What did the Council of State say about the Single Rental Registry Act (NRA / NRUA)?

Published May 2026 · Reading time: 12 min · By SALAMA LEGAL SLP · Jacob Salama, Lawyer ICAMALAGA 11.294

The Council of State's opinion on the draft Royal Decree creating the Digital One-Stop-Shop for Rentals and the Single Rental Registry —the system known in practice as NRA / NRUA— was unusually harsh.

It is worth recalling, because the Council of State did not confine itself to minor drafting observations. It pointed to very serious structural problems.

In essence, it said that the Government had built a legally very questionable system.

Context: EU Regulation 2024/1028 and Spain's response

Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 April 2024, on the collection and exchange of data relating to short-term accommodation rental services, establishes a common European framework for transparency in the sector. Its full application is scheduled for 20 May 2026.

Spain's response has been articulated through a draft Royal Decree that simultaneously creates the Digital One-Stop-Shop for Rentals (a coordination portal) and a Single Rental Registry (NRA / NRUA) of state-wide scope, hosted functionally within the Association of Property Registrars and connected to the Property Registry.

Before its final approval, the draft was submitted to the mandatory opinion of the Council of State, Spain's highest consultative body. The result was overwhelmingly critical.

The ten critical observations of the Council of State

1. EU Regulation 2024/1028 does not require a single state registry

The Council of State warned that the European Regulation does not necessarily impose a centralised state system, nor does it require all accommodations to go through a new national registry layered on top of existing regional registries.

The European Regulation requires coordination, data exchange and transparency, but leaves Member States free to design the specific system. In other words: the Government presented the rule as if it were practically imposed by Europe, but the Council of State corrected that reading.

2. A serious competence problem: State vs. Autonomous Communities

The draft sought to create a state-wide Single Rental Registry applicable throughout Spain, despite the fact that many autonomous communities already have powers over housing, tourism and administrative registries of holiday-let dwellings.

The Council of State took the view that the State could not justify such regulation solely on its powers over public registries, civil legislation, economic planning or statistics. Indeed, it stated that the procedure designed was administrative and public-control in nature, not properly civil or registry-based.

This matters particularly in Andalusia, where a fully operational Tourism Registry already performs functions materially equivalent to those the new state-level NRA seeks to assume.

3. Improper use of the Property Registry for administrative purposes

This is one of the most important points of the opinion. The Council of State essentially stated that you cannot turn an administrative procedure into a civil-registry matter just by placing it inside the Property Registry.

The real purpose of the system was not to publicise in rem rights nor to protect private relations between individuals, but rather to control an economic activity: short-term renting.

Therefore, in the view of the Council, the proposal was altering the very nature of the Property Registry and using a registry route to sidestep competence problems that openly arise when the administrative character of the inscription is acknowledged.

4. The Royal Decree lacks sufficient regulatory rank

The system imposes new obligations on landlords and platforms: obtaining a registration number, communicating it, updating information, submitting to controls and being exposed to the removal of listings.

The Council of State understood that all of this amounts to genuine administrative activity of regulation or policing, and even to a restriction on the exercise of an economic activity protected by Article 38 of the Spanish Constitution (freedom of enterprise).

And to impose obligations of that kind, a Royal Decree is not, in principle, enough: a sufficient legal authorisation is required, i.e. a norm of legal rank that expressly enables the Government to do so. This is what constitutional doctrine calls the principle of reservation of law.

5. The registration number works as a covert authorisation

Although it is formally called a registration number, in practice without that number the landlord cannot market the dwelling on platforms such as Airbnb, Booking or Vrbo.

The Council of State recalled that enabling registry inscriptions have, for legal purposes, a nature similar to an authorisation. And that reinforces the need for sufficient legal cover, because authorisations conditioning the exercise of an economic activity are particularly protected by the principle of reservation of law and by the EU Services Directive.

6. Problematic duplication with regional registries

Many autonomous communities already require tourism inscription and a registration number for holiday-let dwellings. Andalusia with the Tourism Registry, Catalonia with the HUT, Madrid with the VUT, the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Galicia… every region already has its own system in place.

The Council of State recalled that the European Regulation itself establishes that a unit shall not be subject to more than one registration procedure. Therefore, layering a state registry on top of dwellings already registered at regional level may generate problematic duplication and unnecessary regulatory cost for owners.

