Mallorca before you book: the practical facts we checked

Every trip starts at Palma airport (PMI), on the city's eastern edge, and the drive matters more than the flight. By road from the terminal, the two Palma hotels are about 12 and 18 minutes away; L'Avenida in Sóller is 34, Castell Son Claret 38, Fornalutx Petit Hotel 41, Can Ferrereta 42, Belmond La Residencia 45 and Maristel 49. Four Seasons at Formentor and Cap Vermell at Canyamel are 71 minutes each, at opposite ends of the island.

Only Palma has a direct bus. EMT's line A1 runs between the airport and the centre of Palma for 5 euros in cash, with no note above 10 euros taken on board, or by contactless card at the door. TIB's airport lines run to Peguera, Alcúdia, Cala Millor and Campos, not to any of these villages.

Taxis run on the Mallorca reference tariff the Govern approved in June 2025: 2.50 euros flag fall and 1.20 euros a kilometre from 07:00 to 21:00 on weekdays, 2.85 and 1.35 at night and all day on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, a 4.65 euro airport supplement and a 16.95 euro minimum from the airport, covering the first 7 km. On that meter by day, Es Princep comes to about 20 euros and Cap Vermell to about 100. Estellencs and Deià by way of Sóller add a 4.26 euro mountain supplement, Cap de Formentor 8.52. The car hire desks are on floor 0 of the terminal, in the arrivals and baggage halls, with the cars in the car park.

Most guests drive. The Ma-10 runs 111 km along the Tramuntana from Andratx to Pollença, through Estellencs and Deià: narrow in places, all bends and shared with cyclists. From Palma, Sóller is reached through the Sóller tunnel, free since 29 December 2017. From 15 May to 18 October, 10:00 to 22:00, the Formentor road is controlled: past the barrier at km 2, cars reach the beach only while its car park has spaces, the road on to the lighthouse is closed to unauthorised vehicles, and TIB's line 334 shuttles from Port de Pollença for 1.80 euros by card. Four Seasons guests give the hotel their number plate before arriving.

TIB buses run from Palma to Sóller, Deià, Estellencs and Port de Pollença. Tap a contactless card on and off: 2.70 euros on line 204 to Sóller or the 203 to Deià, 3.60 on the 202 to Estellencs, 5.40 on the 301 to Port de Pollença, against 4.50 to 9 euros in cash. The wooden Sóller train takes an hour from Palma.

Palma's old town is a camera-controlled restricted-traffic area, and hotels inside it register guests' cars with the city; blue-zone bays cost 2.65 euros for two hours. Sóller's town car parks charge 1.30 euros an hour, up to 9 euros a day (10 at Sa Calatrava) from March to mid-November, and its historic centre is a low-emission zone open only to zero-emission and authorised cars. Fornalutx sells holidaymakers a 15 euro permit for a month; Deià charges 4 euros for three hours, Cala Deià 6 for four.

Every stay pays the Balearic sustainable tourism tax, set by Llei 2/2016 at rates unchanged since 1 January 2018. It is charged per person per night and collected by the hotel at any point before the end of the stay, and the Govern's own calculator adds 10 per cent VAT on top. From 1 May to 31 October, five-star hotels charge 4 euros, four-stars 3, and rural and interior-tourism hotels 2. From 1 November to 30 April the tax is cut by 75 per cent, and from the ninth night in the same place it halves again. Children under 16 pay nothing.

Seven of the ten are five-star hotels in the island's tourism register and charge the top rate: Four Seasons, Belmond La Residencia, Castell Son Claret, a rural hotel that pays by its five-star grand luxury rating, Cap Vermell, Can Ferrereta, Es Princep and Can Cera. Maristel is a four-star, at 3 euros. L'Avenida and Fornalutx Petit Hotel are registered as interior-tourism hotels, at 2, though L'Avenida's own terms quote 3.30 euros with VAT from May to October. So a couple's week in July comes to 56 euros at a five-star and 28 at Fornalutx Petit Hotel, and a February week at Es Princep to 14, each plus VAT.

Nothing has changed for 2026 or 2027. On 7 March 2025 the Govern proposed raising the summer rate to as much as 6 euros and dropping the charge in January and February; the decree-law it passed on 11 April 2025 changed only how the money is spent.

July and August are the island at full stretch. AEMET's normals for Palma airport give an average high of 31.2 degrees in July and 31.3 in August, an average of half a day of rain in July and 342 hours of sunshine, and buoy readings put the sea in the Bay of Palma at about 26.5 degrees in July and 27.5 in August on average. Rates peak with the heat, and L'Avenida asks for at least three nights from May to September.

