Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0
How to get a building permit in Valencia for renovations
The category your work falls into decides whether you can start tomorrow or wait months. Here is where the line sits, what you file, and what the city charges.
Almost every ordinary reforma in Valencia now begins with a form you file yourself, not a permit you queue for.
Spanish planning talk still splits building work into two families. Obra menor is work that leaves the structure, the facade, the exterior appearance and the legal use of the property alone. Obra mayor is the bigger work that changes them, and it needs a technical project signed by a competent technician.
What has changed in Valencia is the procedure rather than the split. Most obra menor is no longer a licence granted in advance: it is filed as a declaración responsable through the Ayuntamiento's sede electrónica, you pay the fees, and you can start immediately, subject to inspection afterwards. Since 28 January 2026 the city's licensing ordinance goes further: structural work, a change of use or a demolition can also start on a declaración responsable when a certification body or the technician's professional college certifies the file, and still needs a licence first without that certificate.
That is faster and riskier at once. Filing the wrong category does not merely risk a fine, it can force you to undo finished work, and the declaration carries your name rather than your builder's. Choosing the category and choosing the builder are really one decision.
Which permit route your Valencia renovation takes
Work down this list until you hit the first item that describes your project. That is your category, and the whole job takes it, not just the offending part.
Painting and replacing fittings
Inside a home, painting, swapping kitchen units or sanitaryware and fitting air conditioning need no permit at all, as long as nobody touches the flat's installations or the building's shared ones. That exemption is article 14 of the city's licensing ordinance. Retiling, or anything that reaches the pipes or wiring, moves you onto a declaración responsable.
New kitchen or bathroom, same layout
Stripping out and replacing a kitchen or bathroom without moving walls is filed as a declaración responsable. Once new wiring or pipework goes in, the city's filing asks for a technical report signed by a competent technician, a budget and plans of the flat before and after.
Moving non-load-bearing partitions
Redistributing rooms by removing tabiques that carry no load is still a declaración responsable, with a technical report, plans and a named site director. It is the boundary, though: if one of those walls turns out to be load-bearing, the entire job changes route mid-build.
Touching a load-bearing wall, beam or slab
Replacing or moving a main structural element is the big route. It needs a project drawn and signed by an architect or technical architect, and then either a licence granted before work starts or a declaración responsable backed by a certificate from a certification body or the technician's professional college. Repairs to secondary structural elements stay on the ordinary declaration.
Anything visible from the street
Facade and roof maintenance, and new windows that keep the original look, go through a declaración responsable. Changing an opening or the look of the facade, enclosing a balcony or altering the roof is a bigger job, so check its route with the city before filing, and expect to need the comunidad too.
Changing what the property legally is
Converting a local comercial into a dwelling, splitting one flat into two, or merging two into one changes use or configuration. That is the big route, a licence or a certified declaración responsable, and in a divided building it also needs a community vote.
Obra menor and the declaración responsable
A declaración responsable inverts the old order. Instead of asking permission and waiting, you state on the record that the work you intend to do complies with the rules, that you hold the documentation to prove it, and that you will keep holding it. You pay, you file, and the clock on the work starts the same day.
The filing is done through the Ayuntamiento de Valencia's sede electrónica. In practice it asks for:
- a description of the works
- a budget for them
- the address and cadastral reference
- depending on scope, a simple technical memoria
- for some categories, the builder's details
The control does not disappear, it just moves. The city can inspect afterwards, and if the works turn out to exceed what was declared, the consequence is not a polite request to file again. It can be a suspension order, a fine, and an obligation to restore the property to its previous state at your cost.
This is why the honest description matters more than the fast one. If your builder tells you a wall is not load-bearing, that opinion should be on paper from somebody qualified to give it, before the declaration goes in.
Photo: Demiannnn, CC BY-SA 2.5
Obra mayor: the project, the technician and the wait
Obra mayor is not a bigger version of the same form. It requires a proyecto técnico, drawn and signed by a competent technician, describing exactly what is being built and demonstrating that it complies with the building code and the local planning rules.
That technician is not an optional extra you can economise on. They carry professional liability for what they sign, they direct the works on site, and for structural interventions their certificate is what closes the file at the end. Budget for their fees as a real line item, not a rounding error.
Then the town hall reviews the file. The Valencian planning law gives it two months to decide a licence, three for a catalogued building, but that clock stops whenever the city asks you for corrections and while it waits for reports from other departments. Files in Ciutat Vella, much of it heritage-protected, are the ones most likely to need those extra reports.
