La Tomatina 2026: date, schedule, tickets, price and everything you need to know to go to Buñol

The declaration of a festival as a Festival of International Tourist Interest in Spain is not, strictly speaking, a parliamentary procedure, but rather an administrative procedure of the State's tourism administration. The role of the General Courts is mainly general normative (approving laws that regulate tourism and the regime of these distinctions), but the specific case of each festival is resolved outside Parliament.

1. Role of the General Courts

Parliament intervenes in an indirect and structural way on two levels:

• Framework laws on tourism and promotion.
  Congress and Senate approve laws that establish:
  • The competences of the State, autonomous communities, and local entities in tourism matters.
  • Promotion instruments (such as declarations of tourist interest) and their general framework.
  • The bases of administrative organization (ministries and bodies responsible for tourism).
  These laws are processed as bills or legislative proposals, following ordinary parliamentary procedures (debate in Plenary, committee work, amendments, etc.), but each specific festival is not processed in Parliament.
• Political control and promotion.
  Through:
  • Oral or written questions to the Government about why a festival has or has not been declared of tourist interest.
  • Interpellations or debates in committees.
  • Non-legislative motions (PNL) through which the Chamber can urge the Government to modify criteria or support a particular festival, although without direct legal effects.
  These initiatives have political effect but do not replace or substitute the specific administrative act of declaration.

Therefore, the Courts do not "declare" specific festivals of International Tourist Interest, but rather approve the legal framework and exercise control and promotion over the Government.

2. Role of the Government of Spain

The declaration of International Tourist Interest is governed by a state regulatory norm (usually a ministerial order issued by the ministry responsible for tourism). Within this framework:

• The competence usually lies with the General State Administration, through the tourism ministry (or the state department responsible for that area).
• An administrative procedure is established with:
  • Formal application by the autonomous community or the town hall where the festival is held.
  • Submission of documentation about antiquity, uniqueness, rootedness, media impact, international tourist attendance, etc.
  • Report and assessment by the competent technical unit.
  • Administrative resolution (usually signed by the competent state authority), granting or denying the declaration.

This entire process is administrative and regulated, not parliamentary. It is governed by the common administrative procedure law and the specific regulation that governs tourist distinctions.

3. Role of the autonomous communities and town halls

Before reaching the State, it is usually necessary that the festival has been previously declared of regional tourist interest or equivalent, according to the regulations of each community. The following intervene here:

• Town halls:
  • Promote the candidacy.
  • Approve plenary agreements supporting the festival.
  • Prepare documentation for the autonomous community and, subsequently, for the State.
• Autonomous communities:
  • Regulate by law or decree or order the regime of “festival of tourist interest” within their scope.
  • Grant the regional declaration, an almost always prerequisite for the international one.

Again, these steps fall within the regional and local administrative scope, not in the ordinary parliamentary processing of laws.

4. Is there any essential parliamentary procedure case by case?

No. For a specific festival to be declared of International Tourist Interest:

• No specific law approved by Congress or Senate is required.
• It is not processed as a bill or legislative proposal, nor does it go through legislative committees for its singular approval.
• The parliamentary role is limited to:
  • Configuring the general legal framework (when tourism regulations are approved or reformed).
  • Debating, controlling, and, if applicable, politically pressuring the Government through questions, interpellations, or PNL.

The specific decision lies with the State tourism administration, in an administrative procedure subject to the current legal and regulatory requirements.

The Buñol Town Hall, like any municipality in the Valencian Community, can organize and promote events with international projection, but always within the competences recognized by basic state and regional legislation. In practice, its power focuses on the material organization of the event within the municipal area, management of public space, cultural and festive programming, local tourism promotion, and coordination with the Generalitat and the State in matters such as security or public order.

At the state level, the Law 7/1985, of Bases of the Local Regime (LBRL), cited in the BOE, defines the general framework of municipal autonomy. This law recognizes municipalities' own competences in managing the interests of their community, including programming activities and services related to culture, leisure, sports, use of urban public spaces, fairs and markets, as well as the possibility of developing functions to promote their territory. Although the law does not explicitly distinguish between “local” and “international” events, the fact that an event has international projection does not change the basic nature of the competence: it remains a local activity, but with greater impact and coordination requirements.

At the regional level, Buñol is governed by the Law 8/2010, of local regime of the Valencian Community (BOE), which develops the Valencian local administration model. This regulation, based on the state law, reinforces the role of the municipality as a first-level entity and includes, similarly to smaller local entities, competences in:

• Management and use of its heritage.
• Traffic regulation on urban roads.
• Parks, gardens, and street cleaning.
• Fairs and markets.
• Recreational activities and leisure time occupation.
• Tourism and promotion of local resources.

These areas provide the legal basis that allows the Buñol Town Hall to design and execute festive, cultural, sports, or tourist events that, due to their media coverage, participation of foreign visitors, or sponsorship agreements, acquire international reach.

