Food Truck in Spain for Foreigners: Pitches and Permits, Trailer and ITV, Taxes, Payback and Residency

A food truck in Spain counts as street trading, and the pitch comes from the town hall, not from the trailer’s seller. An equipped used trailer typically costs €9,000–16,500 (listings, October 2026), and a start-up budget with a buffer is about €22,000. You also need regional food registration, vehicle papers and a self-employment residence permit.

What a food truck is under Spanish law

Spain has no dedicated food truck law. Selling food from a trailer or van is venta ambulante, trading outside a permanent establishment. The national Retail Trade Act 7/1996 sets three rules (articles 53–55):

• you may trade only on authorised pitches, including from a “shop truck” (camión-tienda);
• the permit is granted by the town hall; because pitches are scarce, the permit runs for a limited term, candidates are chosen through an open procedure, and there is no automatic renewal and no advantage for the previous holder;
• your details, the town hall permit and an address for complaints must be clearly displayed at the stall.

Everything else is decided by the region and the town hall. The national decree on street trading (RD 199/2010), still quoted in many guides, was held by the Constitutional Court to encroach on regional powers and was repealed in 2021 by Royal Decree 538/2021. So the question “can I park and trade here?” is answered by the local bylaw (ordenanza) of the specific town, not by a general checklist.

How a food truck differs from a café: no premises to rent, no fit-out and no licence for a dining room, but every pitch has to be won separately and the season is shorter than a year. The licence, the HACCP plan (APPCC) and staff training for a business with premises are covered in “How to open a café in Spain“; here we deal only with what is different about a kitchen on wheels.

Where you can trade: street, fair or private event

The pitch determines which permit you need and what it costs. There are three options.

Street or square

A permanent pitch on a town street is the rarest option. In practice, many towns allow street trading only at markets (mercadillos) and fiestas, and pitches are allocated by tender for several years. There is no “park wherever the footfall is” rule in Spain: the law allows trading only on authorised pitches, and fines for trading without a permit are set by the town hall.

Fair or town fiesta

Fiestas and fairs are where food trucks make most of their money, and town halls auction the pitches. A worked example from Zaragoza: for the Pilar fiestas of 2025, the city tendered one temporary licence for four food trucks in a park for nine days, with a minimum fee (canon) of €8,120.08. That is about €2,030 per truck, or €226 a day, before bidders raise the price. The fee is not subject to VAT (IVA). The winner pays it within three days, otherwise the pitch passes to the next bidder.

The same tender lists the requirements for bidders: civil liability insurance under the regional decree, homologation documents for each food truck, proven turnover of at least €10,500 a year in one of the last three years, a gas installation certificate (boletín) signed by an authorised installer if you use gas, and electrical documents under the low-voltage regulations. Without this pack you will not get into a good fiesta.

Private event

A wedding, a corporate party, a festival on private land: you need no permit to occupy the street and you work under a contract with the organiser. The event itself is authorised through the organiser, and your kitchen must be included in their application and safety plan. Food hygiene rules and the trailer’s papers apply just as they do on the street.

A kitchen on wheels: food registration and hygiene rules

A common mistake is to look for food trucks in the national register of food businesses, RGSEAA. Retail outlets that sell food to the final consumer are expressly excluded from it: they are entered in their region’s register on the basis of a notification or a responsible declaration (declaración responsable) (article 2.2 of Royal Decree 191/2011). That vans and trailers count as retail is stated directly in Royal Decree 1021/2022: the definition covers “mobile or temporary premises”, including “street-trading vehicles” (article 2.2.a). You will need the national register only if you start supplying other businesses beyond what the retail regime allows (article 3 of RD 1021/2022).

The same decree sets the rules that are hardest to follow in a small kitchen:

• sauces, omelettes and anything with raw egg: either heat to 70 °C at the core for two seconds, or to 63 °C for 20 seconds and serve at once; otherwise use only pasteurised egg products; once prepared, keep at 8 °C or below and use within 24 hours, recording the date and time (article 9);
• food frozen in your own kitchen is labelled with the dates of preparation, freezing and expiry, and is never refrozen (article 5).

Requirements for the trailer itself come from EU Regulation 852/2004 (Annex II, Chapter III), and the regions spell them out in more detail. For Catalonia, the guidance note from the Diputació de Barcelona lists:

• a hand basin with hot and cold water, a water heater, a hands-free tap, soap and disposable towels;
• a clean-water tank of at least 20 litres, refilled at least every three days, and a waste-water tank of at least 25 litres, emptied daily; tank water must not be drunk or used in dishes, only bottled water;
• fridges and heated display units with thermometers, and an extractor hood if you fry or cook anything;
• a fire extinguisher and a fire blanket within reach; at the pitch, a toilet and washbasin nearby for staff.

