DAC7 Platform Reporting in Spain in 2026: What Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo Tell AEAT About Your Rental Income

What is DAC7 and why does it matter for your Spanish rental income?

DAC7 is the shorthand for Council Directive (EU) 2021/514 of 22 March 2021, which amended Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation. It forces digital platform operators to collect information about the sellers using their platforms and report it automatically to tax authorities. Spain transposed it through Ley 13/2023, de 24 de mayo (BOE-A-2023-12204), which added Disposicion Adicional 25 to the Ley General Tributaria (Ley 58/2003), with effect from 1 January 2023. The practical consequence for a non-resident landlord renting out a Costa del Sol property on Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo is that the platform now tells AEAT your gross rental income, your property address and the bank account where the money landed, and it does so without asking you.

This matters because AEAT already receives your Modelo 210 non-resident rental income tax filings (see our non-resident income tax IRNR guide). DAC7 gives the tax authority a second, independent data feed that it can cross-reference against what you self-report. A mismatch between the platform’s gross figure and your Modelo 210 net figure is not evidence of evasion on its own, since EU and EEA resident landlords can deduct expenses, but it is the kind of discrepancy that triggers the risk factors behind an AEAT inspection.

What changed in 2026: DAC8 and the new reporting cycle

A genuine 2026 development is that DAC7 no longer stands alone. Council Directive (EU) 2023/2226 of 17 October 2023, known as DAC8, amended Directive 2011/16/EU before Spain finished transposing DAC7, so Real Decreto 117/2024, de 30 de enero (BOE-A-2024-1771), implements both directives together. DAC8’s headline addition is the automatic exchange of crypto-asset transaction data, which entered into force on 1 January 2026 and falls to crypto-asset service providers, not landlords. But DAC8 also tightened the due diligence and electronic identification rules that platform operators apply to every seller, including property landlords: where a Member State or the EU offers a free electronic identification service, the platform may rely on it to confirm a seller’s identity and residence, and the operator must still collect the data through its due diligence procedures, but the confirmed data does not then have to be reported to the tax authority.

The 2026 reporting cycle is now in its third full year. Platforms filed the 2023 financial year within two months of Orden HAC/72/2024 entering into force, the 2024 financial year by 31 January 2025, and the 2025 financial year by 31 January 2026. The 2026 financial year will be reported by 31 January 2027. If you let a Spanish property through a platform in 2025, AEAT already holds your Modelo 238 record; if you let in 2026, the platform will file that data early in 2027.

What data does the platform send to AEAT about your rentals?

The platform operator, not you, files the report. Under Real Decreto 117/2024, which develops the due diligence rules, and Orden HAC/72/2024, de 1 de febrero (BOE-A-2024-2092), which approves the forms, the platform must report the following for each reportable seller who carried out a relevant activity during the year.

For every seller, whether an individual or a company, the platform reports the identifying information it collected through its due diligence procedures: name and address, tax identification number with the issuing Member State, VAT number where applicable, and, for individuals, date of birth. It also reports the financial account identifier (the IBAN) where the consideration was paid, each Member State in which the seller is resident, the total consideration paid or credited per quarter, the number of relevant activities per quarter, and any commissions, fees, commissions, taxes or similar amounts withheld or collected by the platform.

For property rentals specifically, the platform must additionally report the address of each property, the cadastral reference number (referencia catastral) or its equivalent in other jurisdictions, the number of days each property was rented during the period, and the property type. This is confirmed by the AEAT’s own FAQ page for sellers, last updated 8 July 2026.

Data field	What the platform reports	What you file on Modelo 210
Gross rental income	Total consideration paid or credited, per quarter	Net income after deductible expenses (EU/EEA residents)
Property address	Full address of each listed property	Not filed (Modelo 210 is per taxpayer, not per property)
Cadastral reference	Referencia catastral or equivalent	Not filed
Days rented	Number of days each property was rented	Not filed
Bank account	IBAN where payments were received	Not filed
Commissions	Fees and taxes withheld by the platform	Claimed as a deductible expense
Seller identity	Name, TIN, VAT number, residency Member State	NIE and fiscal residence

The table shows the structural mismatch. The platform reports gross income and the bank account that received it, while your Modelo 210 reports net income after deductions. AEAT can see both sides and reconcile them.

What do Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo each report?

All three are reportable platform operators under DAC7, but their reporting scope differs because of what each platform actually facilitates. The comparison below sets out the practical differences a landlord should understand.

