Buying or opening a café or bar in Spain: costs, payback and licences

An existing café or bar in Spain sells via traspaso for about €75,000 on average: half of 2026 listings ranged from €43,000 to €120,000, around €45,000 in Valencia and €98,000 in Barcelona.

Opening a bar from scratch costs €80,000–150,000. Payback is about 3 years — but usually only if the owner works behind the bar.

If you need a restaurant with a full kitchen, traspaso prices, the kitchen and extraction licence and payback are covered in Restaurant for sale in Spain.

Below: what it costs to buy an existing café or bar and to open one from scratch, what a traspaso actually sells, what a bar earns and spends, which permits each region requires, how module-based taxation works and what to check before buying. The page includes a payback calculator with an illustrative bar.

What an existing café or bar costs

We reviewed 73 traspaso listings for bars, cafés and restaurants in six cities (Wallapop, which also carries idealista listings, October 2026).

The median is €75,000, and half the properties fall between €43,000 and €120,000. These are asking prices: they come down in a deal.

Median rent in the sample is about €13 per m² a month.

A traspaso costs on average 59 months’ rent — a handy check: if a bar without outstanding revenue is priced at 150 months’ rent, it is overpriced. Resort towns vary wildly: in Marbella, from €38,000 to €1.25m.

Examples from the sample: a brunch café in Alicante, 78 m² — €59,800 with rent of €600 a month; a gastrobar in Valencia’s Ruzafa district, 80 m² — €105,000 with rent of €800; a bar-restaurant with kitchen near Plaça Urquinaona in Barcelona, 180 m² — €220,000 with rent of €5,700; a 40 m² bar with extraction in Badalona — €30,000 with rent of €816.

What a traspaso actually sells

Traspaso is an everyday word. Legally it is the assignment of the premises lease, usually together with furniture and equipment.

The seller’s company, its accounts and the premises themselves are not included, and the licence does not transfer automatically — it moves through a change of holder at the town hall.

So the buyer pays for three things: the lease (how many years remain and on what terms), the fit-out and equipment (no €80,000–100,000 refit needed) and the licence for the right activity — above all a permitted kitchen with extraction.

• Extraction. A bar without it cannot fry or cook hot food — only reheating and cold dishes. A kitchen must extract through its own duct taken up to the roof of the building (CTE DB-HS 3), and a duct on the façade passes through common property — usually the owners’ association has to agree. That is why “con salida de humos” in a listing pushes the price up.
• Licence classes in Barcelona. Listings still use the old classes: C1 — bar without kitchen, C2 — bar-restaurant, C3 — restaurant with kitchen and extraction.
• Terrace. Permission for street tables is a separate, time-limited document, and it does not always pass to the buyer.

Pubs and Irish pubs: freehold vs leasehold in Spain

Listings for British and Irish buyers split bars and pubs into leasehold and freehold. Spanish law does not use these words, but it has equivalents:

• Leasehold means a traspaso. The buyer gets the lease, the fit-out, the equipment and the customers; everything said above about a traspaso applies.
• Freehold means buying the premises together with the bar. Spanish listings say “local en propiedad”, “pleno dominio” or “venta de local con negocio”. There is no rent, but the price is a property price.
• A bar with accommodation. A flat above or attached to the bar. Check that it is recorded in the cadastre and the Land Registry as a dwelling: commercial premises can be turned into a home only through a change of use (cambio de uso) approved by the town hall.

We analysed 87 listings of bars and bar-restaurants for sale on the mainland coast (businessesforsale, October 2026; Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca, Murcia).

Leasehold, 64 listings: median about €60,000, half between €45,000 and €120,000; median rent about €1,125 a month (36 listings).

Freehold, 23 listings: median €595,000, half between €185,000 and €1.15m.

A freehold bar costs roughly 10 times as much: a small bar on the southern Costa Blanca costs €89,000–260,000, a seafront bar in Fuengirola, Torremolinos or Puerto Banús from €1m.

Pubs, including Irish and English pubs, are more often sold leasehold: an Irish-themed sports bar in Torrevieja for €59,000, an English pub in Benidorm for €350,000; freehold — an Irish bar in Torrevieja for €129,000 and an English pub on the Costa Cálida for €195,000.

