Takeaway for sale in Spain: buying a kebab shop, pizzeria or rotisserie — prices and payback

An existing takeaway in Spain — a pizzeria, kebab shop, chicken rotisserie or fast-food counter — sells via traspaso for about €28,500 on average: half of 78 listings in 2026 asked €20,000–59,000, around €25,000 in Valencia and €118,000 in Barcelona.

Opening one from scratch costs €60,000–120,000. Payback in our example is about 2.8 years.

Looking at a takeaway for sale in Spain?

Below: what a kebab shop, takeaway pizzeria or chicken shop costs as a traspaso, what the deal actually includes, what opening from scratch costs, which licence and extraction you need, how dark kitchens are regulated in Madrid and Barcelona, what Glovo, Uber Eats and Just Eat charge, what a takeaway earns with staff paid under the collective agreement, how it is taxed and what to check before buying.

The page includes a payback calculator with an illustrative example.

If you want a bar with seating, see Buying or opening a café or bar in Spain; for a full restaurant, Restaurant for sale in Spain; for a kitchen on wheels, Food truck business in Spain.

What an existing takeaway costs

We reviewed 78 traspaso listings for kebab shops, takeaway and delivery pizzerias, chicken rotisseries, takeaways and fast-food counters without a full dining room (Wallapop, which also carries agency and idealista listings, October 2026).

The median is €28,500, the average about €47,000, and half the businesses fall between €20,000 and €59,000.

40 of the 78 listings ask under €30,000; only 8 ask over €100,000, almost all in Barcelona and its commuter belt. These are asking prices: they come down in a deal.

The type of food matters less than the city: a takeaway pizzeria costs €26,500 on average, a chicken rotisserie €30,000, a general takeaway or fast-food counter €26,500, and a kebab shop €48,000 (the kebab median is pulled up by Barcelona listings).

A typical unit is about 80 m² at a rent of €950 a month: €850 outside Barcelona, €1,500 in Barcelona. A traspaso costs on average 47 months’ rent.

Examples from the sample: a comida para llevar unit near Plaza España in Valencia — €24,000 with rent of €998; a shawarma shop in Valencia’s Patraix district — €24,900 with rent of €700; a 60 m² takeaway and delivery pizzeria in central Mataró — €30,000 with rent of €1,090 plus VAT; a pizzeria in Benalmádena with a delivery scooter and Uber Eats, Just Eat and Glovo accounts — €39,500 with rent of €530; a 50 m² kebab takeaway in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter — €226,000 with rent of €2,439 plus VAT.

A separate segment is the British-style fish and chip shop in areas with many residents from the UK and Northern Europe.

On thinkSPAIN such shops are offered at €125,000 (Playa Honda near Cartagena, 150 m²) and €139,950 (La Marina near Alicante), and one in Torremolinos at €245,000, which from the description appears to include the premises.

That is four to five times the sample median: you pay for a customer base that comes year-round.

What a takeaway traspaso sells

Legally, a traspaso is the assignment of the premises lease together with the equipment.

The seller’s company and the premises are usually not included, and the licence moves through a change of holder at the town hall. In a takeaway deal, three assets matter most:

• Extraction. A kebab grill, fryer, pizza oven and chicken rotisserie all produce smoke and grease. 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. Installing extraction costs €2,000–8,000, but if the neighbours say no, no amount of money will get it.
• A licence for what you will cook. A takeaway licence is a separate activity: Valencia listings state plainly that a comida para llevar licence cannot be turned into a bar or café, and that a pizzeria without the right extraction is “not suitable for kebab, shawarma or chicken rotisserie”; in Barcelona, listings quote classes C1–C3 and “fast-food bar”. When you buy a kebab shop, you are buying the right to grill meat in those particular premises.
• Sales channels. A Glovo, Uber Eats or Just Eat account with its rating and reviews, a phone customer base, a delivery scooter. Sellers price these in: a pizzeria in Elche offers the business with equipment and “transferable” contracts with three platforms for €80,000, with the licence for €120,000, and with the freehold premises for €160,000.

