Buying a hospitality business on the Costa del Sol: what you are actually buying

You are shown a bar-restaurant on the seafront promenade in Fuengirola: 90 m² inside, ten tables outside, a fitted kitchen and €385,000 of annual turnover. The asking price for the traspaso is €165,000. The business throws off around €59,000 of EBITDA, so you are paying less than three times earnings. It looks cheap.

The lease has twenty-six months left to run. The landlord is entitled to raise the rent by 20% the moment you notify him of the assignment. The current owner works sixty hours a week and pays himself nothing. And the pavement-terrace permit — those ten tables that are half of July’s takings — is personal to the holder in several town halls on this coast, and has to be applied for again from scratch.

That is the problem with a traspaso. The Spanish word has no clean English equivalent: it is not a business sale in the Anglo-Saxon sense, because you never own the premises. You are buying four separate things wrapped in a single price — a lease, an administrative title to trade, a fit-out, and goodwill — and each one can fail on its own, under different laws, different deadlines and different town halls. This guide shows you how to separate them, price each one, and spot why an expensive traspaso is usually expensive for the wrong reason.

If what you are weighing up is buying the premises rather than taking over the business, start with the complete guide to buying property on the Costa del Sol and with taxes on buying property in Andalusia. Here, the premises stay in someone else’s name.

What a traspaso is in law

Traspaso is a market word, not a figure in the Spanish Civil Code. Behind it sit two contracts signed at once: the assignment of the lease and the sale of an economic unit — fittings, equipment, stock, contracts, staff and goodwill. The single advertised price mixes the two. And there are three ways into a hospitality business in Spain, each with different risk and different tax treatment.

Route in	What you acquire	Main risk	Tax on the deal
Traspaso	The tenant’s position, fit-out, stock, staff and goodwill. The premises stay with the landlord	The lease running out, or the licence heading not covering the actual activity	Outside the scope of VAT if it is an autonomous economic unit (article 7.1 of Law 37/1992)
Buying the premises	Freehold of the unit. It arrives empty and with no trading title in your name	Paying trading-premises prices for a unit you will have to licence from scratch	Resale: 7% transfer tax (ITP) in Andalusia (article 41 of Law 5/2021)
Buying the company’s shares	The whole company, with its lease, its titles, its tax number and its history	You inherit every liability, including those not on the balance sheet	Generally exempt, but demands full corporate due diligence

The third route is sold to foreign buyers as «cleaner», because nothing has to be put into a new name. It is the opposite: in an ordinary traspaso you choose which contracts you take on; buying the company you take all of them, including guarantees signed eight years ago and the open planning enforcement file. If the seller insists on selling the company rather than the business, treat that as a signal, not a convenience.

There is one case where you do end up buying the premises: if the landlord sells and you exercise the pre-emption right (tanteo y retracto) that article 31 LAU gives a commercial tenant. Then the valuation question changes entirely, and it is worth understanding the difference between a formal appraisal, a market valuation and the cadastral value — three numbers that are never the same in Spain.

The lease: where the price is really decided

Assignment, and the 20% nobody deducts

Hospitality premises without a lease are empty premises, so the first document you read is not the profit and loss account: it is the lease in full, with every annex and addendum. Article 32.1 LAU allows the tenant to assign the lease without the landlord’s consent where a business is carried on. That sounds like a free hand. It is not, for two reasons.

First: leases for uses other than housing are governed, under article 4.3, by what the parties agreed. Title III — where article 32 lives — only applies in the absence of agreement. If your lease bans assignment or makes it subject to express authorisation, that clause wins, and assigning in breach of it is grounds for automatic termination (article 35). In hospitality, that ban is common.

Second: even where assignment is free, article 32.2 entitles the landlord to raise the rent by 20% on assignment or a full sublet, and by 10% on a partial sublet, and article 32.4 requires notification by certified means within one month. On a rent of €2,400 a month, that 20% is €5,760 less profit every year, for as long as the lease lasts. Nor can you dodge it by restructuring the company: article 32.3 says a merger or demerger is not treated as an assignment, but the landlord keeps the right to the increase.

Years remaining, indexation and guarantees

The years left on the lease move the price more than anything else, and are the worst-communicated figure in the whole deal. A working rule: the remaining term should be at least twice the time you need to recover the traspaso out of adjusted profit. If payback takes four years, anything under eight years remaining is a one-way ticket.

Indexation is widely misunderstood by foreign buyers. Article 18 LAU, which governs rent updates, sits in Title II — residential — and article 30 does not import it into the commercial regime. On business premises the rent is indexed however the parties agreed, and only if they agreed. The new reference index created by Law 12/2023 does not apply either: the eleventh additional provision of the LAU restricts it to residential tenancies. If the lease says CPI, it is CPI; if it says nothing, there is no automatic increase at all.

