let, the cadastral reference and the payout account.

What exactly does the platform send, and when?

Your identity and tax number, the consideration paid to you in each quarter net of the platform's fees, those fees separately, the number of bookings, the number of days each property was let, its address and cadastral reference, and the bank account the money went to. The return is filed in January for the previous calendar year; the first one covered 2023.

I live in the United Kingdom. Does the file affect me?

Yes, twice. The Spanish file includes you because the property is in Spain, and it feeds the check on your Modelo 210, where a non-EU owner pays 24 % on the gross rent — the payout plus the platform's fee — with no expenses. In broad terms the data also reach HMRC under the OECD's parallel rules for digital platforms.

The platform's figure is lower than what my guests paid. Which one do I declare?

The gross. The platform reports the consideration net of its fees, so its figure is your payout; your return must show what the guests paid for the accommodation and deduct the fee as an expense where the tax allows it — residents and EU or EEA owners can, owners resident elsewhere cannot. Declaring only the payout under-declares a non-EU owner's base by the amount of the fee.

Facts verified in September 2026 (General Tax Act, Law 58/2003, additional provision 25 and articles 27, 188 and 191; Royal Decree 117/2024 of 30 January and its annex; tax-procedure regulation RD 1065/2007, article 54 ter as in force since 1 February 2024; Order HAC/72/2024 of 1 February; Personal Income Tax Act, Law 35/2006, articles 23, 85 and 96; Non-Resident Income Tax Act, RDLeg 5/2004, articles 24.6 and 25.1; the Spanish tax agency's Modelo 238 filing calendar and DAC7 pages). Figures are worked examples; check your own numbers before filing.