Valencia hospitality voucher refunds €50 in flood-hit towns

The Valencia hospitality voucher returns this autumn: the regional government will refund half of what residents of flood-hit towns spend in local bars and restaurants, up to €50 a head, from a €3.9 million fund.

The scheme, called Bono Hostelería 2026, was published in the region's official gazette on 29 September, according to Valencia Plaza. It is aimed at the municipalities hit by the flash floods of 29 October 2024, known in Spain as the dana, and at the bars, cafés and restaurants that reopened there with fewer customers than before.

The mechanics are simple and deliberately narrow. An adult registered as a resident in one of the towns listed in the decree applies online, eats or drinks in a participating venue, pays by card and uploads the receipts. The Generalitat then transfers back 50% of the spend, capped at €50 per person, which means the full refund requires €100 of bills.

Spend €100 by card in a flood-zone bar and €50 comes back: the fund covers 78,000 people.

How the Valencia hospitality voucher works

Each receipt must be for at least €20, cash is excluded and only one voucher is granted per person. Applications open on 15 October at 9am and close on 30 November, or earlier if the money runs out: requests are handled in order of arrival.

Spending counts until 13 December and receipts must be uploaded by 15 December. The refund arrives by bank transfer roughly 30 days later, local outlets report. Venues have their own window, from 1 to 31 October, to sign up; they must be registered for business tax in an eligible town and have a working card terminal.

The arithmetic sets the ceiling. At €50 each, €3.9 million covers 78,000 full vouchers, a figure Actualidad Valencia also gives as the number of potential beneficiaries. If every one of them spends the €100 needed, the scheme moves €7.8 million through local tills in two months.

What it means for bars in the flood zone

The voucher was requested by the regional hospitality federation, FEHV, as a way to pull local spending back into the affected towns, Valencia Plaza reports. It pays nothing to the venues directly: the subsidy goes to the customer, and the bar gets a sale it might not otherwise have had.

The €20 floor matters. A coffee and a slice of toast do not qualify; a set lunch for two does. That tilts the scheme towards restaurants and weekend meals rather than the morning counter trade, in a province where rice is a serious matter, as the Sueca paella contest shows.

The first test comes on 15 October at 9am. With a first-come rule and a fixed pot, the question is not whether the fund will be spent but how many days it lasts.