Bars with accommodation are rare in the sample: freehold, a restaurant with rooms in Benissa for €1.35m and a complex with a bar, restaurant and apartments in Moraira for €2.23m.

A leasehold is cheaper to enter, but the lease runs out.

A freehold removes the rent and you keep the premises even if the bar closes — but payback takes longer; see “Payback period”.

What to check when buying the premises:

• Nota simple from the Land Registry: the owner, mortgages, embargoes, charges. Since autumn 2026 it can be ordered on sede.registradores.org only after logging in with an electronic certificate or Cl@ve; without them, in person at any Land Registry office.
• IBI. Property tax falls due on 1 January on whoever owns the premises that day, and unpaid IBI stays attached to the property itself: the buyer is secondarily liable for it (arts. 64 and 75 TRLRHL). Ask for the receipts and a town hall no-debt certificate.
• Purchase tax. Buying second-hand premises normally carries no VAT but transfer tax (ITP) at the regional rate — 7% in Andalusia. If the buyer is a business entitled to deduct VAT, the seller may waive the exemption: VAT at 21% is then paid under the reverse charge, plus stamp duty on the deed (AJD) (arts. 20.Uno.22, 20.Dos and 84.Uno.2º.e Ley 37/1992). New premises from a developer carry 21% VAT. If a trading bar is sold as a whole together with the premises, no VAT is charged and the premises are subject to ITP (art. 7.1 Ley 37/1992).

What it costs to open a café or bar from scratch

According to industry suppliers, a typical bar including refit, licences, equipment and furniture costs €80,000–150,000, a small one €25,000–90,000.

The main item is the refit: about €1,000–1,200 per m², or €80,000–96,000 for 80 m².

Equipment (fridges, coffee machine, beer taps, display cases, till) costs €5,000–30,000, design and licences €1,000–5,000, opening stock €3,000–10,000, plus a reserve until the business breaks even.

Hence the main argument for a traspaso: for a median €75,000 the buyer gets premises already fitted out, with a kitchen and, with luck, extraction — whereas starting from scratch, the refit alone costs more.

The argument against: failing locations are sold by traspaso too, so find out why the bar is for sale.

Which permits you need

Spain’s retail liberalisation law (Ley 12/2012), which replaces licences with a declaration for shops up to 750 m², does not apply to bars and cafés: hospitality is not in its annex.

Opening a bar is governed by regional public-establishment laws and municipal ordinances:

• Valencian Community. You open on a declaration with a technician’s project, a completion certificate and insurance; the town hall must inspect within a month, otherwise you may open after notifying it in writing (Ley 14/2010, art. 9). Venues for more than 500 people need an authorisation (art. 10).
• Catalonia. Bars and restaurants for up to 150 people open on prior notification (comunicació prèvia); larger ones need a municipal licence.
• Madrid. Since 2022 the OLDRUAM ordinance applies: the main regime is a declaration, with a licence only where there are risks to safety, health, the environment or heritage.
• Andalusia. Hospitality venues with or without music close by 02:00 (Decreto 155/2018, art. 17.1); live music is not automatically part of a bar’s activity — it must be stated in the declaration or separately authorised.

The food-safety register for a bar is kept by the region; there is no separate entry in the national register.

The mandatory “food handler’s card” was abolished in 2010 (RD 109/2010) — the bar itself must train its staff in hygiene.

A terrace costs money. In Alicante it is €4.16 per m² a month on a first-category street; in Málaga €87.80 per m² a year on a category A street (ordinance rates from 2020–2021).

A 20 m² terrace costs about €1,000 a year in Alicante and about €1,760 in Málaga.

What a café or bar earns

Spain has 163,890 bars — 14% fewer than ten years ago — plus around 84,000 restaurants and cafeterias.

Hospitality as a whole sells €116bn a year, but sector profitability fell in 2025: average spend is not keeping up with rising food, wage and energy costs.

Cost structure benchmarks (industry figures, not official statistics):

• Food and drink — 25–35% of revenue, usually 28–32% for cafés and bars.
• Staff — 25–35% of revenue. Food plus staff should stay below 60%; above 65% threatens profit.
• Rent — no more than 10% of revenue. At the median rent of €1,255 a month, a bar needs at least €150,000 of revenue a year.