Article 36.1 is mandatory and sets the deposit at two months’ rent for non-residential leases. The part that surprises British and Northern European buyers: the statutory cap on additional security applies only to residential lettings, so on commercial premises there is no cap. Hence the bank guarantees of six, nine and twelve months’ rent. Count that guarantee as part of your entry cost: a €165,000 traspaso with a nine-month guarantee on €2,400 rent is €165,000 plus €21,600 tied up. Check too who gets the lodged deposit back; usually the outgoing tenant takes it and you have to put up a fresh one.

The landlord may also take a percentage of the traspaso price if the lease says so — a common clause in older leases. For him that share is property income (article 22 of Law 35/2006, confirmed by binding ruling V0103-08 of the Directorate-General for Taxation), with 19% withheld when the payer is a business; for the outgoing tenant it is deducted from his capital gain. Finally, look for the waiver of article 34, which almost every modern lease contains and which article 4.4 permits: without it you would be entitled to compensation of one month’s rent per year of lease, capped at eighteen months, if the lease ends by expiry of its term. Whether a bar counts as «retail activity open to the public» is disputed, so do not build it into your numbers.

The trading licence: what transfers and what does not

There is no opening licence any more — and the declaration does not transfer

Article 7.1.a of Decree 155/2018 of the Andalusian regional government is explicit: opening a permanent public entertainment establishment is subject, as a general rule, to filing a declaración responsable with the town hall. This is a self-certification: you declare under your own responsibility that the premises comply, you file it, and you may trade from that same day. A bar, a restaurant or a pub does not apply for an opening licence at all.

And article 2.4 of Law 13/1999 on Public Entertainment and Recreational Activities in Andalusia makes authorisations transferable. A declaración responsable is not one. At the negotiating table that means: you are not buying a piece of paper that changes name; you are buying premises capable of supporting your own declaration. What you inherit is the physical and legal fitness of the unit — certified sound insulation, calculated capacity, the planning title of occupation, installations compliant with the Spanish Building Code — and that is what has to be verified. Two related rules: article 10.4 requires a fresh declaration if the establishment has been closed for more than six months, and any change to the declared conditions — extending the kitchen, adding music, adding live performance — also requires a new title.

Bar, bar with kitchen, restaurant: a distinction that no longer exists

Decree 155/2018 repealed the old 2002 nomenclature and with it the commercial categories. In Andalusia «bar», «café-bar», «cafetería», «restaurante», «pub» and «bar with music» no longer exist as legal headings. Hospitality is classified into three types, and the test is not the kitchen or the capacity: it is amplified music and the minimum age for entry. A full-kitchen restaurant and a tapas bar with no kitchen sit in the same heading if neither has a sound system. What changes is not the menu: it is the closing time, the decibels of insulation demanded of you, and what the compulsory insurance costs.

Heading (Decree 155/2018)	What it is	Old equivalent	Latest closing	Minimum insulation	Liability cover (capacity 51–100)
III.2.7.a) Hospitality without music	No sound reproduction or amplification equipment	Restaurants, bars, cafés, self-service, kiosk-bars	02:00 (03:00 Fri, Sat and eve of a public holiday)	60 dBA	€375,000
III.2.7.b) Hospitality with music	Sound equipment in fixed, enclosed, covered space. Minors admitted	Created in 2018; no equivalent	02:00 (03:00 at weekends)	65 dBA plus 40 dBA at the façade	€375,000
III.2.7.c) Special hospitality with music	With music and entry banned to under-16s	Pubs and music bars	03:00 (04:00 at weekends)	65 dBA plus 40 dBA at the façade	€451,000
III.2.8.a) Entertainment venues	With a dance floor. Dancing is prohibited in hospitality premises	Nightclubs and dance halls	06:00 (07:00 at weekends)	75 dBA plus 55 dBA at the façade	€451,000

Opening hours: articles 17 and 18 of Decree 155/2018. Insulation: article 32 and Table X of Decree 50/2025, which approved the Andalusian acoustic quality regulation and repealed Decree 6/2012 on 24 March 2025. Insurance: annex to Decree 109/2005. If a report quotes the Order of 25 March 2002 for opening hours, it is out of date: Decree 155/2018 repealed it. And on the «summer hours» everyone assumes exist, there is no general one-hour seasonal extension in Andalusian law. What exists is the tourist-municipality regime of article 25, which allows special extended hours on the operator’s application and after consulting neighbouring residents — but an operator on special hours loses the weekend extension. They do not stack.

Sound insulation and the bar that «has always had music»

This is the most expensive hidden defect in hospitality deals. The premises are declared as hospitality without music, but there have been speakers for three years and a guitarist on Fridays. It works because nobody has complained. The day you buy, the problem becomes yours.

