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Barcelona businesses will pay €140 more a year for recycling: the TMTR soars in 2026
Thousands of businesses will see their recycling charge rise in 2026. The TMTR is increasing by an average of €140 per business following a review of the commercial register.
The Metropolitan Waste Treatment Charge (TMTR) will experience a sharp increase in 2026 for some 24,000 businesses in the Barcelona area. The average bill will rise by around 140 euros a year, representing a 74.4% increase in revenue. This rise will affect businesses as varied as cafés, bars, pharmacies and tobacconists.
The Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) has found, after reviewing the business register using new big-data tools, that around 29,893 establishments had not declared commercial activity. Of these, around 24,000 were being charged a lower rate than the one that applied to them. The AMB will now apply the correct rate, generating an extra 3.3 million euros in income and taking the annual total from 4.5 to 7.9 million.
According to AMB officials, this adjustment does not result from an increase in the tax rate, but from a technical update to tax categories. The measure seeks to correct anomalies detected in the register and improve the efficiency of waste management, especially the funding of eco-parks, whose cost amounts to 121.5 million euros.
The tax review will also affect rental premises. In 4,945 of these premises, the AMB observed that commercial activity had not been declared. Using water consumption as an indicator, it is estimated that each policy corresponds to 1.84 commercial activities. Thus, TMTR revenue from these premises will rise from 1 to 3.3 million euros.
In total, the TMTR will collect around 17 million more in 2026. For this year, projected revenue is 171.5 million, compared with 154.9 million in 2025. Of that increase, almost 5 million is due to the 3% rise in the CPI, while the remaining 12 million comes from tax corrections and penalties for entities that do not correctly report their activity.
Metropolitan reports stress that these changes do not amount to a radical transformation, but to specific adjustments to improve cash flow and tax control. The aim is to use digital tools to detect and correct imbalances in the commercial register management system.