Staff. Under the 2026 collective agreement for Alicante province, a bar waiter earns €1,314.25 a month 14 times a year plus an October payment of €1,235.82 — €19,635 a year gross.

Employer contributions in 2026 add about 32%, so a waiter costs the bar about €25,950 a year, around €2,160 a month.

Café and bar payback calculator

The calculator holds an illustrative bar: a €75,000 traspaso plus €15,000 for upgrades.

Revenue is €15,000 a month excluding VAT (€180,000 a year), food and drink 30%, staff €4,800 a month (about two positions with a working owner), rent €1,255 a month, other costs (energy, insurance, accountant, repairs, terrace) €1,500 a month.

Pre-tax profit is €35,340 a year, about €28,600 after tax, and the €90,000 investment pays back in about 3.1 years.

Two caveats. First, the model has no salary for the owner — they work behind the bar, so much of that €28,600 a year is their wage rather than a return on capital.

Second, a bar is very sensitive to revenue. At €140,000 a year instead of €180,000, with the same costs, pre-tax profit falls from €35,340 to €7,340. Break-even is about €10,800 of revenue a month.

Take revenue from bank statements, till reports and VAT returns (modelo 303), not from the seller’s word.

For how sellers justify a price, see How to value a business for sale; to assess an investment once timing is considered, see IRR (internal rate of return).

Coffee shop: how it differs from a bar

We analysed 91 traspaso listings for coffee shops and cafeterias (Wallapop, October 2026; bar-cafeterias are included).

The median is €55,000, with half the properties between €35,000 and €90,000; about €85,000 in Barcelona (21 listings) and about €70,000 in Valencia (23).

That is cheaper than a bar: the median for bars, cafés and restaurants above on this page is €75,000.

The most expensive are coffee shops with their own bakery or pastry workshop (obrador) and a terrace.

A coffee shop’s economics rest on the number of tickets, not their size.

If the average ticket is lower than in a bar selling beer and tapas, the same revenue needs more customers.

An illustrative example: to reach €15,000 a month excluding VAT, as in the bar calculation above, a coffee shop with a €4 average ticket needs about 3,750 tickets a month — roughly 144 a day over 26 trading days.

So what matters most in valuing one is the morning footfall nearby (offices, stations, universities) and opening hours, not the size of the room.

A coffee shop that only warms pastries and serves cold snacks depends less on an approved extraction system than a bar with a kitchen.

Taxes. Coffee and food served on the premises are taxed at the 10% VAT rate as a hospitality service (art. 91.Uno.2.2º Ley 37/1992); takeaway products are also taxed at 10% as foodstuffs (art. 91.Uno.1.1º), except alcohol and soft drinks, juices and fizzy drinks with added sugar, which carry 21%.

Cafeterias (IAE heading 672) can also use the module system, but their base is higher than a bar’s: in 2026 it is €13,743.56 per working owner, €1,448.68 per employee, €478.69 per kW of power and €377.92 per table (Orden HAC/1425/2025).

Illustratively: owner, 1 employee, 15 kW and 8 tables — about €25,400 of taxable base a year before depreciation and reducing coefficients, against €16,414 for the bar in the example below.

Check which IAE heading the seller is registered under: module tax depends on it.

Franchise. From the emprendedores.es directory: Café & Té — investment €60,000 plus VAT, entry fee €7,500, royalty 2%; Santagloria — €140,000, entry fee €24,000 plus VAT, royalty 5% and 1% for advertising; Dunkin’ Coffee — from €160,000, entry fee €25,000, royalty 6% and 4% for advertising.

Royalties are charged on revenue, not profit: on €180,000 of revenue a year, 5% is €9,000 — about a quarter of the bar’s profit in the calculation above.

Ice cream parlour: the season and making your own

We analysed 53 traspaso listings for ice cream parlours from 2026 (heladería, Milanuncios, October 2026).

The median is €72,000, with half the properties between €39,500 and €120,000; about €93,000 in Barcelona (14 listings) and about €80,000 in Valencia province (8).

The most expensive are on resort promenades and have their own production workshop; the cheapest are small outlets selling ready-made ice cream.

The main difference from a bar is the season.

An illustrative example: a coastal ice cream parlour with €120,000 of revenue a year, 75% of it in May–September: in summer that is about €18,000 a month, in the other 7 months about €4,300, while rent and minimum staff are paid all year round.