Moving from no music to music means raising insulation from 60 to 65 dBA and adding 40 dBA at the façade, with an acoustic test and certification before you can trade (articles 41, 44 and 48 of Decree 50/2025), plus a sound limiter-controller-recorder if the equipment can exceed 85 dBA — a threshold town halls may lower — with a calibrated microphone, sealed cabling, a reading logged every five minutes and kept for over a year, and annual verification. Those technical requirements have been enforceable since 24 March 2026. Re-insulating costs in the same order of magnitude as a mid-quality refurbishment, with the difference that it adds nothing to the value: it only brings you back inside the law.

The penalties are not symbolic. Exceeding noise limits in an acoustically saturated zone is a very serious offence whatever the size of the excess, with fines from €12,001 to €300,000 and closure for two to five years. And live performance, which on this coast is simply assumed, is only permitted in «small-format» form and must be expressly stated in the declaration (article 14 of Decree 155/2018).

The pavement terrace: the asset that actually pays on this coast

In a bar in Benalmádena or Estepona, the terrace can be half the real capacity and well over half the season’s takings. It is also the asset with the most fragile legal life, and the one bought with the least care.

Occupying the public highway requires a municipal licence and compliance with the local by-law (article 11 of Decree 155/2018), subject to two regional limits that cannot be waived: the terrace may not exceed the establishment’s own hours, and no food or drink may be served after 02:00, with clearing within thirty minutes (article 22). Music on terraces is prohibited as a general rule; town halls may authorise it for up to four months a year, or six in coastal municipalities with tourist-municipality status. Everything else is decided by the town hall, and the differences between neighbouring towns are enormous. The single question to ask before you sign is: does the terrace permit travel with the business, or must it be applied for again?

Municipality	Does it transfer with the business?	Public highway occupation fee	Note
Málaga city	Not transferable, with a bridge: once the change of holder is notified, the new holder may use it until the granted period expires	Annual by street category: €87.80 / €69.71 / €51.61 / €33.52 per m². Seasonal from €28.90/m²	Saturated acoustic zones in the Centre, Teatinos and Huelin. In the Centre, extension of terraces is suspended
Marbella	Yes if transferred together with the establishment’s own permits (article 7) — but article 9.a calls them non-transferable. The by-law contradicts itself	Annual, five categories: €62.44 / €35.97 / €28.71 / €25.90 / €16.43 per m²	Excludes port land, so Puerto Banús follows a separate regime
Fuengirola	Yes: the change of holder must be simultaneous with that of the establishment (article 23), although the fiscal by-law calls the permits personal	Annual, no awning: €72.31 / €42.83 / €22.70 per m². With awning: €79.54 / €47.11 / €24.97	Renewal by self-certified declaration before 31 January
Torremolinos	Not automatically. It is personal; a change of holder must be justified «in order to obtain a new authorisation»	Monthly. Annual: €5.90 / €5.29 / €4.26 per m². Seasonal: €7.99 / €7.00 / €5.79	Application every October. Glazed or anchored enclosures prohibited
Benalmádena	Yes, the clearest drafting on the coast: permits transfer with the planning licences and cannot be assigned separately (article 24)	Monthly. High and low season: €4.81 / €2.41 per m² in the special category; €2.41 / €1.21 in the third	New 2025 by-law, with a 3-to-6-year adaptation moratorium
Estepona	Not automatic. The 2012 by-law is silent; the platform by-law requires notification and makes both holders jointly liable	Per table with four chairs: €34.20 a year, or €48.00 on a platform. Flat rate	Maximum 25 tables and one per 4 m². Hours 08:00–02:00
Mijas	No. «Personal and non-transferable», operation by third parties prohibited, revocable at any time	€18.00 per m² per year or season. Unauthorised excess at €31.10 per m²	Automatic renewal if fees are up to date
Nerja	No. Transfer is not regulated and all permits lapse on 31 December: in practice you reapply	Monthly, not pro-rated. High and low: €15.20 / €8.55 per m² in the special category. Unlicensed, quadruple	The annual permit is applied for before 15 December
Rincón de la Victoria	Personal, but with an express procedure: the change of holder must be filed within three months or the licence may be annulled	Daily. Annual, four categories: €0.1664 to €0.0778 per m² per day, roughly €60.7 to €28.4 per m² a year	Closing 23:30 on weekdays; 02:30 at weekends from June to September

Three readings. In Torremolinos, Nerja and Mijas, a traspaso with a terrace carries a real risk of losing it, and that risk is either discounted from the price or covered by a condition precedent. In central Málaga, where the saturated acoustic zone suspends new occupations, an existing terrace is effectively irreplaceable — which is exactly why the traspaso costs what it costs. And the fee is not the problem: forty square metres in Fuengirola’s top category is €2,892 a year. What costs money is not paying it, it is not having it. None of these by-laws is permanent — Benalmádena rewrote its own in 2025 and Marbella in 2024 — so before signing, download the current by-law for that specific municipality and read its transferability article. Never extrapolate from one town to the next.

