The Málaga city apartment market in 2026 — growth and the VUT moratorium

Q: What did Málaga decide about tourist rental licences in 2025?

In August 2025 Málaga City Council approved a city-wide moratorium of up to three years on granting new tourist-use (VUT) licences, under the Andalusian Decreto-Ley 1/2025. It runs until the revised PGOU urban plan is approved or the three years elapse. Properties already holding a valid VUT licence before the moratorium are grandfathered and may keep operating; long-term residential letting is unaffected.

Málaga is not a resort, and its property market does not behave like one. It is the sixth-largest city in Spain, a provincial capital of some 590,000 residents, with a real year-round economy, a fast-growing technology sector, a university and a port. Apartments here are bought to live in as much as to let, and that changes everything about how the market reads. This piece sets out where we see the city market in 2026 and devotes most of its length to the single biggest change buyers need to understand: the August 2025 freeze on new tourist-rental licences.

Where we cite numbers, the source is either a public series — INE, the Registradores de la Propiedad, Mitma, or Banco de España — or our own portfolio observation, flagged as such. We don't invent figures.

The direction of travel

Two structural forces have been pushing Málaga-city prices upward for several years. The first is demand: foreign net migration has accounted for the overwhelming majority of the city's recent population growth, and the technology cluster — Google's cyber centre, plus Oracle, IBM, Vodafone, Accenture and others — has added a layer of well-paid, internationally mobile residents who want to live centrally. The second is supply: the Centro Histórico and the eastern coastal barrios are physically constrained, and very little new central stock comes to market.

The result, in our experience, is a market where well-located central and coastal apartments sell quickly and the genuine constraint is finding the right unit, not financing it. Public price indices for the province have continued to point upward through recent quarters; treat any single headline percentage with caution, as municipal-level figures are noisier than province-level ones. Our broader read across the coast sits in the Q1 2026 market report.

The August 2025 moratorium — what was actually decided

In August 2025 Málaga City Council approved a city-wide moratorium of up to three years on granting new tourist-use (VUT) licences. The legal basis is the Andalusian Decreto-Ley 1/2025, which lets municipalities suspend the issuing of tourist-rental licences, either across the whole city or in selected zones, where they judge it necessary. Málaga chose the whole city.

The headline points, as we understand them:

It is city-wide, not limited to a few saturated districts.
It runs for up to three years, or until the revised PGOU — the general urban plan that reorders tourist versus residential use — is approved, whichever comes first.
No new VUT licences are being granted during the freeze, save for narrow exceptions such as applications already in process before it took effect.
Existing VUTs are grandfathered. A property holding a valid tourist licence granted before the moratorium may keep operating, provided it stays compliant.
Long-term residential letting is entirely unaffected. The freeze touches short-stay tourist licences only.

This followed earlier, narrower measures — a block on licences for properties without an independent entrance, and a ban on new tourist rentals in dozens of neighbourhoods where they already exceeded a set share of the housing stock. The 2025 decision generalised that approach to the whole municipality.

What it means for investors

The moratorium has, in effect, split the Málaga apartment market into two. An apartment that already holds a valid, transferable VUT licence is now a meaningfully scarcer asset than an identical flat without one, because no new licences are being created. For a short-let-focused investor, the licence has become part of what you are buying, not a formality to arrange afterwards.

Two practical consequences follow. First, verify the licence rigorously and independently before committing — confirm it is current, correctly registered and genuinely transferable; do not take a seller's word for it. Second, do not buy an unlicensed Málaga apartment on the assumption that you will obtain a tourist licence later. During the freeze, you will not. If short-let income is essential to your case, restrict your search to existing-licence stock, and budget for the premium that scarcity now attaches to it.

What it means for the rest of the market

For the much larger group of buyers — those buying to live in Málaga, to keep a long-term residence, or to let on standard residential contracts — the moratorium changes little directly, and may even help. The policy's stated intent is to return apartments to the residential market, which over time should ease the supply pressure that has made central long-term rentals so tight. Owner-occupiers and long-let landlords are buying into a clearer, less speculative market than the one of two years ago.

It also subtly rewards the lifestyle buyer over the yield-chaser. Málaga's appeal was never primarily as a holiday-let arbitrage; it is a genuinely liveable city. The moratorium nudges the market back toward that reality. For the costs of holding an apartment as a resident or long-let landlord, see our cost of owning guide.

How to buy into this market sensibly

Our standing advice for Málaga city in 2026: be clear about which market you are in. If you are an owner-occupier or long-term-let buyer, focus on the apartment, the building and the barrio — the licence question is irrelevant to you. If short-let income is central, treat the existing VUT licence as a hard, verified requirement and accept that the universe of eligible stock is now finite and priced accordingly. In both cases, due diligence on the comunidad accounts and the building's condition matters as much as ever.

To start, browse our current Málaga apartment listings or send us a brief and we'll come back with a hand-picked shortlist that respects whichever of the two markets you're actually in.

Three questions buyers actually ask

What did Málaga decide about tourist rental licences in 2025?

In August 2025 the City Council approved a city-wide moratorium of up to three years on granting new tourist-use (VUT) licences, under the Andalusian Decreto-Ley 1/2025. It runs until the revised PGOU urban plan is approved or the three years elapse. Properties already holding a valid VUT licence before the moratorium are grandfathered; long-term residential letting is unaffected.

Can I still buy a Málaga apartment to rent to tourists?

Only if it already holds a valid VUT licence granted before the moratorium, since no new licences are being issued city-wide during the freeze. An apartment with an existing, transferable licence is therefore worth meaningfully more to a short-let investor than an identical unlicensed flat. Always verify the licence status independently before committing.

Does the moratorium affect long-term rentals or owner-occupiers?

No. The freeze applies to new short-stay tourist-use (VUT) licences only. Buying to live in, or to let on a standard long-term residential contract, is entirely unaffected. If anything, the policy is intended to return stock to the long-term residential and owner-occupier markets.

The Málaga city apartment market — 2026.

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