Furnished vs unfurnished rental in Spain: the real cost of a multi-month assignment

Why the cheaper rent is often the dearer option

When a company sends an employee to Spain for several months, an unfurnished flat usually wins the first comparison. Put two monthly rents side by side and the empty apartment looks like the sensible choice. But headline rent is the only cost that comparison captures. Before anyone can live in an unfurnished flat, someone has to furnish it, put the utilities in a name, get the internet installed, lodge a deposit and, at the end, empty it again.

For a permanent hire settling in Spain for years, that work is worth doing, and choosing furniture is part of making a home. For a professional on a defined assignment, it is a project nobody budgeted for. So the useful question in a furnished vs unfurnished rental comparison in Spain is what the company has to provide before the employee can actually live and work there. The rent is only part of the answer.

What "sin muebles" actually means

A flat advertised as sin muebles can mean quite different things. Fitted kitchen units are common, and some flats keep an oven or a hob. Beyond that, assume nothing the listing and the contract do not state. Beds, a sofa, a dining table, wardrobes, a washing machine, a fridge, cookware, linen and even light fittings are often missing.

A local tenant arriving with a removal van barely notices. An employee landing in Málaga with two suitcases has nowhere to sleep. Someone, whether the employee, HR or a relocation agent, has to buy, receive and assemble the rest. There is no reliable figure for what that costs, because it depends entirely on the flat and the standard expected. What is predictable is the work.

The cost nobody puts in the budget: time

Furniture has to be chosen, ordered, delivered, assembled and checked. Something arrives damaged and goes back. When the assignment ends, all of it has to be sold, stored or collected, usually in the same weeks the employee is handing over their work.

Utilities and internet follow the same pattern. Electricity and water contracts may need to be transferred, and even where fibre runs down the street, an installation still has to be booked if the flat has no active line. Landlords and providers may ask for an NIE, a Spanish bank account or a local payment method, which someone who arrived last week often does not have yet.

None of these tasks is hard on its own. The trouble is that there are a dozen of them, each with a different counterparty, and they all land in the first weeks of the assignment, when the employee should be meeting the team and getting on with the job.

An unfurnished home is usually a different kind of lease

Furniture is not the only difference. A flat let unfurnished as someone's home is normally an ordinary residential lease (vivienda habitual) under the Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos. Whatever term is written in it, the tenant can extend it year by year until it has run for five years, or seven where the landlord is a company. That suits a permanent move. It fits badly with an assignment that ends when the project does.

Temporary stays have their own category, and it changed on 8 October 2026. Royal Decree-law 29/2026 replaced the old arrendamiento por temporada with the arrendamiento de vivienda temporal, a lease for someone who is temporarily away from their usual home for a real, provable reason that the contract must state. It has to run for more than 31 days and, as a general rule, for no more than twelve months. If the reason is missing, the lease is treated as an ordinary residential one from the day it was signed. Because it is a decree-law, Congress still has to validate it, so check the position when you sign.

For a corporate assignment, the practical point is that the paperwork should describe what is really happening: who the tenant is, who lives there, why they are in Spain and for how long. Where the structure matters to your relocation or tax policy, take Spanish legal advice before signing.

What finance sees at the end of the month

An individual rental rarely produces a single cost. Finance sees rent paid by transfer, expense claims for furniture and kitchenware, separate utility and internet bills, perhaps a parking space, and a deposit that sits on the books until it comes back. Each line has its own receipt and its own approval.

Corporate housing exists largely to collapse that into one relationship. At Palacete 10 the model is one supplier, one contract and one monthly invoice issued with the applicable VAT treatment, contracted company to company. The operator manages the utilities, a €200 monthly allowance for electricity and water is included in the rent, and the company does not need a Spanish bank account.

What a furnished corporate residence replaces

Set side by side, the trade looks like this:

• Furnishing the flat: the residence arrives furnished, with premium beds and bedding, a fully equipped kitchen and a washer and dryer
• Utility contracts: managed by the operator
• Internet installation: high-speed fibre to the building and a private Wi-Fi network in each residence, working on arrival
• Key handover: smart keyless entry, so there is no appointment to make
• Finding parking: one secure space on site for each residence
• Receipts from a dozen suppliers: one monthly invoice

A relocation still involves plenty of work. What disappears is the work that existed only because the flat was empty.

When unfurnished is still the right call

Unfurnished makes sense when the move is permanent, when the employee is shipping their own furniture, when the company already has a local relocation set-up that handles furnishing and utilities, or when the assignment is likely to become a permanent posting. In those cases the lower rent is a genuine saving and the setup is an investment in a home.

The balance tips the other way when the assignment runs for a defined number of months, the employee comes from abroad, they need to work from the first week, or the company is moving several people and wants one point of contact and a predictable monthly cost. Then a higher headline rent can still be the cheaper option once time and administration are counted.

Corporate housing in Málaga

Palacete 10 has five furnished corporate residences in a restored 1908 villa in Málaga, with nine en-suite bedrooms between them, a residents-only work suite open around the clock and secure parking on site. Companies can take one residence or several. You can see what every residence includes and read how contracts and invoicing work.

If you are pricing an assignment, send us the dates, the number of people and where they will be working, and we will answer within 24 hours. Request a corporate proposal.