Abstract Over the last years, the business cycles of the Spanish economy have been analyzed from different points of view. Under the paradigm of the real business cycles, the standard model has been extended in several dimensions. However, none of them have taken into account the fact that in this economy the presence of non-tradable goods is one of the largest in the world. When this feature is properly taken into account, the modeled real business cycle small open economy, calibrated for Spanish data, is able to explain several distinct stylized facts for this economy. In particular, it explains the larger than standard volatility of private consumption, and the different cyclical properties of inflation for non-tradable and tradable goods. Furthermore, the theoretical model is able to adequately explain some other cyclical properties of Spanish macroeconomic variables, both at the aggregate and sectoral levels.