What it costs to open a takeaway from scratch

A takeaway is cheaper than a restaurant because there is hardly any dining room, but the kitchen and extraction cost the same. Benchmarks for 50–80 m² premises:

• Fit-out — €800–1,500 per m² according to industry benchmarks; without a dining room the finish is simpler, so expect €40,000–80,000.
• Kitchen — €15,000–30,000: pizza oven or kebab grill, fryer, fridges, prep tables, till.
• Extraction to the roof — €2,000–8,000, if it is permitted.
• Project and licence — €3,000–6,000; plus the rent deposit (usually 2 months), packaging and launch.
• Reserve — a few months of costs while orders build up. How to size it is covered in Cash gap.

In total, €60,000–120,000. For comparison, a 96 m² takeaway with two kitchens in Sabadell is offered at €110,000, and the seller says the fit-out three years ago cost €130,000.

A chain is another route: Telepizza, according to a franchise directory, charges a 5% royalty and a 3% advertising fee outside Madrid, requires a town of at least 15,000 people and signs 10-year contracts.

How to assess a franchise is covered in Franchise for sale in Spain.

The main argument for a traspaso is the same as for a restaurant: the median €28,500 is less than a kitchen fit-out alone, and the extraction and licence are already in place.

Which permits a takeaway needs

A takeaway opens under a declaration or a licence from the town hall, and the rules are set by city ordinances and regional laws: what you may cook, whether you need extraction, whether you may put out tables. Three cities where buyers look most often:

• Madrid. Since 2022 the OLDRUAM ordinance has applied: the main route is a declaration, with a licence only where there are risks to safety, health, the environment or heritage. Since 2023 dark kitchens have been classed as an industrial use (“cocinas agrupadas”): in residential areas their size is capped — up to 350 m², according to legal summaries and the press — and riders must wait and collect orders inside the premises.
• Barcelona. Since February 2023 dark kitchens have been allowed only in the Zona Franca industrial area on the edge of the city. In the old town (Ciutat Vella), the district suspended licences for bakeries with on-site workshops because they were being used as pizzerias and takeaways, and in May 2026 it approved a new land-use plan regulating 180 activities instead of 55. So in central Barcelona a kitchen licence is an asset in itself, and it is priced accordingly.
• Valencia. The market distinguishes takeaway, bar and restaurant licences: before buying, check that the licence covers your menu and the extraction it needs — the listings themselves show why.

The food hygiene register for a takeaway is kept by the region, not the national RGSEAA register: this also covers selling “at a distance”, that is, a dark kitchen working only through apps (RD 191/2011, art. 2.2; RD 1021/2022, art. 2.2).

Training staff in food hygiene is the owner’s duty.

Since 2023, single-use plastic cups and food containers must be charged to the customer as a separate line on the receipt (art. 55.2 Ley 7/2022) — for a takeaway, packaging is a noticeable cost line.

Delivery: what Glovo, Uber Eats and Just Eat charge

An aggregator brings orders but takes a share of each one.

Uber Eats in Spain charges 30% per order when its couriers deliver, and 15% when your own couriers deliver or the customer collects.

Glovo, according to industry estimates, charges 15–35% plus fixed fees, and Just Eat 14–25%. The exact terms are in the platform contract and its monthly statements.

The delivery share is the main lever on a takeaway’s profit. If 40% of revenue comes through an aggregator at a 30% commission, commissions take 12% of all revenue.

In our illustrative example below, pre-tax profit without aggregators is €48,000 a year, with 40% delivery it is €26,400, and if every order comes through an app the business makes a loss.

So when buying, look at revenue by channel: till, own phone orders and each platform separately.

Dark kitchens: what is sold under that name

A dark kitchen is a kitchen with no dining room or shopfront that cooks only for delivery, often under several virtual brands at once.

The sample includes one: a 75 m² professional kitchen in Vilanova del Vallès next to the AP-7 motorway, “for delivery, virtual brands or restaurant groups”, at €90,000 with rent of €800.

Such a kitchen depends entirely on the aggregators and on where it is allowed to operate: in Madrid and Barcelona that means industrial areas or strict limits in residential neighbourhoods.

What a takeaway earns

A takeaway relies on a working owner and one or two employees.