The debts you inherit even without buying the company

There is a widespread belief that buying «just the business» leaves the seller’s debts behind. It is false in the three areas that matter: business succession operates by law, not by what the contract says between you.

Debt	Rule	Scope and time limit	How you protect yourself
Employment	Article 44.3 of the Workers’ Statute	Transferor and transferee are jointly liable for unmet obligations arising before the transfer. Three years	No clearing certificate exists. Retain part of the price in escrow; review payroll, contracts and labour inspection records
Social security	Articles 142.1 and 168.2 of the General Social Security Act	Joint liability extending to «the totality of the debts generated prior to the succession». No time cap	The clearing certificate promised by article 168.2 has never been implemented by regulation. A standard «up to date» certificate does not fully release you: this is the least protected channel
Tax	Article 42.1.c) of the General Tax Act	Joint liability for the previous holder’s obligations arising from the activity, including unpaid withholdings	The article 175.2 certificate. The buyer requests it with the seller’s consent; the tax agency has three months. If it comes back clean, or they miss the deadline, you are released
Utilities and suppliers	Contractual	No legal succession, but a supplier can refuse to contract with you until the arrears are settled	Certificates showing electricity, water, gas and building service charges are up to date, dated in the month of signing
Planning and licensing penalties	Law 7/2021 (LISTA) and Law 13/1999	Enforcement files attach to the property or the activity, not the person. A restoration or sealing order reaches you	Planning certificate and a direct enquiry to the enforcement department about open files on the unit

The article 175.2 certificate deserves emphasis, because it is the only genuinely effective tool and almost nobody uses it. You request it before signing, with the current holder’s consent, and the authorities have three months. If you never request it, your liability extends to penalties as well, which it does not if you did. Three months is a long time in a traspaso, which is precisely why it gets skipped — and precisely why it has to be planned from day one.

On staff: article 44.1 of the Workers’ Statute imposes automatic transfer of employment where an economic entity retaining its identity is transferred. Taking over a working bar with its kitchen, its fittings and its customers qualifies, even if you buy no company at all. You keep the employees, their accrued seniority and their existing collective agreement until it expires. You cannot pick and choose: dismissing someone afterwards is a dismissal, and you pay for it on their inherited seniority.

How goodwill is valued, and why the multiple lies in a seasonal business

Goodwill is what you pay above the value of the fit-out: the customers, the pitch, the reputation, the fact that it already works. It is quoted two ways. The first is a turnover multiple, between 25% and 45% of annual sales: the most used and the worst, because high turnover with a 38% food cost and an oversized payroll is worth nothing. The second is an EBITDA multiple, which for independent hospitality on this coast runs between 2 and 4 times annual EBITDA: better, but only if the EBITDA is adjusted, and it almost never is. Adjusting it means three specific things.

1. Charge the owner’s salary. If the owner works sixty hours a week and draws no pay, that labour has a market cost: a manager with real responsibility costs €28,000 to €38,000 a year on this coast including social security. If you do not deduct it, you are buying your own job and calling it a return.
2. Deduct the 20% rent increase under article 32.2, plus any indexation due. It is a certain cost from month one.
3. Provide for real replacement. A commercial kitchen, a cold room and an air-conditioning system have finite lives: 2% to 4% of annual turnover is a reasonable provision. If the seller has replaced nothing for five years, his EBITDA contains an investment you are about to make.

Then comes the problem specific to this coast: an annual multiple hides seasonality. Two businesses with the same €55,000 EBITDA are not worth the same if one spreads it over twelve months and the other concentrates it into four. The official data is unambiguous: according to the INE Hotel Occupancy Survey, in 2025 June to September accounted for 45.43% of overnight stays in Málaga province and January for 3.81%, and occupancy fell from 79.57% in August to 41.82% in January. One figure captures the sector: hotel establishments open in the province drop from 662 in September to 459 in January, 30.7% fewer.

Employment confirms it. In Málaga, social security registrations in food and beverage services rose from 66,689 in January 2025 to 83,734 in July, up 25.6%. The detail that matters for valuation: the self-employed rise only 4.2% between January and August, while employees rise 31%. The owner is there twelve months a year; all the elasticity is absorbed by hired staff — so your fixed cost base does not flex with the season. And over that period registrations in restaurants rose 40.2% against 18.5% in drinking establishments: a neighbourhood bar and a seafront restaurant are not the same asset and do not deserve the same multiple. If you want to see how these seasonal patterns play out on the residential side, the same logic drives holiday lets versus long-term rentals on the Costa del Sol.

Traspaso price ranges by type of premises and area

The table below gives market orders of magnitude observed in listings and deals on this coast. It is not official data: unlike property sales, there is no public register of traspaso prices in Spain. They are given as wide ranges because the real price turns on two variables that will not fit in a table: the years left on the lease, and whether the licence heading covers what is being done.

