The Málaga City Council postpones the collection of the new waste tax, scheduled for the third quarter of 2026, until it has full legal guarantees to avoid litigation like that in Madrid.
The Councillor for Economy, Finance and Revenue, Carlos Conde, acknowledged this Thursday that the first bill for the new waste tax will not arrive in the third quarter of 2026 as initially announced. "Will it be in the fourth quarter? I don’t know. We are working on it," he stated, emphasising that the City Council will not set a date until it has "full guarantees" to avoid judicial problems.
The decision responds to the "high level of litigation" this tax is generating in other Spanish municipalities. Conde specifically cited the case of Madrid, where several court rulings have forced the return of millions of euros in already collected bills. "The Málaga City Council cannot consider a situation like that of Madrid, which finds itself needing to return budgeted money that finances municipal actions," he asserted.
To safeguard the ordinance, the City Council holds regular meetings between the departments of Economy, Operational Services, Limasa, the Legal Advisory, the General Secretariat, and the Intervention. The aim is to draft a text that can withstand possible challenges. According to Conde, the main difficulty is the ambiguity of the Waste Law, which does not clearly define how to calculate the tax based on waste generation. "What does a family generate? Is it calculated based on water consumption or by the cadastral value? Not even that is clear," he lamented.
Málaga will not include income from this tax in its budgets until its collection is guaranteed. "We will always be moderate in our forecasts," Conde assured. The estimated average fee is €129.29 per year per household, although it will vary according to the cadastral value and the number of registered residents. The City Council has requested the central government to amend the Waste Law to reduce legal uncertainty.
You may also like
