Most homes in Mallorca do not have a holiday-rental licence, and most never will. That does not mean the house has to stand empty when you are not in it. It can be let for a month or more at a time, legally, to people who need to be on the island for a while.
Where the line is
In the Balearics, letting a home to visitors for less than a month is a tourist stay. It needs an ETV licence, and without one it is not allowed. Marketing an unlicensed tourist let can be fined heavily, up to €400,000 in serious cases.
Above a month, it is something else: a seasonal lease under Spain’s urban leases act (LAU, article 3). No tourist licence is needed.
Under a month needs a licence. Over a month needs a reason.
Who rents for a month or more
People with a real reason to be here for a while, and a home of their own somewhere else:
- a work project or a posting in Mallorca
- study or research
- medical treatment, for themselves or a family member
- renovating their own house on the island
- buyers who want to live in an area before they buy in it
Palma in particular has steady demand from companies placing people for one to six months.
What keeps it a seasonal lease
A seasonal lease has to answer a real, temporary need, and the tenant keeps their habitual home elsewhere. If the reason is not real, a court can treat the contract as an ordinary residential tenancy, which in Spain runs for five years, or seven when the landlord is a company. That is the risk to manage, and it is managed with paperwork.
In autumn 2026 the government tried to tighten the rule by decree, requiring a documented reason for every seasonal lease (Royal Decree-law 26/2026, in force from 1 October). Congress rejected it on 2 October 2026, so the earlier rules apply again. We work as if the stricter version applied anyway. It costs little, and it protects the owner if the rule comes back.
How we do it
- One seasonal lease, in Spanish and English, that names the reason for the stay and the tenant’s home address, with proof attached.
- Stays of more than a month, marketed as exactly that. Never as holiday nights.
- No chain of back-to-back leases with the same tenant.
- The house checked before and after every stay, and the income paid to the owner with every cost shown.
In a co-owned home
In a co-owned home without a licence, one share’s four weeks are too short for a seasonal lease, so the weeks are not let one by one. The owners can decide together to let the house for a month or more, for example in the quieter months, and share the income by share. That decision belongs to the owners together, in the owners’ agreement.
Where a home does have an ETV licence, its page says so, and the weeks owners do not use can also be let as holiday stays.
This is general information, not legal advice. Rules change, and every lease is written for the home and the stay in question.