Type of premises and area	Traspaso range	Monthly rent	Multiple on adjusted EBITDA	What justifies the top end
Bar with no kitchen or terrace, side street in Fuengirola, Torremolinos or Benalmádena village	€20,000–50,000	€900–1,600	1.5–3×	Long lease and stable year-round local trade
Bar with kitchen and small terrace, established residential area of Mijas Costa or Rincón de la Victoria	€45,000–110,000	€1,400–2,400	2–3.5×	Transferable terrace and a heading that covers the kitchen
Seasonal café or ice cream parlour, old town of Nerja or Estepona	€30,000–90,000	€1,200–2,600	2–4×	Pedestrian street with guaranteed footfall
Restaurant with kitchen and terrace, promenade or old town of Fuengirola, Benalmádena or Estepona	€120,000–350,000	€2,200–5,500	2.5–5×	More than eight years of lease and a long-season terrace
Restaurant in Málaga’s historic centre with a terrace in an acoustically saturated zone	€180,000–500,000	€3,000–7,000	3.5–6×	The terrace cannot be replicated: the zone suspends new occupations
Beachfront restaurant, Marbella, Puerto Banús or Nueva Andalucía	€250,000–900,000	€5,000–18,000	3–6×	Established brand and an eight-month season instead of four
Premises with the special hospitality-with-music heading	Premium of 30%–60% over the equivalent without music	—	—	65 dBA insulation already certified, limiter installed, 03:00 closing

To place the areas relative to one another, look first at residential prices, which do have a series. According to the SolProp Costa del Sol Price Index (v2026.3, data to June 2026), average asking prices run from €3,000/m² in Manilva and €3,565/m² in Fuengirola to €5,720/m² in Marbella and €6,160/m² in Nueva Andalucía; you can see it on the interactive Costa del Sol price map and in the comparison of Costa del Sol areas. But be careful extrapolating: a traspaso does not track residential prices linearly. Marbella costs 1.6 times more than Fuengirola in housing, yet an equivalent restaurant can cost three or four times more to take over, because the season lasts twice as long. Housing measures where people live; a traspaso measures where people walk past.

The full case: a seasonal bar-restaurant in Fuengirola

Back to the premises we opened with. This is a constructed example using a cost structure representative of the sector, not a specific deal, and it shows how an apparently good multiple falls apart. Ninety square metres inside with 40 m² of terrace, full kitchen, hospitality-without-music heading, four permanent staff and two seasonal.

Item	Annual	% of sales	Comment
Turnover excluding VAT	€385,000	100%	June to September accounts for about €185,000, or 48%
Cost of goods	−€123,200	32.0%	Healthy range for à la carte dining: 30%–34%
Staff, excluding the owner	−€127,050	33.0%	Four permanent and two seasonal contracts
Rent (€2,400/month)	−€28,800	7.5%	Healthy below 10% of turnover
Utilities	−€22,000	5.7%	Electricity, water, gas and telecoms
Terrace fee, 40 m² in the top street category	−€2,900	0.8%	40 m² × €72.31/m², Fuengirola fiscal by-law
Insurance	−€1,800	0.5%	€375,000 compulsory liability cover for capacity 51–100, plus all-risks
Accountancy and advisers	−€3,600	0.9%	The Spanish gestoría that files your monthly returns
Local rates, copyright fees, service charges and rechargeable property tax	−€4,200	1.1%
Maintenance and replacement	−€6,500	1.7%	Below the 2%–4% that would be prudent
Marketing, platforms and card terminal	−€5,400	1.4%
EBITDA as presented by the seller	€59,550	15.5%	€165,000 asking price → 2.77×. Looks cheap
Adjustment 1: 20% rent increase (article 32.2 LAU)	−€5,760		Rent goes from €2,400 to €2,880 a month from month one
Adjustment 2: market salary for the owner	−€32,000		The owner works 60 hours a week unpaid
True adjusted EBITDA	€21,790	5.7%	€165,000 asking price → 7.6×. No longer cheap

And now the figure that decides the deal: the lease has twenty-six months left. At €21,790 a year of adjusted profit you accumulate about €47,200 over that period. You paid €165,000. If the landlord does not renew — and he is not obliged to — you lose roughly €118,000, plus the bank guarantee, plus the stock, plus two years of your life. What is it actually worth? With the lease renewed for ten years, 3 to 4 times adjusted EBITDA plus the replacement value of the usable fit-out: of the order of €65,000 to €90,000. With twenty-six months and no renewal commitment, goodwill is worth zero and you pay only for the equipment: €18,000 to €30,000. The gap between €165,000 and €25,000 is not explained by the business. It is explained by the lease.

