What a holiday rental website in Spain actually needs
Most guides about holiday rental websites list features. This one lists obligations and, above all, says what you can drop. A good supplier ought to start there.
Start with what the law requires you to be able to show
Since December 2024 Spain has had a Single Rental Registry and a Digital Single Window for short-term rentals. They were created by Royal Decree 1312/2024 of 23 December, published in the Official State Gazette on 24 December 2024, in force since 2 January 2025 and taking effect from 1 July 2025.
The piece that affects you is the registry number. Article 2.i defines it as the unique identifier of the unit issued by the Land Registrar. And article 6.b requires online platforms to ensure that landlords provide that number and that it is clearly displayed as part of their listings.
One nuance worth saying out loud, because hardly anyone spells it out: that obligation in article 6.b falls on the platforms. Whether the number must also appear on your own website depends on the rules of your autonomous community, and each one goes its own way. Check with yours before assuming anything. The sensible thing, in any case, is for your website to be able to display it: if one day you are required to, you do not want to depend on someone touching your code.
What a traveller looks for in thirty seconds
When someone lands on a rental website they are not there to read. They are there to check four things and decide whether to carry on or go back to the portal.
- Photos that look like reality and that load fast.
- The price for their dates, not a from rate that turns out not to exist.
- Whether it is free, and by that we mean actually free, not an enquiry answered tomorrow.
- How to book and who is on the other end if something goes wrong.
If your website does not answer those four on the first screen, the rest of the website makes no difference. That is the yardstick you should use on any quote you are given.
What sits underneath and never shows
There are three things that do not shine in a demo and that are the ones that keep you out of trouble.
- A calendar synced with the portals you are already on. Without it you will sell the same night twice, and it is not a question of whether but when.
- Your own legal texts, kept up to date: terms, privacy and whatever information your region requires.
- Languages and the tags that tell Google which version to show each visitor. If your market is international, this is not an extra.
What you do not need
And now the part that is usually missing from these guides. For one holiday apartment, or for three, some things are sold as essential and are not.
- A corporate blog you are never going to write. Better none at all than one with two posts from three years ago.
- A live chat if nobody is on the other side at reasonable hours. A visible phone number works better.
- Animations and effects that slow the page down. Speed converts, the effect does not.
- An annual redesign. A rental website ages well as long as the photos and the prices are current.
The three routes, and what each one costs to keep
Building it yourself with a site builder is cheap to start and expensive to keep, because the real cost is not the design but keeping the calendar and the prices in sync all year. Commissioning an agency gives you a bespoke website and ties you to them for every change. The third route is a service that generates it from your listing and takes care of the upkeep, which is what we do and therefore something we are not going to pretend to be neutral about.
We are not putting third-party prices here because we have not checked them one by one, and publishing a table of other people prices without verifying them would be exactly the opposite of what we ask of everyone else. Ours are on the pricing page.
How to tell whether yours is working
With two questions a month. How many people reached the website and how many ended up writing or booking? And of those who booked, how many came from a portal to check whether you had your own website? If the second figure is growing, you are on track, even if the total takes a while to move.
Paste your listing link and see how yours turns out
Frequently asked questions
- Do I have to display the registry number on my own website?
- Article 6.b of Royal Decree 1312/2024 requires online platforms to ensure the number is displayed in listings. Whether it must also appear on your website depends on the rules of your autonomous community. Check with them, and in any case have a website that can display it without building work.
- Do I need a booking engine or is a contact form enough?
- If you answer within minutes and have few units, a form works. As soon as you take hours to reply, you lose bookings that had already been decided. Our rule of thumb is that the engine stops being optional when you cannot guarantee a same-day reply.
- What happens if I sell the same night on the portal and on my website?
- You have a double booking and a problem with two people at once. It is avoided with a calendar synced by iCal with every channel you are on. It is the least eye-catching piece of a rental website and the one that saves the most grief.
- How many languages should my website be in?
- In the languages of your actual guests, not in every language your supplier can offer. Look at where last year bookings came from and start there. Spanish and English cover most cases in Spain; the third one is usually decided by your area.
- Do I need a blog on my rental website?
- Only if you are going to write it. A blog with two posts from three years ago reads as neglect and takes away. If you have no time, put that effort into the photos and into keeping prices current, which is what someone about to book actually looks at.