So ask the seller for revenue by month, not by year, and work out the cash buffer for winter in advance — how is covered in Cash gap.

Many heladerías get through winter on coffee and pastries — hence “heladería-cafetería” in listings.

If you make the ice cream yourself. An ice cream parlour that makes ice cream and sells it to the final consumer on the premises or to take away counts as a retail food business (art. 2 RD 1021/2022): it is not entered in the national RGSEAA register but in the regional register, on a notification or declaration (art. 2.2 RD 191/2011).

If you start supplying restaurants and other cafés, ask the regional health authority whether RGSEAA registration is needed.

The composition and names of ice cream are governed by RD 618/1998, which is partly still in force; hygiene by EU Regulation 852/2004, which requires procedures based on HACCP principles (APPCC, art. 5).

Taxes. Ice cream eaten on the premises is taxed at the 10% VAT rate as a hospitality service, and takeaway ice cream also at 10% as a foodstuff (art. 91 Ley 37/1992).

Ice cream parlours have their own module heading — 676 (chocolaterías, heladerías y horchaterías): in 2026 it is €20,016.97 per working owner, €2,418.67 per employee, €541.68 per kW and €220.45 per table; the base covers both making ice cream and the coffee and pastries served with it (Orden HAC/1425/2025).

Illustratively: owner, 1 employee, 20 kW (freezer displays and machines) and 6 tables — about €34,600 of taxable base a year before depreciation and coefficients, twice the bar in the example below.

For businesses trading no more than 180 days a year the Orden has a separate season coefficient of 1.25 to 1.50; a seasonal heladería should choose its regime with an accountant.

Franchise. From the emprendedores.es directory: Ice Wave — investment from €35,000, entry fee €6,900, royalty 2% and 1% for advertising, premises from 8 m²; Heladea — about €100,000 for 75 m² premises, entry fee €10,000, royalty €300. A franchise does not abolish the season.

Taxes: VAT and modules

• VAT. Food and drink served in a bar or restaurant is taxed at the reduced 10% rate (art. 91.Uno.2.2º Ley 37/1992).
• Modules. In 2026 the objective assessment regime (módulos) applies to bars: headings 673.1 and 673.2, up to 8 employees. For an ordinary bar (673.2) the annual base is €11,413.08 per working owner, €1,643.93 per employee, €94.48 per kW of power, €119.67 per table and €163.76 per metre of bar counter. Example: owner, 1 employee, 15 kW, 8 tables and a 6 m counter — about €16,414 of taxable base a year before depreciation and reducing coefficients, regardless of revenue.
• Module limits. Modules are available with previous-year revenue up to €250,000 — that is the tax agency’s position, although parliament has not ratified the decrees extending these limits. Check this with an accountant before choosing a regime.
• SL. Modules are for individuals only. A bar owned by an SL pays corporate tax: in 2026, with turnover under €1m, 19% on the first €50,000 of profit and 21% above. What a company costs is covered in SL in Spain, how to take profit out in Salary or dividends from a Spanish SL.

What to check before buying a café or bar

1. The lease. A business tenant may assign the lease without the landlord’s consent, but the landlord may raise the rent by 20% and must be notified within a month (art. 32 LAU). The lease may prohibit assignment or change these terms (art. 4.3 LAU). The remaining lease term is the main asset in a traspaso.
2. The licence. Who holds it and for which activity: a bar without a kitchen or a restaurant, with or without music. Do capacity and terrace match the licence? In the Valencian Community a change of holder is notified to the town hall within a month of the deal, and both parties sign the notice (Ley 14/2010, art. 12).
3. Extraction. Is there any, and is it legal? Without it the menu is limited.
4. The numbers. Monthly revenue for 2–3 years from bank statements, the till and VAT returns. If the seller is on modules, real revenue does not appear in tax returns. In resort towns, look at winter revenue.
5. Debts and staff. The buyer of a trading business is liable for the seller’s tax debts (art. 42.1.c LGT) unless they obtain a tax-debt certificate before the deal, issued within 3 months (art. 175.2 LGT); for Social Security debts (art. 168.2 LGSS); employees transfer with all their rights, and seller and buyer are jointly liable for wage debts for 3 years (art. 44 ET).
6. VAT on the deal. Selling a whole business able to operate on its own is outside VAT (art. 7.1 Ley 37/1992); a mere assignment of rights and assets usually carries 21% VAT — structure the deal with a tax lawyer.
7. Why it is for sale. Neighbours and noise complaints, seasonality, competitors on the street, the state of the equipment. Visit on different days and in different seasons.