Buying in October versus buying in April

Same premises, same price, two financially different transactions. Sign in October and you pay the €165,000, post the bank guarantee and walk straight into the bad half of the year: from November to February this business makes no money, and in some months it covers costs out of cash reserves. You need additional working capital — €25,000 to €40,000 for premises this size — to reach Easter without squeezing suppliers. Sign in April and you collect the season first: the cash from June to September funds the following winter and you reach November with a cushion. Same asset, half the treasury risk.

Hence the real asymmetry in this market: in October there is more supply and fewer buyers, because anyone who has had a bad season wants out before winter. Buying in October can be a good deal if you negotiate the price down for the working capital you are bringing, and verify that the season just ended was not poor for a structural reason. Buying in October at April’s price is paying a premium to fund someone else’s winter. One check people forget: if the premises have been closed for more than six months, a fresh declaración responsable is required to reopen.

The tax treatment, in four points

• VAT. The transfer of a going concern — fittings, equipment, stock, assignment of the lease and, where applicable, transfer of staff — is outside the scope of VAT under article 7.1 of Law 37/1992, because it constitutes an autonomous economic unit. The Directorate-General for Taxation has confirmed this for restaurants in leased premises (binding rulings V2368-20 and V0531-22). If only the fittings are sold, or only the lease is assigned, it is a «mere transfer of assets» and carries 21%.
• Transfer tax (ITP). Where the deal is outside VAT, only any real property included is taxed (article 7.5 of Royal Legislative Decree 1/1993); fittings, stock and goodwill are not. The general rate on property in Andalusia is 7%. Watch article 11.2: if the contract mixes movable and immovable assets without breaking down the price, the property rate applies to everything.
• Seller’s income tax. Article 37.1.f) of Law 35/2006 is specific: on a traspaso the capital gain is computed for the outgoing tenant on the amount he receives, net of the landlord’s share. It goes into the savings tax base, taxed at 19% to 30% in 2026 depending on the band.
• Amortising the goodwill you buy. Deductible up to an annual maximum of one twentieth: 5% a year over twenty years (article 12.2 of Law 27/2014). On €90,000 of goodwill, €4,500 a year of deductible expense.

A note on Spain’s flat-rate módulos regime, which many small bars use: Order HAC/1425/2025 keeps it available for hospitality in 2026, but the raised exclusion thresholds lapsed when Parliament struck down successive extensions, and the figures currently in force are €150,000 of income and €150,000 of purchases. This has moved three times in twenty months, so confirm it with your adviser on the date of the deal.

The minimum due diligence: what to demand before you sign

None of these documents is optional and nearly all are free. A seller’s reluctance to hand over any one of them is, in itself, information about the business. If you are buying as a non-resident you will also need a Spanish tax identification number, the NIE, before you can sign anything or register as self-employed, and your lawyer will want a nota simple — the Land Registry extract showing who owns the unit and what charges sit over it — for the premises your landlord is letting you.

Document	What you are checking	Warning sign
The full lease, with every annex and addendum	Years remaining, assignment clause, indexation, the landlord’s share of the traspaso, waiver of article 34	Missing annexes, or assignment requiring consent you do not have in writing
Landlord’s certificate of rent up to date and consent to the assignment	That there are no arrears and the assignment is not a termination event	The landlord declining to sign it
Declaración responsable stamped by the town hall, and the declared heading	That the real activity matches the declared one: music, kitchen, performances, capacity	Music playing while the heading is III.2.7.a)
Planning licence or declaration of occupation or use	That the unit is fit in planning terms for hospitality use	No planning title, or a different use in the local plan
Acoustic study and certification, and the limiter certificate	Insulation actually tested against what Decree 50/2025 requires	No test, or a test predating the current equipment
Current terrace authorisation and the last fee receipt	Square metres authorised, season, and the transfer regime	More tables on the street than square metres on the paperwork
Article 175.2 tax debt certificate	Tax debts and penalties. The only effective shield	The seller withholding consent to request it
Employment history for the social security account and a clearing certificate	Real headcount, seniority and contribution arrears	People working in the premises who do not appear on the report
Payslips, contracts and the applicable collective agreement, last twelve months	The true cost of the staff you are taking on	Pay below the collective agreement, or chained temporary contracts
Clearing certificates for electricity, water, gas and the building’s owners’ association	That supply will not be cut and no special levies are outstanding	Approved but unpaid levies affecting the unit
Planning certificate and enforcement files on the unit	Penalties, restoration orders, licensing files	Any open file: it follows the property, not the holder
VAT returns, forms 303 and 390, for the last three years	That declared turnover matches the figures you are shown	A gap between the takings you are told about and the ones declared
Rental, leasing and supplier exclusivity contracts	Which equipment is actually theirs and what commitments you inherit	Coffee machine or signage on rental being sold as owned
Signed and valued inventory, with ages and invoices	Replacement value: the floor under the traspaso price	A generic inventory with no makes, models or years

With those fourteen documents on the table, a traspaso stops being a gamble. And if something does not add up, walking away is not the only answer: you can hold part of the price in escrow for the three years of article 44.3, or make signing conditional on the landlord granting a written extension. Two more checks that cost nothing: visit on a Friday night and again on a Tuesday lunchtime, and request the article 175.2 certificate the day you agree heads of terms, because it takes up to three months and governs the whole timetable.