The hospitality collective agreement for the province of Alicante expressly covers fast-food establishments but does not name them in its pay groups — they are assigned by category and function; if a takeaway is placed in group C, like bars and one-fork restaurants, a cook earns €1,314.25 a month in 2026 and an assistant €1,277.42, 14 times a year plus an October payment of €1,235.82.

Employer contributions in 2026 add about 32%, so a cook and an assistant cost the business about €4,300 a month.

Revenue benchmarks from listings range from €6,000–8,000 a month for a small sandwich takeaway in Valencia to €25,000–28,000 for a pizza production kitchen in Barcelona that trades 4 hours a day with two pizza makers and a manager. These are sellers’ figures; check them against bank statements.

Takeaway payback calculator

The calculator shows an illustrative takeaway pizzeria or kebab shop with delivery in a mid-sized city: a €50,000 traspaso (a unit with proven revenue costs more than the median) plus €10,000 for equipment upgrades, packaging and launch.

Revenue is €15,000 a month excluding VAT (about 42 orders a day at €12), food, packaging and aggregator commissions are 42% (food and packaging 30% plus 12% commissions with 40% of orders through apps), staff cost €4,300 a month (a cook and an assistant; the owner works in the kitchen without a salary), rent is €900 a month, and other costs (electricity and gas, insurance, gestor, extraction cleaning, till, platform advertising) are €1,300 a month.

Pre-tax profit is €26,400 a year, after tax about €21,400, and the €60,000 investment pays back in about 2.8 years.

Three caveats. First, the profit rests on the owner’s own work.

If the owner does not cook and a third employee is hired instead, pre-tax profit falls almost to zero — in effect, a takeaway pays for the owner’s labour.

Second, sensitivity to revenue. If revenue falls by 10%, pre-tax profit drops from €26,400 to €15,960, and by 15% to €10,740; break-even is about €11,200 of revenue a month.

Third, the city. In Barcelona, with the median €118,000 traspaso and €1,500 rent, the same unit takes more than 8 years to pay back.

How to read this figure and what to compare it with is covered in Payback period.

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

How a seller justifies the price is covered in How to value a business for sale.

Taxes: VAT and the module system

• VAT. Takeaway and delivered food is taxed at the reduced 10% rate, as is food served on the premises (arts. 91.Uno.1.1º and 91.Uno.2.2º Ley 37/1992). But the tax authority treats takeaway as a sale of goods, and goods have exceptions: alcohol and soft drinks and juices with added sugar are taxed at the standard 21% rate. The till and menu need to handle two rates.
• Modules. In 2026 the module system (estimación objetiva) is available under headings 671.5 (one-fork restaurant), 673.2 (bars), 675 (kiosks) and 642.5 for chicken rotisseries; heading 677.9 (“other catering services”) is not on the list. For a one-fork restaurant the annual base is €16,174.82 per working owner, €3,602.80 per employee, €125.97 per kW of power and €220.45 per table. Example: an owner, 2 employees, 15 kW and 4 tables — about €26,150 of base a year before depreciation and reduction factors, almost the same as the profit in our example. Which heading suits a kebab shop or pizzeria is decided with a gestor before registration.
• Module threshold. Modules are available with previous-year revenue up to €250,000 — this is the tax authority’s position, even though Congress did not ratify the decrees extending these thresholds. The takeaway in our example, with €180,000 of revenue, is within this threshold.
• SL. A takeaway run through an SL pays corporate tax: in 2026, with turnover under €1m, 19% on the first €50,000 of profit and 21% above. How to draw profit out is covered in Salary or dividends from a Spanish SL.

What to check before buying a takeaway

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 key asset in a traspaso.
2. Licence and extraction. Whose name the licence is in and which activity it covers: takeaway, bar or restaurant. Whether it allows your menu — kebab grill, fryer, rotisserie. Whether the extraction duct is legal and when it was last cleaned.
3. Revenue by channel. Till, phone orders and each platform separately, month by month for 2–3 years: bank statements, Glovo, Uber Eats and Just Eat statements, VAT returns. The delivery share and commissions show the real margin.
4. Platform accounts. The aggregator contract is in the seller’s name: before paying a deposit, ask the seller and the platform whether the page with its rating and reviews can be transferred to the new owner or will have to start from scratch.
5. Debts and staff. The buyer of a going concern 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 debts to Social Security (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. The sale of a whole business capable of operating independently is not subject to VAT (art. 7.1 Ley 37/1992); a simple assignment of rights and assets usually carries 21% VAT — how to structure the deal is decided with a tax lawyer.