Platform	Reporting scope under DAC7	Property fields reported	Landlord exposure
Airbnb	Short-let residential rentals (its core business)	Address, cadastral reference, days rented, property type, per-quarter income, IBAN	High: every listing is a reportable activity
Booking.com	Hotels, aparthotels and holiday rentals	Same property fields for the holiday-rental segment; hotel rooms are not reportable immovable property rentals	High for the holiday-rental segment; hotels fall under the high-volume exclusion in practice
Vrbo	Holiday home rentals (whole-property)	Same property fields; typically whole-home listings	High: every listing is a reportable activity

The key point is that the platform, not the landlord, decides what is reportable based on the activity it facilitated. A landlord listing the same apartment on all three platforms will appear in three separate Modelo 238 records, and AEAT consolidates them against the single Modelo 210 filing the landlord makes for that property’s income.

Which Spanish tax forms implement DAC7 (and which do not)?

The DAC7 platform reporting system in Spain uses two forms, both approved by Orden HAC/72/2024 (BOE-A-2024-2092):

• Modelo 040 is the census declaration of registration, modification and deregistration in the registry of platform operators. A platform files this when it starts operating in Spain, when its details change, or when it ceases activity.
• Modelo 238 is the annual informative declaration for the communication of information by platform operators. This is the form that carries the seller-level data: income, property addresses, bank accounts, days rented. It replaced the old Modelo 179, the annual informative declaration on the transfer of use of dwellings for tourist purposes, which landlords and intermediaries previously filed themselves.

A common confusion, reinforced by much of the online commentary, is that Modelo 172, 173 and 721 are DAC7 forms. They are not. Modelo 172 is an annual informative declaration on virtual currency balances held by exchanges on behalf of third parties. Modelo 173 is an informative declaration on operations with virtual currencies. Modelo 721 is a declaration on virtual currencies located abroad. All three are crypto-asset reporting forms approved under the broader transparency framework introduced by Ley 13/2023 and subsequent orders (notably Orden HFP/886/2023 and Orden HFP/887/2023), and they have nothing to do with platform operators reporting landlord income. If you read that DAC7 means filing Modelo 172, 173 or 721 as a landlord, that source is conflating two separate reporting regimes.

Who is a reportable seller and who is excluded?

DAC7 defines a reportable seller as any seller who has carried out a relevant activity through a platform during the reporting period. Relevant activities, as listed by the AEAT FAQ, are the sale of goods, the provision of personal services, the leasing or temporary transfer of use of immovable property (residential and commercial, plus parking spaces), and the leasing of any mode of transport. For a short-let landlord, the relevant activity is the temporary transfer of use of immovable property.

The directive carves out certain excluded sellers, and these exclusions matter because they determine whether the platform reports your data at all:

Exclusion category	Threshold	Applies to short-let landlords?
State entities	Any governmental body	No
Listed-company group entities	Share capital traded on a recognised stock exchange	No (unless you are a listed hotel group)
High-volume property rental	More than 2,000 rentals of a single marketed property in the reporting period	No (this is designed for hotel chains and large tour operators)
Casual goods seller	Fewer than 30 sales AND total consideration under EUR 2,000	No (this is for goods, not property rentals)

The property-rental exclusion of more than 2,000 rentals per property per year is the one that catches attention, but it is calibrated for volume operators. A landlord renting out a two-bedroom apartment in Nueva Andalucía or a holiday home in Estepona for 30, 60 or even 150 nights a year is a reportable seller. The platform will collect your details, report your income and list your property.

How does the platform get your information?

The platform operator is legally required to apply due diligence procedures. These include identifying the seller, collecting the required information, verifying it, determining the seller’s Member State of residence and, for property rentals, collecting information on each rented property. The seller has a corresponding obligation to provide the information the platform requests.

If a seller does not provide the required information, the platform must send two reminders. If 60 calendar days pass from the initial request without the information being supplied, the platform must either close the seller’s account and prevent re-registration, or withhold payment of the consideration until the seller complies. This is set out in section 5 of Disposicion Adicional 25 of the Ley General Tributaria.

The platform must also inform each reportable natural-person seller that the information will be provided to the tax authority and transferred to the seller’s Member State of residence, with sufficient advance notice for the seller to exercise data protection rights. This is a notification, not a consent request: the reporting obligation is mandatory.

How does AEAT cross-reference platform data with your Modelo 210?

