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The 2028 decree explained: timeline, what is confirmed and what is not

A Barcelona street with balconies and Eixample façades

Status as of 8 October 2026. This page sets out what the law says, what the institutions have decided and the dates, with sources. We will update it whenever something changes.

What Decree-law 3/2023 says

Decree-law 3/2023 of 7 November, on urgent measures regarding the planning regime of tourist-use dwellings, was published in the DOGC (the Catalan official gazette) on 8 November 2023 and came into force the next day, 9 November 2023. It establishes four things:

  • In 262 Catalan municipalities with housing-access problems, or at risk of imbalance from the concentration of tourist apartments, putting a dwelling to tourist use requires a municipal planning licence. Until then, registration in the Catalan Tourism Register was enough.
  • This licence lasts five years and is renewable for periods of the same length.
  • No municipality may grant more licences than result from applying a ceiling of ten tourist dwellings per hundred inhabitants.
  • Apartments that already held a licence have five years from the entry into force to obtain the planning licence or cease the activity. That is where the date of 9 November 2028 comes from.

The decree also allows a single extension of the transitional period, of up to five more years, if the holder proves to the municipality that the transitional regime does not compensate for the loss of the licence. The request can only be made once four years have passed, and before the initial period ends. The municipality decides.

What Barcelona has decided

In June 2024 the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, announced that the city will neither grant nor renew any tourist-use licence. The roughly ten thousand existing licences expire in November 2028, and the apartments move to residential use.

This means that, in Barcelona, the extension the decree provides for exists on paper, but the City Council has said in advance what its answer will be. Cornellà de Llobregat has announced the same decision.

What the Constitutional Court has said

The Constitutional Court ruled on the constitutional challenge to the decree in judgment 64/2025 of 13 March. It dismissed it: the decree does not affect the essential content of the right to property, but regulates one specific use of a dwelling according to whether it is compatible with planning rules, and the five-year transitional regime is compensatory in nature.

With this judgment, the legal framework for 2028 is settled.

The timeline, date by date

  • 7 November 2023. The Catalan Government approves Decree-law 3/2023.
  • 8 November 2023. Publication in the DOGC.
  • 9 November 2023. Entry into force. The five-year transitional period begins.
  • June 2024. Barcelona City Council announces it will neither grant nor renew any licence.
  • 13 March 2025. The Constitutional Court dismisses the challenge to the decree (judgment 64/2025).
  • 1 January 2026. Law 11/2025 comes into force, regulating seasonal letting in Catalunya and requiring the purpose of every contract to be stated and documented.
  • 9 November 2027. The window opens to request an extension of the transitional period, in municipalities willing to grant one.
  • 9 November 2028. The transitional period ends. In Barcelona, HUT licences cease to have effect.

What is confirmed and what is not

Confirmed:

  • The decree, the date of 9 November 2028 and the Constitutional Court’s judgment.
  • Barcelona City Council’s decision to neither grant nor renew licences.
  • The line between tourist use and seasonal letting: up to 31 nights is tourist use; from 32 nights it is not.

Still in the hands of the institutions:

  • How the City Council will handle, case by case, the extension requests filed from November 2027.
  • How inspection and the policing of listings will be organised once the date has passed.

Rental regulation in Catalunya is changing. We follow every change closely and, when any of these lines stops being true, we will update it and inform the owners who work with us.

What does not change

  • Seasonal letting needs no tourist licence. From 32 nights, an apartment can be let on a seasonal contract. Since 1 January 2026 the contract must state and document the purpose: for leisure or holidays, with the tenant’s habitual residence elsewhere, the rent can be set freely; where the stay covers a housing need, the reference price applies. We explain it in “Letting your apartment monthly without a tourist licence”.
  • The owners’ association can only restrict tourist use, by a four-fifths majority (article 553-26 of the Civil Code of Catalunya). Seasonal letting needs no vote.
  • Adverts only need the HUT number. The national rental register procedure was annulled by the Supreme Court; there is no other number to apply for.

Sources

  • Decree-law 3/2023 of 7 November, on urgent measures regarding the planning regime of tourist-use dwellings (DOGC of 8 November 2023; BOE-A-2024-281).
  • Constitutional Court judgment 64/2025 of 13 March (BOE-A-2025-7430).
  • Law 11/2025 on urgent housing measures (DOGC of 31 December 2025), which adds article 66 bis to Law 18/2007 on the right to housing.
  • Civil Code of Catalunya, article 553-26.

What to do with all this as an owner: the guide for owners of tourist apartments.

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