Does it add up? The uncomfortable conclusion

There is a structural asymmetry in this market. The number of hospitality premises in Málaga province is essentially frozen: 12,856 food and beverage premises as at 1 January 2025, against 12,631 in 2019, according to the INE Central Business Register. That is 1.8% growth in six years, while overnight stays grew strongly. Anyone who wants into hospitality on this coast does not open a new site: they take someone else’s. That is the structural argument holding up traspaso prices, and it is real. The other side: in 2024, 32,066 food and beverage businesses in Spain ceased trading out of a stock of 234,900 — 13.6% a year.

And now the part the listings do not say. Most of the traspasos advertised at high prices are expensive because the lease is about to expire, or because the licence does not cover what is actually being done. That is not coincidence: it is the mechanism. An operator with twelve years of lease ahead and the correct heading does not need to sell in a hurry, and when he does sell, the paperwork is in order. An operator with twenty-six months and undeclared music needs to sell now, before the clock runs down or somebody complains, and needs the price to look justified by EBITDA. Hence the attractive multiple.

Put differently: a low multiple on an unadjusted EBITDA is almost always the signal that the problem lies in the lease or the licence, not an opportunity. When you find a traspaso that looks cheap, the right question is not «why is it such a good price?» but «how long is left on the lease, and what exactly does the declaration say?». A traspaso adds up when three conditions hold at once: a lease with at least twice as many years as your payback period, a heading that covers the real activity — terrace and music included — and an adjusted EBITDA that is still positive after you have paid yourself a salary. If one of the three fails, it is not that the business is worse: it is that you are valuing something other than what you think you are buying.

Frequently asked questions about taking over a hospitality business

What exactly are you buying in a hospitality traspaso?

Four things under a single price: the tenant’s position under the lease, the premises’ fitness to support your own opening declaration, the fit-out, and goodwill. You do not buy the property, which stays with the landlord, and you do not buy a transferable licence: in Andalusia a bar opens on a declaración responsable, and that cannot be transferred.

How much does it cost to take over a bar on the Costa del Sol?

A bar with no kitchen or terrace on a side street runs €20,000–50,000; with a kitchen and terrace in an established area, €45,000–110,000; a restaurant with a terrace on the promenade, €120,000–350,000; and on the Marbella beachfront it comfortably exceeds €250,000. These are market orders of magnitude, not official data: Spain has no public register of traspaso prices.

Can the landlord raise my rent if I buy the traspaso?

Yes. Article 32.2 of Law 29/1994, the Urban Tenancies Act, entitles him to raise the rent by 20% because of the assignment, and by 10% on a partial sublet. It is a right he must exercise rather than an automatic increase, but assume it when you run the numbers. The assignment must also be notified to him by certified means within one month.

Does the bar’s licence transfer with the business?

Not in the way people assume. Since Decree 155/2018 a bar or restaurant in Andalusia opens on a self-certified declaration filed with the town hall, and article 2.4 of Law 13/1999 makes only formal authorisations transferable. What you inherit is the premises’ fitness — certified insulation, capacity, planning title, compliant installations — and on that basis you file your own declaration in your own name.

Can I keep the previous owner’s pavement terrace?

It depends on the municipality, and the differences are large. Benalmádena transfers it expressly with the business and Fuengirola requires the change of holder to be simultaneous. Torremolinos and Nerja require a fresh authorisation. Mijas declares it personal and non-transferable. Málaga city does not transfer it, though it allows a temporary bridge, and in the central district the saturated acoustic zone suspends new occupations.

Do I inherit the seller’s debts if I buy his business?

Partly yes, by operation of law. For employment debts you are jointly liable for three years (article 44.3 of the Workers’ Statute). For social security, for the whole of what was generated before the succession, with no time cap (article 142.1 of the General Social Security Act). And for tax, unless you request the certificate under article 175.2 of the General Tax Act.

Do I have to keep the staff?

Yes. Article 44.1 of the Workers’ Statute imposes automatic transfer of employment where an economic entity retaining its identity is transferred, and taking over a working bar qualifies. You take on the contracts with their accrued seniority, and the existing collective agreement continues to apply until it expires. Letting someone go afterwards is a dismissal, with compensation calculated on inherited seniority.

How many years should be left on the lease for a traspaso to be worth it?

As a working rule, at least twice the time you need to recover the price out of adjusted profit. If payback takes four years, you want eight or more ahead of you. With fewer than five years and no written renewal commitment from the landlord, goodwill is worth very little and the sensible price is the replacement value of the equipment alone.