The same note sets out the procedure: the notice of starting activity is filed with the town hall where the business is registered, and it serves as the entry in the municipal register of retail food outlets; each new pitch needs a separate permit from that town hall, with dates and hours. Between events you also need somewhere to store food and wash equipment: usually your own registered premises or an agreement with a kitchen that already operates.

Trailer or van: homologation, ITV and gas

The vehicle side depends on what the kitchen is built on.

A kitchen with water tanks is heavy: check the “under 750 kg” claim against the technical inspection card, which states the weight.

Converting a van into a kitchen is a vehicle modification (reforma): the use of the vehicle changes (the classification by use has a separate code 51, “shop”, for a vehicle permanently adapted for selling goods) and equipment is installed. The modification is processed under Royal Decree 866/2010: depending on the work, an engineer’s project, a conformity report from a technical service or the manufacturer, and a workshop certificate (article 7); within 15 days of the work the vehicle must be presented for ITV (article 8). A van without the modification recorded on its technical card will have to be legalised from scratch.

There is no specific regulation on gas in food trucks, but in practice organisers and town halls require a gas installation certificate signed by an authorised installer, plus electrical documents, as in the Zaragoza tender terms.

Buying a ready-made food truck or building your own

On 20.10.2026 we analysed listings on wallapop.es for “food truck”, “foodtruck” and “remolque/furgoneta venta ambulante”: only units equipped for food, excluding rentals, new made-to-order bodies, market stalls and clothing trailers.

In the same listings, manufacturers offer a new empty trailer body from €6,000 plus VAT for 3 × 2 × 2 m, up to €9,000 for 4 × 2 × 2 m with a sink, water and an extractor hood. The most expensive unit in the sample was €70,000 for a large food truck in Madrid. Only four listings mentioned pitches, permits or customers: almost always it is the vehicle that is for sale, not a business.

This is the key point to grasp before buying. The town hall permit is issued to the seller, in their name and for a set term; it is not renewed automatically and gives no advantage on transfer (article 54 of Law 7/1996). A “food truck with a market pitch” is a pitch you will still have to win yourself. What to check:

1. The technical inspection card: weight, category, recorded modifications and, for a van, the date of the next ITV.
2. Gas and electrical certificates and the equipment manuals: without them you will not be admitted to a fair.
3. Compliance with your region’s hygiene requirements: tanks, basin, hot water. A trailer built for Catalonia sometimes needs extra equipment to meet Andalusia’s rules.
4. If you buy the whole business (with the brand, event contracts and staff), tax debts and employees pass to you, as with any business purchase (see “How to buy an existing business or hotel in Spain“). The sale of a single trailer by a company or an autónomo is an ordinary transaction with 21% VAT.

Autónomo or SL, IAE and VAT

A single food truck run by its owner is usually operated as an autónomo (self-employed). An SL (limited company) makes sense when there are several trucks, a hired team and catering contracts: the company is liable for its debts with its own assets, and money goes in as share capital or as a shareholder loan.

Modules pay off for a food truck in a good season: an owner working alone in an 8 m² trailer declares about €14,700 of income under them, whatever they actually earn. The module thresholds for 2026 have been changed by decree, so choose the regime with a gestor (accountant and filing agent). How contributions work and how they are recalculated against real income is explained in “Autónomo taxes and contributions in Spain“; the full set of VAT rates is in “IVA: VAT in Spain“.

Investment and payback

The example is one trailer under 750 kg; the owner works it personally and hires an assistant for six months, with a season from May to October. The owner already has a towing vehicle. Assumptions are marked, so plug in your own figures.

Revenue is an assumption: 100 trading days a season, 80 sales a day at €11 including VAT, or €10 net of tax. That gives €80,000 a year. Annual costs:

• food: 32% of revenue, €25,600; packaging, gas and consumables: 5%, €4,000;
• pitches at fairs and fiestas: on average €110 a day (assumption; Zaragoza’s Pilar starts at €226), €11,000; fuel: €25 a day, €2,500;
• trailer parking, liability insurance, gestor and repairs: €4,740;
• an assistant for six months on the 2026 minimum wage (€17,094 a year, Royal Decree 126/2026) with 30.65% employer contributions and accident insurance assumed at 1.5%: €11,295;
• the owner’s autónomo contribution in the sixth bracket: €4,818.

Profit before income tax is €16,047 a year, and the investment comes back in about 1.4 years. But this is a return on your own labour: the owner is at the stove for 100 days and prepares for them. Break-even comes at roughly the 57th trading day, and the margin of safety is thin: with 15% fewer sales, profit falls to €8,487; if the season gives 70 days instead of 100, to €4,977. Without the assistant, the same owner would make €27,342, but not everyone can handle 100 days of fairs alone.