How an existing business is checked before you pay a deposit is described on our traspaso audit page; if you are buying the owning company, you need full due diligence.

If you are moving to Spain for this business

A non-resident can buy a café or bar, but a non-EU citizen can live in Spain and run it personally only with a residence permit — usually a self-employment permit, for one year at first.

The golden visa has been abolished, and the startup visa does not suit an ordinary business of this kind.

How the self-employment permit works and how it differs from an employment permit is covered by Relotus in «Cuenta propia in Spain».

The sensible order is to confirm the permit first and only then pay a deposit.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to buy a bar in Spain?

In a sample of 2026 listings, a bar or café traspaso costs €75,000 on average, with half between €43,000 and €120,000. Cheapest in Valencia (about €45,000), most expensive in Barcelona (about €98,000) and Marbella (about €120,000). These are asking prices.

How much does it cost to open a bar from scratch?

A typical bar costs €80,000–150,000, a small one from €25,000. The main item is the refit at about €1,000–1,200 per m², plus equipment at €5,000–30,000, design and licences at €1,000–5,000 and a reserve until break-even.

Is the licence included in a traspaso?

The licence is tied to the premises and activity and transfers through a change-of-holder notice at the town hall, not automatically. Check which activity it covers: a bar without a kitchen cannot cook hot food.

Is a freehold bar or a leasehold (traspaso) cheaper?

Leasehold (traspaso): in a sample of 2026 coastal listings a bar costs about €60,000 on average, plus rent of about €1,100 a month. A bar with its premises (freehold) costs about €600,000, roughly 10 times more, but with no rent. When buying premises you pay ITP or VAT and check the nota simple and any IBI debts.

How much does a bar owner earn in Spain?

In the illustrative example with €180,000 of revenue a year, the owner keeps about €28,600 after tax — while working behind the bar themselves. Industry benchmarks put bar net margins at 5–15% of revenue.

What is the payback period for a café or bar?

About 3 years at average revenue with a working owner. A bar is sensitive to revenue: a 20% drop in revenue can cut profit several times over.

Can a bar pay tax under the module system?

Yes, if the owner is an individual, the bar has no more than 8 employees and previous-year revenue was up to €250,000. The base is calculated on staff, power, tables and counter length, not revenue.

Key points about buying a café or bar in Spain

• A bar or café traspaso costs €75,000 on average, about 59 months’ rent; opening from scratch costs €80,000–150,000.
• A traspaso buys the lease, the fit-out and equipment, and the licence — a permitted kitchen with extraction is especially valuable.
• Opening is governed by regions and town halls, not the general retail law.
• Payback is about 3 years, but usually only with a working owner; a bar is very sensitive to revenue.
• Before buying: the lease, the licence, extraction, revenue from bank and till, the seller’s debts and staff.

Sources

• Ley 12/2012 — BOE; Ley 14/2010 of the Valencian Community — alicante.es; Decreto 155/2018 (Andalusia) — BOJA.
• LAU, arts. 4 and 32 — BOE; LGT, arts. 42 and 175 — BOE; Workers’ Statute, art. 44 — BOE; Ley 37/1992 (VAT) — BOE.
• Orden HAC/1425/2025 (modules for 2026) — BOE; Orden PJC/297/2026 (contributions) — BOE.
• Alicante province hospitality collective agreement, 2026 tables — BOPA.
• Terrace fees: Alicante — alicante.es, Málaga — malaga.eu.
• Hostelería de España, Anuario 2025 — otea.es.
• Traspaso listings — Wallapop, October 2026.
• Coffee shops and ice cream parlours: traspaso listings — Wallapop and Milanuncios, October 2026; RD 191/2011 — BOE; RD 1021/2022 — BOE; franchises — emprendedores.es directory.
• Freehold and leasehold: businessesforsale listings — freehold and leasehold, October 2026; RDL 2/2004 (TRLRHL), arts. 64 and 75 — BOE.