The annual tax Spain charges anyone who owns a home here but is tax resident somewhere else. It applies whether or not the home earns anything, which is the part that surprises most owners: a holiday apartment used for three weeks a year and locked the rest of the time still produces a tax bill, on a figure the law calls imputed income. This guide sets out who the tax applies to, how the figure is worked out, the two rates and who pays which, how the rental version differs, when each return is due, a worked example on a typical Costa del Sol apartment, and what happens on the day you sell. Each figure is taken from the law or the ministerial order in question, linked where it appears. The other yearly costs of owning, from the IBI to the community fees, are worked in what it costs to own a home in Spain each year.
Who the tax applies to
The Spanish personal income tax law, at article 9, treats you as tax resident in Spain if you spend more than 183 days of the calendar year here, counting short absences unless you can show tax residence elsewhere, or if the main base of your activities or economic interests is in Spain. If neither applies, you are a non-resident for Spanish tax, and your Spanish income is taxed under a separate law, the non-resident income tax law, through the return known as Modelo 210.
Two points follow. The tax is personal, so where a home is in two names each owner files for their own share. And it is charged on the Spanish home alone, not on your income at home, because a non-resident is taxed in Spain only on what arises in Spain.
A home you do not let: the imputed income
Article 24.5 of the non-resident law applies to a non-resident’s home the same rule the personal income tax law applies to a resident’s second home. That rule is article 85 of the personal income tax law. A home that is not let, and is not the owner’s main residence, is treated as producing an income of 2% of its cadastral value, or 1.1% where the cadastral values of the municipality were revised through a general valuation in the current tax year or the ten before it. The figure is worked out in proportion to the number of days in the year the rule applies, so a home let for part of the year carries imputed income only for the part it was not.
The cadastral value (valor catastral) is the value the Spanish state assigns to every property for tax purposes. It is held in the Catastro, it appears on the annual IBI property-tax receipt, and it is well below the market price. Whether the municipality’s values were revised in the last ten years is a matter of record, and the answer decides which percentage applies.
The rate on that figure is set by article 25 of the non-resident law: 24% in general, and 19% for residents of another European Union state, or of a European Economic Area state that exchanges tax information with Spain. Since the United Kingdom left the EU its residents pay 24%, the same as residents of the United States, Canada, Switzerland and everywhere else outside the EU and EEA.
A worked example
An apartment on the Costa del Sol with a cadastral value of €150,000, in a municipality whose values were revised within the last ten years, kept for the owner’s own use all year.
- Imputed income: 1.1% of €150,000 = €1,650.
- Tax at 24% (United Kingdom, United States and other non-EU owners): €396 a year.
- Tax at 19% (EU and EEA owners): €313.50 a year.
Where the cadastral value has not been revised in ten years the percentage is 2%, so the same apartment produces imputed income of €3,000 and tax of €720 at 24% or €570 at 19%. Two owners each declare half. The sums are modest, and that is the point: the return is a small, regular obligation rather than a large one, and it is far easier to keep up than to catch up.
A home you let
Rent from a Spanish property is Spanish income and goes on the same form. The difference is what can be taken off before the rate is applied. Article 24.6 allows a person resident in another EU state, or in Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein, to deduct the expenses the personal income tax law allows, such as community fees, IBI, insurance, repairs and the interest on a loan used to buy the home, provided they relate directly to the Spanish income. They then pay 19%. A person resident anywhere else is taxed on the gross rent, with no deduction, at 24%. For the weeks of the year the home is not let, the imputed income above applies to those days.
Whether a home may be let short-term at all is a separate question, decided by the region, the town hall and the community of owners, and is set out in the tourist licence rules in Andalucía.
When each return is due
The filing windows are set by article 5 of Orden EHA/3316/2010, the finance ministry’s order that governs the form.
- Imputed income on a home that is not let: between 1 April and 31 December of the year following the one being declared. The return for 2026 is filed in the last nine months of 2027.
- Rental income with tax to pay: the first twenty calendar days of April of the following year, with the whole year’s rent declared in a single return.
- A return that comes to zero: between 1 and 20 January of the following year.
- A return claiming a refund: from 1 February of the following year, within four years.
These windows changed in June 2026, and there are two transitional points. Rent for July to September 2026 is still declared on the old quarterly timetable, between 1 and 20 October 2026. From October 2026 onwards, rent goes in the April return of the following year. The notional income for 2025 keeps its old window and can be filed at any time until 31 December 2026.
The return is filed online with the Spanish tax agency, and the payment can be made by direct debit from a Spanish account or by transfer. Most owners have a Spanish accountant (gestor) or their lawyer file it for them each year for a small fee, which is the arrangement I would suggest, because the form is in Spanish and the cadastral figures have to be read correctly.
When you sell
Article 25.2 of the non-resident law requires the buyer of a property from a non-resident to hold back 3% of the price and pay it to the tax agency as a payment on account of the seller’s tax on the gain. The seller then files a return within four months of the sale, on a related form, showing the actual gain, and either pays the difference or claims the excess back. The property itself stands as security for the 3% if it is not paid over. In practice the sale is the moment the tax agency looks at the years of ownership, so an owner whose annual returns are in order gets the refund without difficulty, and one whose returns are missing is asked for them first.
How I handle it
My approach is the same for every buyer: proper research on the property and its area, a straight assessment of what it is genuinely worth, and careful negotiation on your behalf. On tax I am not an adviser and do not claim to be. What I do is make sure that before you complete you know this return exists, what it will roughly cost on the home you are buying, and who will file it, and put you in touch with an accountant I know and trust who does it for the owners I work with each year. That sits within the buying service. The yearly running costs are in what it costs to own a home in Spain, and the purchase costs in what a €350,000 apartment really costs. To talk it through, book a call.
General guidance, not tax advice. The percentages, rates and deadlines are those of the Spanish personal income tax law, the non-resident income tax law and Orden EHA/3316/2010, all last checked against the official texts on 18 September 2026. Rules change and your own position depends on where you are resident and how the home is used, so take advice from a Spanish tax adviser before you rely on any figure here.
Common questions
What is Modelo 210?
Do I pay tax on a Spanish holiday home I never rent out?
What is the cadastral value and where do I find it?
When is Modelo 210 due?
Can I deduct expenses on a rented Spanish property as a non-resident?
What happens to the tax when I sell?
What this relates to
The same subject, for buyers abroad
Pages written for buyers in other countries, in their own language, covering what changes for them.
- United States: Taxes for American owners of a Spanish home
- Netherlands: Box 3 en uw woning in Spanje: wat u in Nederland aangeeft
- Belgium: Belastingen op een tweede verblijf in Spanje: wat u in België aangeeft
- Belgium: Kadastraal inkomen voor uw Spaanse woning: aangeven binnen vier maanden
- Germany: Spanische Immobilie und das deutsche Finanzamt
- Poland: Nieruchomość w Hiszpanii a podatki w Polsce
- Sweden: Skatt i Sverige när du äger bostad i Spanien
- Norway: Skatt på bolig i Spania når du bor i Norge