The shoulder months suit most of this list better. May averages 23.7 degrees by day with 283 hours of sun and a sea of about 19.5; June 28.1, with the sea at about 23.5. September, at 27.9 degrees, keeps a sea of about 26.5, and October, at 23.9, still has about 23.5 in the water, though it is the wettest month of the year at the airport, 62 mm on about six days.

Then the island closes. Seven of the ten shut for the winter, from late October or November to March: Four Seasons, Belmond La Residencia, Castell Son Claret, Cap Vermell, Can Ferrereta, L'Avenida and Maristel. Es Princep and Can Cera stay open all year and Fornalutx Petit Hotel sells winter nights, so a winter trip is a Palma and Sóller valley trip. January at the airport averages 15.2 degrees by day and 3.8 at night, with 163 hours of sun.

Only one of the ten has sand at the door. Four Seasons stands at the head of Platja de Formentor, a kilometre of public beach reached down the hotel's garden steps, which holds a Blue Flag for 2026; it is shared with visitors who come by road and by boat from Port de Pollença. Everywhere else the beach is a walk or a drive.

In Palma, Can Pere Antoni, the city beach east of the cathedral, is 9 minutes on foot from Es Princep and 16 from Can Cera. Cap Vermell is a 25-minute walk down to Canyamel beach, four minutes by car. From Belmond La Residencia, Cala Deià, a pebble cove, is about 26 minutes downhill on foot, and the hotel runs a shuttle there in summer. Maristel's cove, Cala d'Estellencs, is pebbles and rock, 23 minutes below. From L'Avenida, Platja d'en Repic at Port de Sóller is eight minutes by car or half an hour by tram, and 12 minutes by car from Fornalutx. Castell Son Claret is 15 minutes from the beaches at Peguera. From Santanyí, Cala Santanyí is seven minutes by car and the car park at s'Amarador, in the Mondragó Natural Park, 13.

The 2026 Blue Flag list names Formentor, Cala Mondragó and S'Amarador near these hotels, and Cala Estància, Cala Major and Ciutat Jardí in Palma; Canyamel, Cala Santanyí, Cala Deià and Port de Sóller are not on it. Mondragó's car parks are paid in summer and free out of season.

Spain uses the euro, and debit and credit cards, mainly Visa and Mastercard, are very widely accepted. A shop or bar may set a minimum spend for cards if it says so on a visible sign, but it may not add a surcharge for paying by card, and refusing cash is itself an offence under Spanish consumer law. Cash payments to a business must stay under 1,000 euros, or under 10,000 for a visitor whose tax home is outside Spain.

Prices must be shown with all taxes included. VAT on hotel rooms and restaurant meals is 10 per cent and is already in the price on the menu and the rate. The exception is the tourist tax, which the hotel adds to the bill. Balearic rules also bar restaurants from charging for cover, or for bread, olives or anything else you did not ask for, and require the menu, its prices and the menú del día to be displayed.

The menú del día is the fixed-price weekday lunch: unless the board says otherwise, its price includes a first course, a main, dessert, bread and a drink. A survey by Hostelería de España, the national hospitality trade body, put the Balearic average at 16 euros in November 2025, the highest of any region in Spain.

Tipping is not obligatory, since service is included. Turespaña's advice is that tips are common in bars, restaurants, hotels and taxis, usually between 5 and 10 per cent of the bill.

The tourist tax is the change that did not happen: the Govern's March 2025 plan for up to 6 euros a night in summer was never passed, and the 2018 rates still apply.

Driving has changed more. Since 22 December 2024 central Palma, inside the ring of avenues, has been a low-emission zone: cars without a DGT environmental label are barred, with a 200 euro fine, and from 1 January 2027 B-label cars join them. Foreign-registered cars must register online five days ahead. Sóller made its historic centre a low-emission zone by an ordinance of August 2025. On 9 September 2026 the Balearic Parliament took up a Consell de Mallorca bill to cap summer arrivals of cars from outside the island and the number of hire cars; it is not yet law.

Holiday rentals have tightened. Since 16 April 2025 no new holiday let can be registered in a flat in a shared building anywhere in the Balearics, and since June 2026 the whole of Palma has been closed to new holiday rentals in homes.

Drinking in the street is banned outright, with fines of 500 to 1,500 euros, in the Platja de Palma and s'Arenal de Llucmajor zones, under the Govern's decree for responsible tourism in tourist areas, as tightened on 12 May 2024 and in force to the end of 2027. Elsewhere in Palma, the civic ordinance published on 24 May 2025 bans street drinking that disturbs others, and shop sales of alcohol from midnight to 08:00.

Among the ten, the newest is Four Seasons, open at Formentor since August 2024.