How much cheaper is a winter let?

Substantially. A coastal apartment that lets by the week through the summer will commonly go for a monthly figure in winter that is a fraction of one peak week, because the owner is covering costs on a property that would otherwise sit empty. The trade is that you take it for months rather than days and you usually pay the bills.

What kind of contract is it?

Spanish law distinguishes between a tenancy for a person’s home and a let for a defined season or purpose, and the protections differ considerably. Winter lets on this island are usually written as seasonal agreements. Read what you are signing, get it in Spanish or Catalan as well as any translation, and take proper advice if you intend to stay long or register an address.

Is it cold enough to matter?

Yes, indoors. Daytime temperatures are mild by northern European standards, but Mallorcan holiday properties are built to shed heat: single glazing, tiled floors, no insulation and often no fixed heating. A flat at fifteen degrees inside with damp on one wall is a common January experience and it is why heating is the first question, not the last.

Which towns are open in winter?

Palma all year, and the working towns — Inca, Manacor, Llucmajor, Felanitx, Sóller and the inland villages — because people live in them. Purpose-built resorts largely close: from November to March a good share of restaurants, supermarkets and services in the coastal developments shut, and some do not reopen until Easter.

Can I take a winter let in a property that has a holiday licence?

Frequently, yes, and it is a common arrangement — an owner lets by the night in the season and by the season out of it. The rules governing each are different, and the registration that permits tourist letting is not what governs a six-month agreement. Ask the owner to be clear about which they are offering you.

Long winter lets on Mallorca, and who takes them

From November the resort towns empty and the same apartment that let by the week all summer becomes available for six months at a fraction of the rate. Who takes these lets, how the contracts differ from a summer booking, why heating and damp matter more than the view, and which parts of the island stay open.

By the second week of November the northern bay has gone quiet in a way that surprises anybody who only knows it in August. Shutters down along whole terraces, a single supermarket keeping reduced hours, and a great many apartments that spent the summer turning over every Saturday now standing empty until spring.

Some of them do not stay empty. There is a real and long-established market on this island for a let that runs from October or November to April or May, at a monthly rent that would not buy a fortnight in July, and it is how a surprising number of people spend a Mallorcan winter.

Who actually takes them

Cyclists and their coaches. The people who come for the inverted season and want a base from January to April rather than a hotel room.
Northern Europeans wintering. Retired or semi-retired, arriving in October, leaving in April, and the largest group by some distance.
Seasonal workers in reverse. People who work the summer elsewhere and spend the winter here, and people who work here in summer and need somewhere cheap to live between contracts.
Anyone caught between houses. Sales, renovations, relocations. Six months furnished at a sane rent solves a problem that hotels cannot.
Remote workers, though fewer than the marketing suggests, because the internet in rural properties is not always what a working week needs.

The contract is not a holiday booking

This is the part where people relax when they should pay attention. A week in August is a booking. Six months is an agreement, and Spanish law treats a let for a defined season differently from a let of somebody’s permanent home, with different notice and different protections on both sides.

Winter lets here are generally written as seasonal agreements with a start and an end date. Deposits are typically one to two months rather than a percentage of the rent. Bills are usually excluded. Agency involvement varies from none to a full inventory and a fee.

None of that is unusual and none of it is a trap, but it is worth reading, worth having in the original language as well as any translation, and worth taking proper advice on if you intend to stay long, register an address, or bring a family. This piece cannot tell you what the current rules are in your situation; the point is to ask rather than assume the summer arrangement scales.

An empty long-let apartment interior with a tiled floor, half-closed shutters and bare plain furniture against a white wall. — Tiled floors and shutters are built for August. In February they are the reason the flat feels colder inside than the street.

Heating is the whole problem

Mallorca in January is mild outdoors and unpleasant indoors, and the reason is construction. Holiday properties here are built to stay cool: tiled floors, single glazing, thin walls, no insulation, and frequently no fixed heating at all beyond a reversible air conditioning unit and whatever the previous tenant left behind.

The consequences, in order of how much they will annoy you:

Cold rooms. An unheated flat sits close to the outdoor temperature. Mid teens indoors, all day, is normal.
Damp and mould. Warm humid air, cold north-facing walls, and no ventilation because it is raining. Look behind wardrobes and in the corner of the bedroom furthest from the window.
Electricity bills. Heating with air conditioning units or electric radiators for a month is expensive, and it is the single item that most often surprises a winter tenant.
Bottled gas. Common, cheap to run, and it puts moisture into the air, which makes the damp worse.

Ask what the heating actually is, room by room, and ask what a January bill looks like. A landlord who has let the place through several winters knows the answer.

The stone courtyard of an inland Mallorcan finca with shuttered windows, terracotta pots and a dry fountain under flat winter light. — Rural stone houses are the coldest option of all in winter, and the most beautiful. Ask about the wood burner before you fall for the courtyard.

Where to take one

Where	Winter character	Suits
Palma	A working city, everything open, buses run	Almost everyone; the safe choice
Sóller and the valley	A real town behind a small port, quiet, damp	Cyclists, walkers, people who want mountains
Inca, Manacor, Llucmajor	Ordinary Mallorcan towns, markets, no tourism	Long stays, budget, learning the language
Inland villages	Beautiful, cold, and you will drive everywhere	Writers and people with a car and a plan
Northern bay resorts	Largely shut until the camps arrive in January	Cyclists from February; nobody in November
South-east resorts	Shut, and further from anything that is open	Very few people

The pattern is simple enough to state plainly: rent where people live, not where people holiday. A sea view in a development that closes for four months is a poor trade against a flat in a town with a market, a bus and a pharmacy that is open on a Tuesday in January.

What the arithmetic looks like

Monthly rents for a furnished winter let vary widely by area and quality, and the useful comparison is not against a hotel but against the same property in season. A flat that commands a high weekly figure in the first half of August will often let for less than that per month between November and March, which is the whole reason the market exists.

Add electricity, which in a poorly heated flat is the item that moves; add the deposit, which you get back; and add a car, unless you have chosen a town where you do not need one.

The mistake worth avoiding

Choosing on the summer photographs. A property is marketed with the pictures the owner has, and those were taken in June with the light coming in and the bougainvillea out.

Go and see it in the weather you will live in, or ask for pictures taken this week, and walk the street at seven in the evening. If three of the four businesses on it are shuttered and the fourth is a beach shop, you have found a cheap flat in a town that will not be there for you until April.