Property taxes in Spain: an overview

Overview

Owning property in Spain involves several distinct taxes at different points — when you buy, every year you own it, and when you sell. This overview connects them together; each has its own detailed guide.

Requirements

• Relevant to anyone who owns, is buying, or is selling property in Spain, resident or non-resident

Step-by-step process

• When buying, you'll pay either Transfer Tax (ITP) for resale property or VAT plus Stamp Duty (AJD) for new-build — see our detailed guide to taxes when buying a property
• Every year you own the property, you'll pay IBI, the local municipal property tax based on the property's official cadastral value — see our detailed guide to IBI
• If you're a non-resident owner, you have an annual Non-Resident Income Tax (IRNR) filing obligation even if the property isn't rented out, since Spain treats non-resident-owned property as generating a notional taxable income
• When selling, you'll typically owe Capital Gains Tax on any profit, plus the separate municipal Plusvalía tax — see our detailed guide to taxes when selling a property

Required documents

• NIE/NIF
• Deed of purchase (escritura) and, on sale, the deed of sale

Common mistakes

• Budgeting only for the purchase-time taxes and forgetting the ongoing annual IBI and, for non-residents, the annual IRNR filing obligation
• Not realising that owning empty property as a non-resident still creates an annual tax filing obligation, purely because you own it

Practical tips

• Set a personal reminder for your annual IBI payment and, if applicable, your non-resident IRNR filing — these are easy to forget since they don't arrive with the same visibility as an income tax return
• A local gestor familiar with property tax filings can be worth the modest fee, particularly for non-resident owners managing this from abroad

How Tuchati can help

If you're not sure which property taxes apply to your specific situation, Tuchati can help you understand what to expect at each stage of ownership.