For a reader looking for an investment rather than a job, the conclusion is simple: a single food truck is self-employment. Money comes from a combination of several vehicles, catering and event contracts and a manager, and that is already an SL project with a business plan built around a specific city.

Residency for the owner

EU citizens do not need a work permit. A non-EU owner who runs the food truck personally qualifies for the self-employment permit (cuenta propia). The conditions are to meet the same opening requirements as a Spanish national and to show that the investment is sufficient for the project (article 84 of the Immigration Regulation). A food truck has three specific features here.

• One region in the first year. The first permit is issued for one year, for one region and one activity (article 83). Festivals all over Spain in the first year would require a separate permit in each region (article 85.6). After renewal, the permit is valid for four years throughout Spain and in any sector (article 87).
• Seasonality and renewal. Renewal requires proven continuity of the activity and paid-up taxes and contributions (article 86). If you deregister for the winter, renewal may be at risk, so plan winter income from catering, events or a second outlet.
• A business plan built on pitches. Without premises, the main evidence is contracts and won tenders for pitches, not the trailer.

• Applying from abroad: a visa through the Spanish consulate, based on the business plan.
• Already in Spain with another residence permit: a change of status to cuenta propia, filed through the Mercurio platform, with the fee paid on form 790-052.
• A permit without the right to work (non-lucrative visa): you may own the trailer or shares in an SL, but you may not work in the food truck.
• Digital nomad: for remote work for companies outside Spain; a food truck serving customers in Spain does not fit this status.

How self-employment differs from employment is explained in “Cuenta propia in Spain“; other business niches are covered in “Starting a business in Spain as a foreigner“.

If you would like to check a specific food truck before buying, work out whether autónomo or an SL suits your plans better, or put together a business plan for a residence permit, book a consultation. We handle autónomo and company registration as part of our business registration service in Spain.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get a self-employment residence permit for a food truck?

Yes, a food truck is an ordinary activity for a cuenta propia permit. You need a business plan, an investment sufficient for the project and compliance with the same requirements as a Spanish national. The first permit is issued for one year and one region, so build the plan around pitches and events in a single region.

Can I later add another activity to the same autónomo registration?

For the tax office, yes: a new activity is added with a change-of-details return. For the residence permit in the first year, no: the first self-employment permit is limited to one activity. After renewal, the permit is valid in any sector throughout Spain.

Do I need a licence if I only work at private events?

You need no town hall permit to occupy the street if you trade on private land under a contract with the organiser. But the entry in the regional food register, the trailer’s papers, insurance and tax registration are always required, and your kitchen must be included in the organiser’s permit for the event itself.

Does a trailer under 750 kg need registration and an ITV test?

A trailer up to 750 kg has no registration or number plate of its own and no periodic roadworthiness test, but it must have a technical inspection card. Above 750 kg, it is registered with the DGT and tested every year, and every six months after ten years. Check the weight on the card, not in the listing.

What VAT applies to food and beer sold from a food truck?

Food and drinks served for consumption on the spot, including beer and wine, are taxed at 10%. A sealed bottle of alcohol or sugary soft drink to take away, without service, is a sale of goods at 21%.

How much does a food truck cost, and how much do I need to start?

In listings as of October 2026, the median equipped trailer costs €12,800 and the median van €18,000. In our example, a start with a generator, extra equipment and working capital comes to about €22,000 if you already have a towing vehicle. Living costs for the family until the first season are budgeted separately.

Can I buy a food truck together with a market pitch?

Usually not. The town hall permit is issued to the seller for a limited term, is not renewed automatically and gives no advantage on transfer. When you buy a food truck “with a pitch”, you are buying the vehicle and the seller’s experience; you will have to win the pitch yourself under the town hall’s rules.

Key points about running a food truck in Spain

• A food truck is trading outside an establishment: the pitch comes from the town hall, pitches are scarce, and permits are awarded for a limited term with no automatic renewal; the national street-trading decree was repealed in 2021.
• Food registration is in the region’s retail register, not in RGSEAA; the trailer requirements are concrete: tanks, hot water, an extractor hood, refrigeration with thermometers.
• A trailer up to 750 kg is not registered and not taken for ITV; a van converted into a kitchen is a vehicle modification with an ITV inspection within 15 days.
• Food and drink consumed on the spot carry 10% VAT; autónomo owners can use the modules regime under group 675.
• A single food truck pays back in about a year and a half, but it is income for your own labour; the first self-employment permit is valid in one region.