On the licence route, nothing starts until it is granted. Beginning structural work on the assumption that the licence will arrive is the single most expensive mistake in this whole area, because the remedy the city has is to stop the site.
What a building permit costs in Valencia: ICIO and fees
Two separate charges land on a reform:
- The ICIO (Impuesto sobre Construcciones, Instalaciones y Obras) is a municipal tax on the real cost of the works. Valencia charges 4 percent of the declared budget, the maximum allowed by the state law that governs local finance.
- The tasa urbanística is the fee for processing the file, self-assessed and paid when you file. On the standard home-reform declaration it starts at EUR 140.90 for a budget up to EUR 6,010.12 and rises in bands with the budget, as the city's procedure page sets out.
Both are calculated off the budget you declare, which creates an obvious temptation and an obvious trap. Under-declaring the budget to shave the ICIO is the kind of thing that surfaces later, when the final cost is documented on invoices you needed for something else entirely.
Worth knowing
The four percent ICIO is charged on the works budget, not on the property value, and it is separate from the IVA your builder charges you. Two different taxes, two different bases, both real.
How long each renovation permit route really takes
- A declaración responsable is effectively immediate: you file, pay and start, and the only delay is gathering the documents.
- A licence has a legal deadline of two months, three for a catalogued building, plus any time the file spends waiting on your corrections.
- Comunidad approval, if the work touches shared elements, runs on its own calendar, and a junta that has just met may not meet again for a long time.
The planning lesson is simple. Start the permit and the community conversation at the same time as you start collecting quotes, not after you have chosen a builder and promised them a start date.
The four ways a renovation permit goes wrong
Trusting a verbal opinion on a load-bearing wall
A builder saying a wall can come out is not a structural assessment. If the wall is carrying load, the works are obra mayor, your declaration was false, and both the fine and the remedial cost are yours.
Letting the builder file in their own name
The declaration is a statement by the property owner. If somebody else files it loosely on your behalf, you still carry the consequences and you may not even hold a copy of what was declared.
Splitting one job into several small filings
Breaking a gut renovation into a series of minor declarations to avoid a project is a well-known pattern and the administration knows it too. Assessed together, it is one obra mayor filed dishonestly.
Forgetting the building is protected
Large parts of Ciutat Vella carry heritage protection that reaches inside the flat, not just the facade. Ceilings, tiling and original beams can all be protected elements, and the rules there are not the general rules.
What to do before filing a renovation permit, in order
- 1
Get the structure assessed in writing
Before anything else, have a technician confirm which walls are load-bearing and what condition the installations are in. Everything downstream depends on that answer.
- 2
Fix the scope and price it
The declared budget drives the ICIO and the fee, so the scope has to be settled before you file. A moving scope means a filing that no longer describes the work.
- 3
File through the sede electrónica
Submit the declaración responsable or the licence application through the Ayuntamiento's electronic office, pay the self-assessed fee and the ICIO, and keep the receipt with the file.
- 4
Keep the paperwork for the sale
The filing, the technician's certificates and the final invoices are what prove the work was legal when you eventually sell. A buyer's lawyer will ask, and an undocumented reform is a price negotiation you will lose.
Planning a renovation in Valencia?
Tell us about the job: a kitchen, a bathroom, a full renovation or an office fit-out. We check which permits and paperwork the work needs, then put you in touch with local builders or an architect for quotes.
Where Valencia's renovation permit rules come from
The obra menor and obra mayor vocabulary comes from Spanish and Valencian planning practice. The texts that bind today are the Valencian planning law (articles 232 and 233) and the city's ordinance in force since 28 January 2026, which sort works into those needing a licence and those filed by declaración responsable.
The ICIO is a state-authorised municipal tax. The law on local finances caps it at four percent, and Valencia charges the cap, as the city's own ordinance (art. 9) sets out.
Procedures, forms and fees are published by the Ayuntamiento de Valencia on its own electronic office. Because ordinances are revised, the figures here are a planning reference and the city's published version at the time you file is the one that binds you. Once the works are done, interior design support for the finished home covers the layout, finishes and furnishing.
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Resident in Valencia since 2016. Founder of BeTranslated. 25+ years in translation, interpretation and multilingual SEO.
Reviewed 27 October 2026 by Michael Bastin