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TOURISM

Imserso: Everything to know about Spain’s cheap holiday scheme for pensioners

The application start date for Spain's cheap holiday scheme for pensioners is this week. Here's how foreigners can get a four-day break for as little as €115 or a ten-day holiday for €455, as well as where they can travel to, who is eligible and how to apply.

Published: 19 August 2021 15:01 CEST
Updated: 25 September 2022 08:53 CEST
Imserso: Everything to know about Spain's cheap holiday scheme for pensioners
How pensioners can get cheap holidays in Spain. Photo: JAIME REINA / AFP

What is the Imserso programme?

Imserso is a social scheme offering holidays to the elderly. It aims to offer subsidised trips to pensioners in order to help them improve their quality of life and health, as well as to reduce their dependence on others.

The scheme also incentivises employment and economic activity, alleviating the problem of seasonal work in Spain’s tourism sector during low season. 

For the 2022/2023 season, around 816,000 Imserso spots are available. 

Which foreigners can access Spain’s Imserso scheme?

Foreigners residing in Spain who meet any of the following requirements may participate in the Imserso tourism programme:

  • A person who is retired and part of the Spanish public pension system.
  • A widow’s or widower’s pensioner who is 55 or older.
  • A recipient of unemployment benefits or subsidies, aged 60 or older.
  • A holder or beneficiary of Spain’s Social Security System, aged 65 or older.

How and when can I apply?

The best way to apply is online via the Imserso website which you can access here. 

You will need your Cl@ve, digital certificate or NIE in order to apply this way.

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You can also apply in person at the offices of the Imserso Tourism Programme. Find out from your local town hall where they are in your region, or you can also check under the Atención Presencial category here. Under the section Documentos you will be able to download the application form. 

You will need to provide documentation and proof of your identity, residency status in Spain and details of your Spanish pension and social security payments, so make sure to have them to hand when you’re filling out the form.

How does it work?

Acceptance to the Imserso programme depends on various factors. Those who are older, have fewer financial means, are part of a large family, have a degree of disability or who have never participated in the scheme before, will be given priority.

Applicants who haven’t been on a holiday in a while and those who are willing to travel in low season, will also be given priority.

People who apply may be accompanied by their spouse or, where appropriate, by a common-law partner or person with whom a stable and living union is established, without the need for them to meet the requirements of age or pension.

You may also be accompanied by children with disabilities as long as they travel with you and stay in the same room or if not, you will be required to pay a supplement for additional rooms.

How much will it cost me?

The Imserso programme is designed to subsidise holidays for pensioners and allow you to travel very cheaply. Depending on the dates you go and the type of accommodation you stay in, you will usually have to pay between €115 and €455 for the trip.

The cheaper Imserso holidays are usually four days long (three nights at a hotel) to locations in Spain’s inland provinces, whereas the €455 holidays are for ten days (nine nights at a hotel) in coastal areas or Spain’s islands.

This will include your accommodation on either a full or half board basis, as well as transport (except to provincial capitals), group insurance policy and a socio-cultural programme.

It should be noted that prices may be reduced for people who have economic resources equal to or less than the amount of non-contributory retirement and disability pensions in social security.

What type of holidays can I go on and where to?

There are several different types of holidays you can choose from as part of the programme. These include:

  • Coastal areas in mainland Spain: Stays of between eight to 10 days in either Catalonia, Andalusia, Murcia, Galicia, Asturias, the Basque Country, Cantabria or Valencia regions.
  • Spain’s islands: Stays of eight to 10 days in the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands.
  • Spain’s interior: Stays of four, five or six days in the interior of Spain (Extremadura, Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, La Rioja, Navarre), which are culture, nature or city-themed holidays.
  • Holidays in Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla.

There’s also a hydrotherapy Imserso programme, allowing the elderly access to spas around the country. The same requisites apply as for the regular programme. 

READ ALSO: Healthcare in Spain: the steps to apply for the S1 form for UK state pensioners

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TOURISM

Spain’s Canaries rule out tourist tax and property ban for non-residents

The Canary Parliament has voted against introducing an ecotax for holidaymakers or banning the sale of properties to non-residents, following huge protests over the weekend against mass tourism in the Spanish archipelago.

Published: 24 April 2024 14:49 CEST
Spain's Canaries rule out tourist tax and property ban for non-residents

The Canary Islands’ political sphere is attempting to appease their almost two million inhabitants with measures which will protect the islands’ nature from rampant overdevelopment derived largely from their ever-growing tourism industry. 

This comes after on April 20th tens of thousands of protesters took the streets of all eight Canary Islands and European cities such as London, Berlin and Madrid under the slogan “The Canary Islands have a limit”. 

READ ALSO: Mass protests in Spain’s Canary Islands decry overtourism

On Monday, President of Tenerife’s Cabildo government Rosa Dávila proposed an environmental tax, or ecotax, one of the main demands of the protests’ organisers. 

Proceeds from this ecotax “would go entirely to the protection and recovery of protected natural spaces”, Dávila said, such as the Teide National Park or the lush laurel forests of Anaga Rural Park. 

It is unclear if such an ecotax in Tenerife would take the shape of the usual tourist tax that exists in numerous cities in Spain and in 21 countries across Europe, which usually is a small amount added each day to holidaymakers’ hotel bill. 

In any case, at Tuesday’s plenary session in the Canary Parliament the right-wing Popular Party opposed such a measure across the archipelago, with their leader and vice president of the islands Manuel Domínguez saying “we are not in favour of creating a tax for sleeping in a hotel, a caravan or a holiday home”.

The motion presented by centre-left coalition Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-BC) also included other proposals such as a moratorium on new hotel beds, banning the sale of properties to non-residents and limiting Airbnb-style holiday lets, suggestions the PP and other Canary political parties shunned.

The leader of the Canaries’ Ashotel and CEHAT hotelier associations Jorge Marichal has also unsurprisingly voiced his opposition to a possible tourist tax, shifting the blame instead onto the proliferation of short-term holiday lets and their impact on Tenerife’s rental market.

Banner at April 20th’s protest in Tenerife reads “Tourismphobia doesn’t exist, they’re lying, it’s the excuse politicians and hoteliers use to not introduce an ecotax nor change the tourism model”. Photo: Alex Dunham

An NC-BC spokesperson stressed that every 15 days a new emergency is declared in the Canary Islands – water, energy or housing – which is “evidence that something is colliding, that something is not right, and that’s what people expressed during these days”.

READ ALSO: ‘The island can’t take it anymore’ – Why Tenerife is rejecting mass tourism

Catalonia and the Balearic Islands both charge holidaymakers tourist taxes. Spain’s Valencia region was also planning to until the right-wing government now in power revoked the law early in 2024. 

However, the measures that were approved by the Canary Parliament were charging an entrance fee to visit Tenerife’s key sites and natural spaces, from which residents of the Canary Islands would be exempt from paying, and no offering up anymore land to hotels and other tourist complexes.

For his part, the regional president of the Canaries Islands Fernando Clavijo, whose national party Coalición Canaria is also against an ecotax, has suggested that an “environmental VAT” would be a “more efficient” way of improving the quality of life of islanders, as it would redistribute the wealth of tourism and advance social policies.

The reticence of the governing elite to adopt drastic measures that will lead to a more sustainable tourism model in the Canaries is unlikely to go down well among disgruntled locals, whose turnout at Saturday’s protests prove how much they want change.

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