Opening a Shop or Café in Spain: The Declaración Responsable, the Full Licence, and the Check Before the Lease

If you are planning to open a shop, a studio or a café in Spain, the question of permission arrives earlier than most people expect. It is tempting to treat it as the last formality before the doors open. In practice the answer depends on the premises you choose, and it is cheapest to settle before you have signed anything. This guide covers the two routes a Spanish town hall uses, the floor area line that decides which one most small shops take, where bars and restaurants fall, and the other registrations that sit on top.

Two ways a town hall says yes

The 750 square metre line

The annex is organised by tax activity headings and reads a little like a high street. Among the groups it covers:

• Food shops, including fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, bread and pastry, drinks and general groceries
• Clothing, footwear and textiles
• Perfume, cosmetics and household goods
• Furniture and home furnishings
• Hairdressers and beauty salons, and laundries and dry cleaners

Two details decide whether a shop that looks eligible really is. The figure refers to the display and sales floor open to customers, which is not necessarily the same number as the size of the unit on the lease. And the activity itself has to appear in the annex: a business that is not listed does not reach the fast route simply by being small.

What still takes a small shop off the fast route

Even under the 750 square metre line, the law keeps the licence where an activity reaches beyond its own four walls. Two exclusions are written into it: activities that affect Spain's historic and artistic heritage, and activities that involve exclusive use of public space. Building works are a separate question. Works that need a full building project stay outside the simplified regime, so a unit that needs structural change can pull the whole opening back onto a slower track.

Where bars and restaurants land

Hospitality is the big exception. Bars, cafés and restaurants do not appear in the annex to Ley 12/2012, so the 750 square metre line does not help them. The largest cities treat them as activities with a real effect on neighbours, because of noise, smoke, cooking and the number of people inside. In Madrid and Barcelona alike that typically means a heavier procedure backed by a technical project from an architect or engineer, covering matters such as fire protection, accessibility and noise, before the doors open.

Budget for the time this takes. It depends on the town and on the project, and in busy central districts a hospitality licence commonly takes months rather than weeks. A lease with rent running from the first day, signed before the route is clear, is where the cost of that wait usually lands.

The terrace is a separate permission

The check that belongs before the lease

The most expensive mistake in this whole process has nothing to do with forms. It is signing a lease on premises where the planning rules do not allow the activity you have in mind. Every address sits under a municipal plan that sets which uses are permitted there, and a unit that suits a bakery may not suit a bar.

Do not take the previous tenant as proof. A similar business in the same unit only shows that somebody once traded there. The rules may have changed since, the old title may no longer be in force, or the unit may carry problems the last occupier never resolved. Questions worth answering before you sign:

• Does the local plan allow this exact activity at this address?
• Is the activity in the Ley 12/2012 annex, and is the sales floor within 750 square metres?
• Will the unit need works, and will those works need their own permission?
• Can the landlord show the unit's current licence or declaration?
• Is there physical room for what the activity needs, such as smoke extraction, ventilation, soundproofing and step free access?

Taking over a business that already trades

A declaration is a promise with consequences

The registrations that sit on top

Permission to open the premises is one layer. Depending on what you do, several others typically apply alongside it:

• Tax census. The start of an economic activity is communicated to the Agencia Tributaria through the census declaration, Modelo 036, before the first invoice is issued.
• Food businesses. The food business register is governed by Real Decreto 191/2011. Shops, bars, restaurants and bakeries selling directly to the public are generally registered with their region's health authority, while other food businesses may need the national register, the RGSEAA.
• Staff. An employer opening a workplace notifies the regional labour authority through the comunicación de apertura de centro de trabajo, within thirty days of opening.
• The terrace. A separate municipal authorisation, as described above.

An order of work that avoids the usual traps

1. Describe the activity precisely, including anything that affects neighbours, such as cooking, music or late hours.
2. Shortlist premises and ask the town hall whether that activity is permitted at each address.
3. Establish the route for the unit you prefer, declaración responsable or full licence, and whether any works need their own permission.
4. Sign the lease once those answers are in, with a copy of the unit's current title in hand.
5. Commission the technical documentation and any works, then file.
6. Complete the tax census before your first invoice, plus any food or sector registration the activity needs.
7. If you employ staff, notify the workplace opening within thirty days.