The Royal Palace of La Almudaina, the Spanish royal family's official residence on Mallorca, reopened to the public on July 29, 2026, following a roughly $3 million renovation that closed the 14th-century landmark for nearly six months.

The palace, which overlooks the Bay of Palma, shut its doors from January 12 through June 30 for the final phase of a comprehensive overhaul known in Spanish as a reforma integral (Patrimonio Nacional). Visitors returned on July 29 to find a redesigned tour that leads them chronologically through the building's layered history — from its Roman origins and the Muslim period of Madina Mayurqa, through the Kingdom of Majorca, the Crown of Aragon, and the Bourbon era, ending in a Throne Room themed around the reign of Alfonso XIII (Town & Country).

New spaces have joined the route. The Queen's Palace, a section dedicated to Isabella II's 1860 visit to the Balearic Islands, opens to the public for the first time. The expanded tour gives visitors access to rooms that were previously off-limits during the older, more limited walk-through.

The reopening featured three open house days — jornadas de puertas abiertas — allowing free entry before the standard ticketed schedule began (Patrimonio Nacional). Spain's Secretary of State for Tourism, Rosario Sánchez Grau, spoke at the reopening ceremony, as did Ana de la Cueva, president of Patrimonio Nacional, the government agency that manages Spain's royal palaces and heritage sites (Town & Country).

King Felipe VI was already putting the palace to its other use. The Spanish Royal Household's official agenda listed dispatch work at La Almudaina on July 29, and the king held audiences there in the days surrounding the reopening — with Jaime Martínez Llabrés, the mayor of Palma; Gabriel Le Senne i Presedo, president of the Parliament of the Balearic Islands; and Llorenç Galmés Verger, president of the Consell de Mallorca, the island's governing council (Casa de S.M. el Rey).

What makes La Almudaina unusual among European royal residences is that it never stopped being a working palace, even during the renovation. While the public was kept out, King Felipe, Queen Letizia, and their two daughters continued to use the palace as their home base during the family's annual summer stays on Mallorca (Town & Country). The closure applied to visitors, not to the royals themselves.

For an American frame of reference: La Almudaina is roughly the Spanish equivalent of the British royal family's Balmoral Castle in Scotland — a seasonal residence where the monarch mixes official business with family time, and where the public can tour the state rooms when the family is not in residence.

The palace's history stretches back well beyond its 14th-century royal identity. The site served as a Roman fort, then as the citadel of Madina Mayurqa under Muslim rule, before becoming a palace of the Crown of Aragon after the Christian conquest of Mallorca in 1229. The tour's chronological redesign is meant to make those layers visible to visitors for the first time in a single walk-through.