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

If you are moving to Spain to run this business

A non-resident can buy a takeaway, but a non-EU national can only live in Spain and run it personally with a residence permit — usually a self-employment permit, initially for one year.

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

Relotus explains how the self-employment permit works and how it differs from employment in Cuenta propia in Spain.

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

Frequently asked questions

How much does a takeaway cost to buy in Spain?

In a sample of 78 listings from 2026, a takeaway traspaso costs €28,500 on average, with half between €20,000 and €59,000. A takeaway pizzeria is about €26,500 and a kebab shop about €48,000. Units in Valencia cost about €25,000, in Barcelona about €118,000. These are asking prices.

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

For 50–80 m² premises, about €60,000–120,000: fit-out, a kitchen for €15,000–30,000, extraction for €2,000–8,000, project and licence, the rent deposit and a reserve for the first months.

Do you need a special licence to sell takeaway food in Spain?

A licence is issued for a specific activity, and takeaway, bar and restaurant are different activities. The menu matters too: a kebab grill, fryer or rotisserie needs extraction through its own duct to the roof. When buying, check that the licence covers exactly what you will cook.

How much do Glovo, Uber Eats and Just Eat charge?

Uber Eats in Spain charges 30% per order when its couriers deliver and 15% with your own couriers or collection. Glovo charges 15–35% according to industry estimates, Just Eat 14–25%, plus fixed fees.

How much does a takeaway make in Spain?

In the illustrative example with €180,000 of revenue a year, two employees and 40% of orders through apps, the takeaway makes about €21,400 after tax if the owner works in the kitchen. Without the owner’s work, profit is close to zero.

Can you open a dark kitchen in Madrid or Barcelona?

In Madrid dark kitchens are classed as an industrial use, and their size is capped in residential areas. In Barcelona, since 2023, they are allowed only in the Zona Franca industrial area. Before buying an existing kitchen, check what activity its licence covers and where.

What VAT applies to takeaway and delivered food?

Takeaway and delivered food is taxed at 10%. Alcohol and sugary soft drinks and juices sold as takeaway are taxed at 21%.

Key points about buying a takeaway in Spain

• A kebab shop, takeaway pizzeria or rotisserie traspaso costs €28,500 on average, about 47 months’ rent; in Barcelona it is more than four times as much.
• Opening from scratch costs €60,000–120,000; almost all of it goes on the kitchen, extraction and fit-out that a traspaso already includes.
• The key items in the deal are a licence that covers your menu, legal extraction and the remaining lease term.
• The delivery share through Glovo, Uber Eats and Just Eat decides the margin: commissions reach 30% per order.
• Payback in the example is about 2.8 years, but only while the owner works in the kitchen.

Sources

• Ley 37/1992 (VAT), arts. 7 and 91 — BOE; Orden HAC/1425/2025 (modules for 2026) — BOE; Orden PJC/297/2026 (contributions) — BOE.
• RD 191/2011 (food hygiene register) — BOE; RD 1021/2022 — BOE; Ley 7/2022 on waste, art. 55 — BOE.
• LAU, arts. 4 and 32 — BOE; LGT, arts. 42 and 175 — BOE; Workers’ Statute, art. 44 — BOE.
• Madrid: 2023 amendment of the General Plan rules — BOCM, summary of the rules — GA_P; dark kitchens in Barcelona — elDiario.es; Ciutat Vella — betevé, Nació Digital.
• Alicante province hospitality collective agreement: text and establishment groups — BOPA 2023, 2026 tables — BOPA 2026.
• Uber Eats restaurant pricing in Spain — Uber Eats; Glovo and Just Eat commissions — qamarero; start-up cost benchmarks — qamarero, habitissimo; Telepizza franchise — Emprendedores.
• Takeaway traspaso listings — Wallapop; fish and chip shops — thinkSPAIN, October 2026.