Malaga province tops Spanish ranking in terms of number of tourist rentals despite summer drop in available listings

Tourism

The number of properties available on official booking platforms has dropped from 48,400 in May 2025 to 45,176 in May 2026

Cristina Vallejo

The province of Malaga, according to the Andalusian regional government's registry, has more than 86,300 tourist accommodation units. This figure continues to grow: at the beginning of the year, for example, the number was around 85,140.

At the same time, according to data the national institute of statistics (INE) published on Wednesday, only half of them are currently marketed, representing just 52% of the total. In other words, the regional government (Junta) controls all tourist accommodation units, while the INE only counts those that appear on the main platforms (Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo).

At the start of summer, the number of holiday rentals actually on the market decreased to 45,176 compared to 48,261 available in November, a 6.4% difference. The figure is even lower in comparison to the number of accommodation rentals in May 2025 (48,400).

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• Housing

  • Despite this decrease, Malaga remains the province with the second-highest number of tourist accommodation units relative to the total number of registered homes. They represent 4.53% of the housing stock, surpassed only by Las Palmas (4.90%).

    Malaga exceeds other highly touristic provinces such as Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where the figure falls below 4%, and the Balearic Islands (3.27%). A year ago, tourist accommodation accounted for approximately 4.9% of the total.

    In absolute numbers, that is, in terms of the number of tourist accommodation units, Malaga leads the ranking in Spain: its more than 45,100 active holiday rentals far outnumber those of Alicante, which occupies second place with 32,148. Las Palmas follows with nearly 27,000, while Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Balearic Islands and Girona each have more than 20,000.

    This decline in the number of tourist accommodation properties on the market is not exclusive to the province of Malaga. In fact, the number of properties on the market in Madrid has fallen by more than 25% year-on-year (from 18,555 to 13,431).

    In Valencia, Alicante and Murcia, the number has decreased by around 20%. Conversely, the number of properties in Badajoz and Cáceres has increased by around 15%, and also in Jaén (up 7.4%, although the total barely exceeds 1,000).

    Meanwhile, at the national level the drop is 10.7% compared to May 2025, down to 341,000.

    Malaga has the highest number of tourist accommodation rentals in all of Spain.

    What is the situation like per municipality? Malaga city is second only to Madrid in the number of tourist rentals (8,288), followed by Barcelona (8,231) and then Marbella (nearly 7,000).

    Eight municipalities in Malaga are among the 25 with the most tourist rentals in all of Spain: in addition to Malaga city and Marbella, these include Mijas, Benalmádena, Estepona, Fuengirola, Nerja and Torremolinos.

    In relative terms, within the province of Malaga, the town with the highest density of tourist accommodation is Nerja, where 16.44% of all homes are designated for holiday rentals.

    The highest proportion in Spain, however, is Valle de Bardali, in Huesca, where a third of the housing stock consists of holiday rental properties. Returning to the province of Malaga, second is Frigiliana (13.45%), followed by Casares (9.28%), while in Benahavís and Júzcar holiday rentals account for more than 9%.

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