More specifically, the Law 15/2018, on tourism, leisure, and hospitality of the Valencian Community (BOE and DOGV) configures the entire regional territory as a tourist destination and emphasizes the role of municipalities and “tourist spaces.” Its index and preamble include:

• The existence of a strategic tourism plan of the Valencian Community, which must be respected by other Valencian administrations.
• A specific chapter on “Municipalities and tourist spaces”, which recognizes the tourist character of municipalities and guides their services towards principles of sustainability, hospitality, accessibility, and promotion of local development.
• The provision of a statute of the tourist municipality, detailing the regime of those municipalities with strong tourist activity.

This means that Buñol can:

• Integrate its internationally projected events into the regional tourism planning.
• Develop promotional campaigns in several languages, informational material for visitors, and marketing actions linked to the image “Valencian Community, tourist destination.”
• Collaborate with the regional tourism administration and other agents (companies, associations, etc.) in organizing and disseminating these events.

At the state level, the Order ICT/851/2019, of July 25 (BOE) regulates the declaration of festivals of national and international tourist interest. The declaration is honorary and allows the festival to use that mention in its promotional actions. The order foresees that festivals already recognized by the autonomous community can apply for the national or international declaration, detailing, among other aspects, their cultural value, continuity, originality, and presence in the “information society” (own website, social networks, content in several languages). The Buñol Town Hall is empowered to promote these applications and manage the documentation before the Generalitat and the competent Ministry, thus reinforcing the international dimension of its festivals.

Regarding security, public order, and foreign relations, full competences correspond to the State and, in part, to the Generalitat. The Town Hall:

• Manages the local police and ordinances on the use of public spaces, schedules, capacities, noise, and coexistence, according to the LBRL and regional regulations.
• Must coordinate with the Government Delegation and the Generalitat when the event requires special security devices, affects roads or supra-municipal infrastructures, or involves significant risks to citizen security.
• Does not assume its own competences in matters of borders, visas, or migration control, which remain state responsibilities, even if its events attract audiences and participants from other countries.

In summary, the Buñol Town Hall can organize and project internationally its events in all matters related to culture, leisure, tourism, use of public space, and promotion, supported by the LBRL, the Valencian local regime law, and the Valencian tourism law. However, it must comply with the limits set by the State and the Generalitat in security, public order, police regime, and foreign action, always acting through ordinances, licenses, agreements, and plans approved according to that regulation.

With the information available in the sources consulted in this research, it is not possible to rigorously determine in how many specific editions of La Tomatina the capacity has been limited since the introduction of access control through tickets in 2013. None of the databases or news used offers a systematic year-by-year count of that data for the period 2013‑2026.

This is related to the type of information usually published. The consulted databases mainly contain state and regional regulations, political chronicles, economic information, or sector news, but not a detailed historical record of the internal organization of specific festivals like La Tomatina of Buñol. When capacity and tickets are mentioned in search results, it is almost always in relation to other events (festivals, football matches, religious acts, etc.), not this particular festival.

In the case of La Tomatina, the capacity limitation and ticket sales from 2013 are part of the municipal organization of a mass event. These are decisions made by the Buñol Town Hall and, where applicable, by the Valencian Generalitat in matters of security, civil protection, and regulation of public shows. However, these agreements do not necessarily translate into a single regional or state-level norm easy to locate, but rather into mayoral edicts, municipal resolutions, contracting documents, and local government board agreements that are not always indexed in large general databases.

Furthermore, although it is known that many popular festivals have incorporated access control systems (tickets, wristbands, fenced areas, maximum capacities, etc.) in the last decade for safety and tourism management reasons, the centrally available documentation focuses more on the framework regulation (show laws, safety standards, civil protection guides) than on the detail of how many times a specific capacity has been applied to a particular festival. To accurately reconstruct that history in the case of La Tomatina, three types of sources that are eminently local would have to be consulted:

• The Buñol Town Hall archive: mayoral edicts, local government board agreements, and festival organization files, where the maximum capacity and access control system for each edition are set.
• The municipal website and local press releases: calls for each Tomatina, where sometimes the number of available tickets, price, access zones, and participation conditions are indicated.
• The regional and local press, which sometimes details organizational changes (for example, when the ticket system is introduced or modified or when capacity is altered compared to previous years).

From these materials, an exact picture of what has happened each year could be reconstructed: whether the event took place or not (for example, during the hardest years of the COVID‑19 pandemic many popular festivals throughout Spain were suspended), whether the access control model through ticket sales was maintained, whether capacity was increased, reduced, or maintained, and consequently, in how many specific occasions it can be said that the capacity was "limited" since 2013.

Since this current research has not found either that consolidated count or specific documents from Buñol that would allow indirect reconstruction, any figure offered would necessarily be a conjecture and would not meet a minimum standard of accuracy. From a methodological point of view, it is more prudent to acknowledge this limitation rather than provide a number that cannot be supported by a clear and verifiable source.

If you need an exact numerical answer, the most reliable way would be:

• Request from the Buñol Town Hall (by mail or through its electronic headquarters) a report or certification on the number of editions of La Tomatina, since 2013, in which a maximum capacity linked to ticket sales has been established.
• Complement that information with archives of Valencian media to contrast possible punctual changes in the access model, especially in the pandemic years.

With that type of direct documentation, it would be possible to establish how many times—and in which years—the capacity of La Tomatina has been limited since 2013, but that information is not found in the repositories accessed in this search.