What the law actually requires, what it does not, and the practical order to do things in so you are trading rather than still setting up.
Spain is one of the easier European countries in which to start an estate agency, and that surprises people who assume it works like the UK or the US. There is no national licence. In most of the country there is no compulsory qualification either. The barrier is not permission. It is having something to sell and somewhere for buyers to find it.
This guide covers the setup in the order it actually matters, and it is general information rather than legal or tax advice. Confirm the details with a gestor or asesor in your own region before you commit to a structure.
Spain runs a mixed market. In most regions anyone can open a real estate agency with no formal qualification, which is why quality varies so widely along the coast. Several regions do operate a mandatory register of estate agents, among them Catalonia, Madrid, the Basque Country, Andalusia and the Balearics. Catalonia uses AICAT.
This is the first thing to check because it is regional, not national. The rules that apply are the rules where you trade, not where you happen to live. If you are on the Costa Blanca and your buyers are looking in Andalusia, look at both.
Separately from the registers there is the API qualification, short for Agente de la Propiedad Inmobiliaria. It is a legally recognised qualification held through the professional associations. In the unregulated regions it is optional, and plenty of successful agencies do not hold it. It still carries weight with sellers deciding who to give a mandate to, and it is worth having if you intend to build a listing-side business rather than a buyer-side one.
Most one-person agencies start as autonomo, the Spanish self-employed status. It is quick to register and cheap to run. The trade-off is that you are personally liable, and once commission income grows the tax treatment stops being kind.
An SL, the Spanish limited company, takes longer because it involves a notary and the Mercantile Register, and it costs more to maintain. It limits liability and looks more solid to developers and to sellers handing over a six-figure asset. Agencies that plan to hire, or that will be registering buyers with developers for commission, usually end up there.
You will need an NIE or NIF before either. If you are not Spanish and not resident, get that moving first, because everything else queues behind it.
Registering the activity with Hacienda gives you the right IAE code and puts you into the IVA regime. Estate agency commission carries IVA at the standard rate, so your invoices to sellers add it and you file it quarterly. Seguridad Social is the second half: autonomos pay a monthly contribution, and there are reduced starter rates worth asking your gestor about.
Open a business bank account at the same time, kept strictly separate from personal money. That matters more in this industry than in most, because of the next point.
Reservation deposits should sit with the buyer’s lawyer in a client account or with a bonded third party, not in the agency’s own current account. This is the single most common complaint against agencies in Spain, and getting it right from day one is both a legal protection and a selling point when a nervous foreign buyer is deciding whether to trust you.
Professional indemnity insurance is the other piece. It is mandatory in the regions with registers and sensible everywhere else.
In Spain the seller pays the agent. Commission is typically 3 to 6 per cent of the sale price plus IVA, agreed in the listing mandate. The buyer pays nothing directly, although in practice the commission is priced into the asking figure.
New builds work differently, and that is where new agencies survive their first year. Developers pay a commission on buyers you register with them, and registration is usually first-come. You do not need a mandate and you do not need to have won a listing. You need to have registered the buyer before anyone else did, which makes speed of response a commercial advantage rather than a nicety.
The classic mistake is signing a lease on a street-front office and then discovering you have four listings to put in the window. Stock first, premises later, if at all. There are three routes and new agencies normally run all three at once:
A Spanish agency selling to Spanish buyers competes on Idealista and Fotocasa. An agency selling to foreign buyers competes somewhere else entirely: Kyero, Rightmove Overseas, Green-Acres, ThinkSpain, A Place in the Sun and the rest of the cross-border portals, in the buyer’s own language. Most new agencies pick one side of this and lose the other by accident.
Your own website is the part you control, and it is the only channel where the lead is yours rather than rented from a portal. What an estate agency website has to do goes through it properly.
Cross-border enquiries arrive at every hour, in several languages, mostly on WhatsApp. The agency that replies first tends to get the viewing, and on new builds the agency that registers the buyer first gets the commission outright. This is the least glamorous competitive advantage in the industry and the most reliable one.
The first four are paperwork and a gestor handles them. The last three are the business, and they are what 5 Min Agency exists to compress: the CRM, the website and a catalogue of new-build stock arrive together, so a brand-new agency starts with something to sell instead of an empty database.
In most of Spain, no. There is no national licence and no compulsory qualification, so anyone can open an estate agency. Several regions do run their own mandatory register, including Catalonia, Madrid, the Basque Country, Andalusia and the Balearics. Catalonia uses AICAT. Check the rules for the region you will actually trade in before you register the business.
API stands for Agente de la Propiedad Inmobiliaria. It is a legally recognised qualification held through the professional associations, and it is optional in the unregulated regions. Many agencies trade without it, but it carries weight with sellers and with regional registers.
The seller pays. Commission is typically 3 to 6 per cent of the sale price plus IVA, and it is agreed in the listing mandate. Buyers pay nothing directly to the agent, although the commission is priced into the asking figure.
Three routes, usually at the same time. Win your own resale mandates from local sellers, import stock from an MLS or a partner agency feed, and sell new builds from developers who pay a commission on registered buyers. New-build stock is the fastest to start with because you do not need a mandate to show it.
The paperwork side depends on your structure. Registering as autonomo is quick; forming an SL takes longer because of the notary and the Mercantile Register. The commercial side, meaning a website, stock and a way to answer enquiries, can be live the same day if you are not building it from scratch.