Is it better to buy in October or in April?

Financially April is far more comfortable, because you collect the season before funding the winter. In Málaga province, June to September accounted for 45.43% of 2025 overnight stays and January for just 3.81%. Buying in October you need extra working capital for four to seven months of fixed costs. In exchange, October brings more supply and more room to negotiate.

Is VAT charged on a traspaso?

Usually not. Transferring a going concern with its fit-out, stock, assignment of the lease and staff constitutes an autonomous economic unit and falls outside the scope of VAT under article 7.1 of Law 37/1992. If only isolated items are sold — loose fittings, or the lease alone — it is a mere transfer of assets and carries 21%.

Keep reading

• Tourist licence on the Costa del Sol, if what you are weighing up is accommodation rather than food and drink.
• Long-term rentals on the Costa del Sol, to see how Spanish tenancy law works on the other side of the contract.
• Where property sells fastest on the Costa del Sol, with estimated absorption and months of stock by town.
• The best areas to invest in Málaga, if a traspaso is an alternative to residential investment.
• The cost of selling a property on the Costa del Sol, with the full breakdown of fees and capital gains.
• The real cost of living on the Costa del Sol, to work out how much the business needs to leave you.

Sources and methodology

Legislation. Law 29/1994 on Urban Tenancies (articles 4, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36 and the third transitional provision). Law 13/1999 on Public Entertainment and Recreational Activities in Andalusia, and Decree 155/2018 approving the Catalogue, as amended by Decree 251/2023. Decree 109/2005 on compulsory liability insurance. Decree 50/2025, the Andalusian acoustic quality regulation. Workers’ Statute, article 44; General Social Security Act, articles 142 and 168; General Tax Act, articles 42.1.c) and 175.2. Law 37/1992 on VAT, article 7.1; Royal Legislative Decree 1/1993, articles 7.5 and 11; Law 35/2006 on personal income tax, articles 22, 33, 37.1.f) and 46; Law 27/2014, article 12.2; Law 5/2021 on devolved taxes in Andalusia, article 41; Order HAC/1425/2025; and binding rulings V2368-20, V0531-22, V0427-26 and V0103-08 of the Directorate-General for Taxation.

Three warnings about what is still in force. The Order of 25 March 2002 on opening hours was repealed by Decree 155/2018. Decree 6/2012 on noise pollution was repealed by Decree 50/2025 with effect from 24 March 2025. And Law 7/2007 on Integrated Environmental Quality Management was repealed on 20 June 2026 by Law 2/2026, which replaced prior environmental classification for bars and restaurants with a declaration of environmental effects, although its article 89.2 allows town halls to require an environmental licence by by-law. Any report citing those three rules as current is out of date.

Municipal by-laws. Terrace conditions and fees come from each town hall’s current regulatory and fiscal by-laws, published in the Official Gazette of the Province of Málaga: Málaga city (2018, and fiscal by-law 10/2022), Marbella (2025), Fuengirola (2014, amended 2017 and 2021), Torremolinos (by-law 82, consolidated 2023), Benalmádena (OMR-16 of 2025), Estepona (2012, plus the 2014 platform by-law), Mijas (2012, amended 2016 and 2022), Nerja (2003) and Rincón de la Victoria (2010). These change frequently and cannot be extrapolated from one municipality to another. The Fuengirola and Marbella by-laws contradict themselves internally on transferability: in those two cases, ask the town hall before closing.

Sector data. INE, Hotel Occupancy Survey, tables 2074 and 2066, Málaga province, 2025. INE, Central Business Register, tables 301, 290 and 3954, as at 1 January 2025. Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, registrations by province and four-digit activity code, Málaga, 2025.

What is given as a range because it could not be verified. There is no public register of traspaso prices comparable to the property sales register: the ranges by type and area are market orders of magnitude, not official data, and should not be used as a valuation. Nor is there any published official survival rate for Málaga hospitality businesses at one, three and five years — the INE statistic that covered it was discontinued in 2022. And the INE does not break down hospitality turnover by province, so seasonality of revenue is illustrated here using employment and occupancy, which do have provincial detail.

Our own index, and valuation. Prices per square metre come from the SolProp Costa del Sol Price Index (v2026.3, data to June 2026): an in-house estimate built from asking prices and our own portfolio, not a register of transactions, which should not be compared like for like with INE or Land Registrars’ figures, because they measure different things. The methodology behind the Costa del Sol price map is published, and its yields are estimates, not forecasts or guaranteed outcomes. SolProp provides market valuations, not formal appraisals under Order ECO/805/2003, which only valuation companies registered with the Bank of Spain may issue; where a formal appraisal is needed, we refer you to an accredited partner. Our property glossary defines the Spanish terms used here, and you can read about us on who we are.

This article is general information and does not replace advice from a lawyer, a tax adviser or a qualified technician for your particular case. Last updated: August 2026.