The deadline for removing oil-fired boilers from tourist accommodation in the Balearic Islands is 1 May 2030. Not 1 May 2027, the date that is still going around: Law 4/2026 of 11 June pushed it back three years. And for properties whose heating installation was built or replaced between 2019 and 2021, the limit is 1 May 2031.
Three more years are not three years of slack. A hotel plant room can’t be touched during the season, and switching energy source brings a design, works and registration with it. Here it is, step by step.
What the law actually says
The obligation is in Article 102.1.a) of Law 8/2012 on Tourism in the Balearic Islands, introduced by Law 3/2022 on sustainable and circular tourism. The establishments it covers “must remove thermal installations running on fuel oil or heating oil” and replace them with others using energy sources with a lower environmental impact, unless this is duly proven to be impossible, as judged by the island authority responsible for tourism.
The deadline sits in the tenth transitional provision, paragraph 3. Law 3/2022 set it at 1 May 2027. Law 4/2026, in its fourth final provision, paragraph 18, changed it to 1 May 2030, with 2031 for establishments newly built in 2019, 2020 or 2021, or refurbished in those years with a change to the heating installation. It has been in force since 14 June 2026.
Who it affects: more than hotels
People talk about “oil in hotels”, but the article goes further. It covers:
- Hotel accommodation: hotels, city hotels, aparthotels and inland tourism accommodation.
- Tourist apartments.
- Rural tourism: rural hotels and agroturismos.
- Holiday lets in detached, terraced or semi-detached houses.
The last group is the one most often forgotten, and in Mallorca there are a lot of them: a holiday-let villa with an oil boiler for heating and hot water is in scope.
Why it isn’t just “replacing the boiler”
This is the mistake that costs the most money. Replacing an oil boiler with a heat pump is not a like-for-like swap: under the RITE, Spain’s regulations for thermal installations in buildings, changing the type of energy counts as a refurbishment of the heating installation, and every refurbishment needs a technical document beforehand. Which one depends on the resulting output:
| Resulting heat output | Document required beforehand |
|---|---|
| Over 70 kW | Design project by a qualified engineer |
| Between 5 and 70 kW | Technical report, which a licensed installer can sign |
A hotel will almost always be over 70 kW. A villa with a heated pool is too, more often than people think: what counts is the total of all heat generators, and the pool heat pump adds to it. The full thresholds are on our building services engineering page.
Once finished, the installation is registered with the Balearic Directorate-General for Industry through procedure UDIT-021, which has a six-month time limit and negative administrative silence: if the file stalls, nothing can be taken as granted. An incomplete file submitted in April 2030 won’t make it to May.
How many winters are really left
In tourist accommodation, the plant room is worked on out of season. Counting that way, between now and May 2030 there are four usable winters: 2026-27, 2027-28, 2028-29 and 2029-30. The last one is the one everybody has in mind, and so the one with the fewest installers, machines and engineers available.
The order that works is the reverse of the usual one: first a survey of the existing installation and the alternatives, then the design with its bill of quantities and specification so that quotes can be compared, and only then buying equipment and starting works. Starting by asking an installer for a quote is starting at the end.
The exception: “duly proven impossibility”
The law allows the change not to be made if it is impossible, but it’s the island authority that judges the impossibility, not the owner. It isn’t a way to wait: it’s a file that has to be technically justified, with the alternatives studied and why none of them fit. If that’s the route, it’s worth knowing early, because if the authority doesn’t accept it, the clock keeps running.
What we do. The survey of the existing installation, the design or technical report for the change, supervision of the works and registration through UDIT. We don’t sell heat pumps or carry out the installation: the design says which machine is needed, not the one someone wants to sell. Tell us about your project.
Regulations reviewed in October 2026: Law 8/2012 of 19 July on Tourism in the Balearic Islands, Art. 102.1.a) and tenth transitional provision.3, as amended by Law 4/2026 of 11 June (fourth final provision.18); RITE (Royal Decree 1027/2007, amended by Royal Decree 178/2021), Art. 15; and the CAIB procedure sheet UDIT-021. Quotations from the law are our translation.