AEAT receives the Modelo 238 data and shares it with the tax authority of the Member State in which the seller is resident and, for property rentals, with the authority of the State in which the property is located. For a non-resident landlord renting Spanish property, AEAT is both the recipient and the cross-referencing authority.

The cross-reference is straightforward in concept. The platform reports your gross rental income. Your Modelo 210, filed quarterly within the first 20 days of April, July, October and January, reports your net rental income. For EU, Iceland and Norway residents, the 19 per cent IRNR rate applies and deductible expenses can be offset against gross rent. For residents of the rest of the world, the 24 per cent rate applies on gross income with no deductions. If the platform’s gross figure and your Modelo 210 net figure diverge in a way that cannot be explained by documented expenses, the file becomes a candidate for review. Our Modelo 216 withholding guide explains how the payer-side withholding system works alongside Modelo 210.

The Andalusia short-let rules add a further layer. Since the Decreto-ley of February 2025, tourist lets require VFT registration and, where a community of owners exists, a 60 per cent community approval. A platform reporting your rental activity to AEAT also surfaces whether you are letting legally under the VFT short-let rules and the short-let rental tax compliance regime.

A worked example: reconciling a DAC7 report against Modelo 210

Consider a British landlord who let a two-bedroom apartment in Marbella through Airbnb for 120 nights in 2025, generating EUR 24,000 in gross rental income. Airbnb’s platform operator files Modelo 238 by 31 January 2026, reporting EUR 24,000 gross, the apartment’s address and cadastral reference, 120 days rented, and the IBAN where the payouts landed. Because the UK left the EU, the landlord is a non-EU resident and falls under the 24 per cent IRNR rate on gross income with no deductible expenses.

The landlord’s Modelo 210 obligation for 2025 is 24 per cent of EUR 24,000, or EUR 5,760, filed in four quarterly instalments within the first 20 days of April, July, October and January. AEAT’s cross-reference is simple here: the platform’s gross figure and the landlord’s Modelo 210 gross figure should match exactly, because non-EU residents cannot deduct expenses. Any gap, whether from rounding, unreported nights, or a quarter missed, is the kind of discrepancy that surfaces in the reconciliation and can trigger a review.

Now consider the same landlord as a German resident. Germany is in the EU, so the 19 per cent rate applies and deductible expenses (community fees, utilities, cleaning, management, depreciation where allowed) can be offset against gross rent. If the landlord’s documented expenses came to EUR 6,000, the net taxable income is EUR 18,000 and the Modelo 210 liability is 19 per cent of EUR 18,000, or EUR 3,420. AEAT sees the platform’s EUR 24,000 gross figure and the landlord’s EUR 18,000 net figure, and the EUR 6,000 gap must be explained by documented expenses. This is the structural reason a mismatch is not itself evidence of evasion, but it is the starting point for a review.

What are the platform’s obligations and penalties?

The platform operator bears the primary compliance burden. Under Disposicion Adicional 25 of the Ley General Tributaria, sections 2, 3 and 4 establish the infringement and sanction regime for non-compliance with the registration, due diligence and reporting obligations. A platform that fails to register, fails to apply due diligence, or fails to file Modelo 238 faces penalties under the General Tax Law. Non-EU platform operators (those without tax residence in the EU) must register in one EU Member State, and section 6 allows AEAT to deregister a non-compliant operator from the census after two formal demands.

The platform must retain all documentary evidence, records and information used in the due diligence procedures for 10 years following the end of the reference period, and make it available to the tax authority on request.

What should a non-resident short-let landlord do?

The practical steps are simple, even if the legal machinery behind them is not:

1. Declare what the platform reports. Your Modelo 210 quarterly filings should reflect the gross income the platform will report, minus your documented deductible expenses if you are an EU, Iceland or Norway resident. Keep invoices and receipts for every expense you claim.
2. Respond to the platform’s information requests. When Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo asks for your tax identification number, address and property details, provide them. If you do not, the platform is legally required to close your account or withhold your payouts after 60 days and two reminders.
3. Keep your cadastral reference handy. The platform reports the referencia catastral of each property. You can find it on your IBI receipt or on the Catastro Sede Electronica. If the platform cannot obtain it, it will report the address and property type, but providing the reference speeds up AEAT’s reconciliation.
4. Expect cross-referencing, not a new tax. DAC7 does not create a new tax liability. It gives AEAT the data to check that what you file matches what the platform paid you. The risk is not the reporting itself but the gap between the two figures.