A month in Mallorca

Under article 50.13 of Ley 8/2012, the Balearic tourism law, a tourist stay in a home is the whole home let for days or weeks, and no stay may last more than a month. The law counts the month as passed after thirty nights. A 30-night booking in a registered holiday home is therefore a tourist stay; a 31-night booking cannot be one.

A longer furnished let is a seasonal lease, a lease for use other than housing under article 3.2 of the national urban leases law. Homes let through tourist channels under a tourism regime fall outside that law (article 5.e), which is why the 30-night line matters: on one side the tourism rules and the tourist tax apply, on the other the lease law applies. The preamble of the tourist tax law leaves simple seasonal leases without tourist marketing outside the tax.

Palma suits a month with city services and the airport close by. It is also the place where a seasonal lease matters most, because the city's 2018 zoning keeps holiday lets out of apartment buildings. Port de Pollença and Alcúdia suit a month by the northern bays, and Sóller suits walkers. This ranking is editorial.

With a car, street parking in Palma is no solution for weeks: blue ORA spaces inside the avenues allow 2 hours at most, at EUR 1.45 an hour, and the old town's twelve ACIRE areas are for authorised vehicles only. Ask for a lease or booking with a parking space, or budget for a car park. Outside Palma, parking rules for Sóller, Port de Pollença and Alcúdia were not verified; ask the host before signing.

Deposit: the legal cash deposit (fianza) for a seasonal lease is two months' rent under article 36.1 of the lease law. A holiday-home booking of up to 30 nights is not a lease, so the host's or platform's own terms apply instead.

Tourist tax: in a holiday home of up to 30 nights the Balearic tax applies. At the EUR 2 rate for holiday homes, a guest pays EUR 2 a night for the first eight nights and EUR 1 a night from the ninth. From 1 November to 30 April the same stay costs EUR 0.50 and then EUR 0.25 a night. Under 16s pay nothing.

ID: every guest over 14 signs a registration form under Real Decreto 933/2021, and Balearic hosts send the stay data to the police. EU citizens staying longer than three months must apply in person for a registration certificate at the provincial foreigners' office or a police station, within three months of entry.

Visitors from outside the EU may stay 90 days in any 180-day period in the Schengen area. The EU Entry/Exit System, which registers non-EU nationals on short stays in 29 European countries, became fully operational on 10 April 2026.

Airbnb calls stays of 28 nights or more monthly stays: it charges the first month up front and later months 10 days before each period. Agoda lets properties offer a long-stay promotion on bookings of more than 28 days and accepts stays of up to 90 days.

In Mallorca those labels meet the 30-night limit. A 28 to 30 night booking of a registered holiday home fits the law; a longer one should come with a seasonal lease. How far platforms enforce the limit was not verified, so ask the host which contract applies before paying.

A listing with no tourist registration number. Balearic law requires it in every advert.

A holiday let in a flat whose registration is newer than April 2025. No new declarations for flats have been accepted since then, apart from lets of the owner's main home.

A booking of more than 30 nights presented as a holiday let, or a deposit above two months' rent on a seasonal lease.

Planning weeks of street parking in central Palma. Blue spaces allow 2 hours at most.

Miscounting Schengen days, and assuming bills are included in a lease; no reliable source on local practice was found, so ask.