IBI town by town: the council tax rate in nine Costa del Sol towns in 2026

This guide sets out the urban IBI rate for 2026 in each municipality on the Costa del Sol whose current tax ordinance I could open on the town hall’s own site, with a link to each one. It explains the figure the rate is charged on, the cadastral value, who pays and when, the separate rubbish charge, the discounts some towns give, and a worked example. The other yearly costs of a home, from community fees to the non-resident tax return, are in what it costs to own a home in Spain, and this guide does not repeat them.

The 2026 rate, town by town

IBI, the Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles, is the nearest thing Spain has to council tax. Each town hall sets its own rate within limits in the national law on local finances, which puts the rate for urban property between 0.4% and 1.10%, with small additions allowed for some towns. The rate a town chooses goes into its IBI ordinance, and that ordinance is the source for every figure below, west to east.

Each rate is the one in the ordinance the town hall publishes as in force, checked on 24 October 2026. An ordinance stays in force until the town changes it, which is why some of the texts are several years old. Málaga’s own tax observatory gives the city’s 2026 urban rate as 0.4510, the same figure, and the lowest of the eight Andalusian provincial capitals.

Marbella, Torremolinos and Málaga also set higher rates for their most valuable shops, offices and leisure buildings. The law allows those higher rates only for uses other than housing, so a home pays the general rate in the table.

Five municipalities on the coast are not in the table: Manilva, Benahavís, Mijas, Vélez-Málaga with Torre del Mar, and Torrox. I could not open a current IBI ordinance for any of them on the town hall’s own site in October 2026, so I have left them out rather than give a rate I could not confirm. For a home in one of them, including Mijas in the Fuengirola and Mijas area, the seller’s last IBI receipt gives the rate and the bill.

What the rate is charged on: the cadastral value

The tax is charged on the cadastral value, the valor catastral. Under the law on the Catastro, that value is made up of the land and the building, and it takes account of the location, the cost of building, the quality and age of the construction and the market. By law it cannot be higher than the market value, and the Finance Ministry sets a coefficient that relates it to market prices.

Each municipality’s values come from its own valuation study, the ponencia de valores, and towns are revalued in different years. Between revaluations, the national budget law can update the values by a coefficient in towns that ask for it.

A revaluation does not land on the bill all at once. The increase is phased in over nine years: in the first year 90% of the rise is taken off the taxable value, and that share falls by ten points a year until it disappears. So an IBI bill can rise every year for a while with no change in the rate. The figure the rate is applied to is called the base liquidable, and it equals the cadastral value once any phasing has run its course.

The cadastral value appears on the IBI receipt, because the law requires the Catastro’s data to be shown on the town’s payment documents. As the owner you can also see the Catastro’s records for your property on the Sede Electrónica del Catastro, signing in with a digital certificate or Cl@ve. It is a different figure from the reference value, the valor de referencia, which the Catastro works out from the prices notaries record in sales. IBI is not charged on the reference value.

Why the rate alone does not compare two towns

The bill is the taxable value multiplied by the rate. Because each town’s cadastral values come from a different valuation, a similar apartment can carry a quite different cadastral value in two neighbouring towns. A lower rate does not by itself mean a lower bill. The figure to compare is the bill on the home you are actually looking at, which the seller’s last receipt shows.

Who pays, and when

The tax falls due on 1 January and covers the calendar year, so the owner on that date pays the whole year. The law lets the owner pass the cost on under the ordinary civil rules, which is why a purchase contract can split the year’s bill between seller and buyer by the days each owns the home. The town still bills whoever owned it on 1 January.

On a sale, the home remains answerable for unpaid IBI, and the notary asks for the IBI position and warns both sides about any debt at the signing. Your lawyer asks for the last receipt and confirmation that nothing is owed, as part of the legal checks before you buy.

IBI is billed for the year, and each collector sets its own calendar. In Málaga, the city’s tax office, Gestrisam, publishes the 2026 calendar: without a direct debit the year is paid in two halves, from 1 April to 5 June and from 3 August to 5 October. With a direct debit it is charged in four quarters, on 5 June, 5 August, 5 October and 9 December, or in two or six instalments on request.

Several towns on this coast hand the collection to the Diputación’s collection agency, the Patronato de Recaudación Provincial. Casares says so on its own site, Estepona’s tax page points IBI and rubbish payments to the Patronato’s portal, and in Torremolinos the 2026 IBI was paid through the Patronato, after a deadline extended to 5 October. In Rincón de la Victoria, requests to pay in instalments go to the Patronato before 31 January. A Spanish bank account makes the direct debit simple, wherever the receipt comes from. On a new build, ask the developer when the home will be registered with the Catastro, because the first bill follows from it. The new developments on file list their handover dates.