7. Technical problems in fitting with the Property Registry

Beyond the substantive issues, the Council of State identified numerous concrete technical problems:

• Inscription in the Property Registry is as a rule voluntary; the system would indirectly force the inscription of unregistered properties wishing to engage in short-term rental
• A tourist unit does not always coincide with a registry plot; they can be distinct realities
• A room may form part of a larger plot, which raises specific identification issues
• The draft envisaged marginal notes without clear legal cover authorising them
• It altered the qualifying function of the registrar, who traditionally examines the validity of private acts and contracts, not administrative acts
• Registrars were to be assigned administrative control duties that do not fit comfortably with their traditional function or legal regime

8. A potentially excessive annual reporting model

The draft required landlords to periodically report information on the rentals carried out.

The Council of State considered that such an obligation could be excessive in its initial form and that, moreover, it shifted to registrars an administrative verification function that does not properly correspond to them. The regulatory burden on owners must be proportionate to the European objective of transparency, not to exhaustive surveillance.

9. Inadequately resolved sanctioning regime

The European Regulation requires Member States to establish effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalty rules. However, the draft did not contain a complete and adequate sanctioning regime.

In addition, the measures of removal or blacklisting of listings had a clearly punitive effect, yet were not sufficiently grounded in a norm of legal rank. That violates the constitutional principle of legality in sanctioning matters under Article 25 of the Spanish Constitution, according to which no one may be sanctioned for acts or omissions not provided for in a legal-rank norm.

10. Premature and unrealistic entry into force

The draft sought to come into force on 2 January 2025. The Council of State noted that it was practically impossible for landlords, platforms and the Administration itself to adapt within a matter of days.

Moreover, it recalled that the European Regulation itself deferred its application until 20 May 2026, precisely to allow an orderly transition. Unilaterally accelerating timetables outside the European calendar lacked justification.

The alternative suggested by the Council of State

The Council of State did not limit itself to criticism. It pointed to a far more prudent alternative respectful of the constitutional distribution of powers:

Such a solution would have respected the distribution of powers, avoided conflict with regional registries, would not have required a strained use of the Property Registry and could have been articulated without the need for express legal authorisation, since it would be limited to an administrative coordination function.

Practical consequences for owners and platforms

The Council of State opinion is not binding on the Government —it is mandatory but does not strictly compel compliance—, but its content provides solid legal arguments for several practical issues:

Appeals against NRA decisions

The Council of State's observations can be invoked as additional argument in appeals against NRA denials or against decisions imposing disproportionate obligations. Administrative courts tend to weigh Council of State opinions as qualified interpretative elements.

Possible constitutional challenges

If the competence and rank observations are not adequately corrected, it is conceivable that the final Royal Decree may be challenged by autonomous communities before the Constitutional Court, or that questions of unconstitutionality may be raised by ordinary courts in concrete proceedings.

Defence against sanctions

Owners and platforms sanctioned under the NRA system can invoke the insufficient regulatory rank of the sanctioning regime as grounds for challenge, with support in the Council of State opinion and in the constitutional principle of sanctioning legality.

Official source: the full opinion

Given the importance of the document, we recommend that anyone wishing to dig deeper reads the full opinion, published in the official BOE database:

In summary: what the Council of State actually said

The Council of State did not simply say «correct a few details». It said something far deeper. In summary:

1. That the State may be overstepping its competences by regulating matters that fall to the autonomous communities;
2. That the Royal Decree lacks sufficient rank to impose many of those obligations, particularly those of a sanctioning nature or limiting economic activity;
3. That the Property Registry is being used for an administrative purpose that does not belong to it, distorting its civil-registry function;
4. That there is a risk of duplication with already consolidated regional registries, contrary to the EU Regulation itself;
5. That the system may be more burdensome than necessary for citizens, infringing the principle of proportionality;
6. And that the design of the Single Rental Registry should be seriously reconsidered towards a coordination model rather than a duplicating one.

This is why, when looking at the NRA / NRUA, it is not enough to see it as just another administrative formality. There is a deep legal debate behind it on competence, regulatory rank, registry duplication, procedural guarantees and the limits of administrative intervention in short-term rentals.

And that debate was not invented by legal practitioners or by affected owners.

The Council of State itself put it down in black and white.

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