Ley de Municipios Turísticos de Canarias

The Canary Islands Parliament passed the Ley de Municipios Turísticos de Canarias on 8 July 2026 by 63 votes to nil, with 3 Vox deputies abstaining, closing a regulatory gap open since 1993. The law creates two binding tourist-municipality categories that trigger automatically on fixed thresholds, so a town's obligations follow its visitor load rather than a council's choice.

The high-volume tier, turístico de excelencia, activates when registered tourist beds pass 5 times the resident population, reach 4,000 beds, or when five-star capacity exceeds 10 per cent of the population; on the archipelago's greener, less-developed islands the trigger drops to 3 times the population or 2,000 beds. It counts beds on the tourism register, not annual arrivals. The distinctive-asset tier, turístico de singularidad, applies where a town holds at least two Singular tourist assets and tourism exceeds 5 per cent of the local economy. Crossing either threshold brings statutory planning duties, sustainable-mobility measures and public-service funding tied to visitor numbers.

Adeje, Arona and San Bartolomé de Tirajana clear the bed and ratio bars comfortably, pending regional verification. The law arrives days after Spain's Tribunal Supremo voided the national short-term-rental registry on federalism grounds , a ruling that coincided with national STR inventory falling 12.4 per cent to 329,764 listings . By legislating at regional and municipal level, the Canaries route around the competence problem that sank Madrid's tool.