The discounts worth asking about

Several of the ordinances in the table reward a direct debit:

• Estepona: 3% off the bill.
• Fuengirola: 5% off.
• Benalmádena: 5% off.
• Rincón de la Victoria: 5% off, for owners who do not pay in instalments.
• Torremolinos: 2% off, from the year after the direct debit is set up.

Four towns also give a discount for solar panels, each with its own conditions:

• Fuengirola: 50% for three years, where the panels supply at least 30% of the home’s energy. The yearly discount cannot exceed 25% of what the installation cost, and the application goes in before 1 January.
• Torremolinos: 50% for three years, with a minimum size of panel for the home’s floor area. The yearly discount cannot exceed 33% of the cost.
• Málaga: 15% for up to three years, applied for before 1 February.
• Rincón de la Victoria: 15% for up to three years, with at least 4 m² of collectors, applied for before 1 February.

Málaga, Torremolinos and Rincón de la Victoria give it only where the installation was voluntary. Panels that the building code required a new home to have do not qualify there, and what a new build includes sets out what the code requires. A buyer who adds panels to a resale home is the clearest case for them.

Two surcharges a town may add

The national law also lets a town add a surcharge to the IBI in two situations. Neither appears in any of the nine ordinances in the table.

Homes left permanently empty. Since the 2023 housing law, a town has been able to add a surcharge to a home left empty for a long time. In the wording in force since 8 October 2026, set by the decree described next, that means a home left empty, continuously and without good reason, for more than two years. Outside the areas declared stressed housing markets, it applies only to owners of four or more residential properties. The law lists the reasons that always count as good ones, and a second home is one of them, for up to four years without anyone living there. A holiday home used for part of every year is not an empty home in this sense.

Homes let to holidaymakers. Royal Decree-law 29/2026, of 6 October 2026, was published on 7 October and has been in force since 8 October. It lets a town hall in a municipality declared a stressed residential market under the 2023 housing law add a surcharge on homes used as tourist accommodation. It can reach 50% of the IBI, 100% for owners of two or more such homes and 150% for owners of four or more. It applies to tax periods starting from 8 October 2026, so 2027 is the first year a bill could carry it, and only where the town writes it into its ordinance. A decree-law has to be confirmed by a vote in Congress, which overturned an earlier version of the same measure at the start of October 2026. When I checked the BOE on 24 October 2026 it recorded no confirming vote, so whether the surcharge stands depends on that vote. If you plan to let the home, the tourist licence guide covers the rules that already apply.

The rubbish charge

Rubbish collection is a separate charge with its own ordinance. The 2022 waste law gave every town three years to set up a specific charge for waste that covers the real cost of collecting and treating it. Each town did it in its own way:

• Estepona charges a fixed yearly amount set by the home’s cadastral value, under the same 2026 ordinances, in nine bands from €26.78 for a home valued up to €15,330 to €220.71 above €255,501.
• Marbella charges a fixed part and a variable part. The fixed part for 2026 is €231.69 a year for a home outside the town centres, €347.56 for a detached house there, and between €28.97 and €108.60 inside the centres, by the category of the street. The variable part is set each year for each district from the weight of rubbish it produces, with a discount where the district recycles more.
• Casares approved its first ever rubbish charge in November 2024, set by the home’s cadastral value.
• Nerja charges by the half-year, falling due on 1 January and 1 July.

In Marbella, being away does not stop the charge. Its ordinance says so in terms: the charge is owed by the homes in the area the service covers, however long they are occupied during the year.

A worked example

Take a home with a cadastral value of €120,000, in a town where no revaluation is still being phased in, so the taxable value is the full €120,000. The cadastral value is made up, and the same figure is used for every town only to show the arithmetic.

Now Estepona in full. The IBI is €794.40. Paid by direct debit, 3% comes off, which leaves €770.57. A cadastral value of €120,000 falls in the band from €102,201 to €153,300 of the rubbish charge, which is €152.55. Together the town’s two bills for the year come to €923.12.

In real life the same home would not carry the same cadastral value in two towns, so read the table as arithmetic, not as a ranking. A non-resident owner also pays the non-resident tax on the same cadastral value each year, on top of the town’s bills.

How I handle it

Before you commit to a home I get the seller’s last IBI and rubbish receipts and check the cadastral value and the description on them against the home itself. I read the town’s current ordinance, so you know the rate, the payment calendar and any discount you could claim, such as the solar discount on a resale home where you plan to add panels.

The yearly figure then goes on the table next to the price, with the community fees and the non-resident tax, so the running cost of each home on the shortlist is clear before you choose. At completion I make sure the IBI position is clean and the receipts are moved into your name with a direct debit set up. To talk through the running costs of a home you are considering, book a call. Buying with me sets out how I work.

General guidance, not tax advice. The rates, discounts and charges are those in each town’s published ordinance and the BOE texts linked above, checked on 24 October 2026. Towns can change their ordinances each year, so confirm the figure on the current receipt before you rely on it.

Common questions