Buying a home in Spain in 2026: the taxes and costs your mortgage won't cover
The sum almost everyone does before buying goes like this: the bank lends 80%, so a €200,000 flat needs €20,000… sorry, €40,000. It’s the wrong sum, and not by a little.
What the mortgage doesn’t cover isn’t just the 20% of the price. It’s also the purchase taxes and fees, paid in cash on signing day, which depending on where you buy can add up to as much as half a deposit again. And there’s one piece that surprises even repeat buyers: the most expensive tax of all is not calculated on what you pay for the property, but on a value set by the Land Registry (Catastro) that you can look up before you sign.
This article sorts out both things: how much you really need saved, and where each figure comes from. The legal references are all at the end, in case you want to check anything.
First: new build or resale, because the tax changes
It isn’t the same tax, and it isn’t collected by the same administration.
Resale home (you buy from a private seller): you pay Transfer Tax (Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales, ITP). It is ceded to the regions, so your comunidad autónoma sets the rate, and the spread is huge: today it runs from 6% in Madrid to 13% in the top band of Catalonia or the Balearic Islands, and in five regions it isn’t a flat rate at all but a scale by value. If a region hadn’t approved its own rate, the state default of 6% would apply.1 It is always paid by the buyer, “whatever stipulations the parties may have agreed to the contrary”.2
New build (you buy from the developer, first delivery): you pay VAT at 10%,3 plus the Stamp Duty (Actos Jurídicos Documentados, AJD) on the purchase deed, also set by your region (0.50% if it hasn’t approved its own rate).4 Officially protected housing has reduced rates, depending on the specific scheme.
First practical conclusion: two flats with the same price in two different provinces do not cost the same, and neither do a new one and a used one. Before comparing prices, check which tax applies to you.
Transfer tax isn’t calculated on what you pay
This is the part that throws almost everyone, and the one that moves the most money.
Since 2022, the taxable base for transfer tax on a property is the valor de referencia (reference value) assigned by the Directorate General of the Catastro, not the price in the deed. The law is blunt: “In the case of real estate, its value shall be the reference value provided for in the legislation governing the property cadastre, as at the date the tax accrues”.5
The price only comes into play if it is higher: in that case the larger of the two figures is taken.5 So the real rule is “the greater of the two”, and it never plays in your favour:
- If you buy above the reference value, you pay on the price.
- If you buy below it, you pay on the reference value, even though the flat cost you less.
And if the property has no reference value assigned, or the Catastro cannot certify it, you go back to the old scheme: the greater of the declared value, the agreed price and the market value, with the Spanish Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria) free to check it afterwards.6
Look it up before you sign, not after. Each property’s reference value is public and can be consulted permanently on the Catastro’s electronic office; each year’s values are approved before 30 October of the previous year and announced in the official gazette during the first twenty days of December.7 It is a two-minute check with the cadastral reference, and it is the difference between knowing what you will pay and finding out with the tax return in front of you.
Reference value, cadastral value and appraisal: three different numbers
They get mixed up constantly, even in forums where people know their stuff. They are three figures that almost never coincide, set by different people and used for different things.
| Figure | Who sets it | What it is actually for |
|---|---|---|
| Reference value | Directorate General of the Catastro, yearly | Base for transfer tax and for inheritance and gift tax5 |
| Cadastral value | Catastro, through its valuation reports | Base for the council property tax (IBI) and for deemed income in personal income tax8 |
| Appraisal | An authorised valuation company, paid by you | What the bank uses to decide how much to lend you |
The most repeated mistake is assuming the reference value raises your IBI. It doesn’t touch it: the IBI base is still the cadastral value, a different number determined under different rules.8 The reference value is calculated from the prices notaries report for actual sales, with a reduction factor approved by ministerial order precisely so it does not exceed market value.7
And the appraisal plays no part in the tax: it is for the bank. Lenders typically finance up to 80% of the lower of two figures, price and appraisal, and your deposit follows from that.
What to do if the reference value is higher than the price
It happens, and it happens above all with properties that need work, which is exactly when the price drops and the reference value doesn’t notice.
The Directorate General of Taxes has answered that exact case: the fact that a property needs repairs “does not change any of the above”. If you believe the assigned value harms your legitimate interests you can challenge it, but with a condition worth reading twice: doing so “does not exempt you from the obligation to file the corresponding self-assessment based on the reference value”.9
So the order is this, and it admits no shortcuts:
- You file and pay on the reference value, within the deadline (thirty working days under the state regulation, although some regions extend it: check yours).10
- Then you request a rectification of the self-assessment, challenging that value. The reference value cannot be appealed on its own: only by appealing an assessment or by requesting that rectification.11
- The administration decides after a binding report from the Catastro, which confirms or corrects the value in light of the evidence you provide.11
It is slow and with your money already paid, so the moment to look at that figure is before you sign the deposit contract, while you can still negotiate the price knowing what you’re dealing with.
One detail almost nobody knows, and it works in your favour in the long run: paying transfer tax on the reference value does not turn that figure into your acquisition value. The day you sell, the capital gain is computed using “the actual amount for which the acquisition was made”, which is what you paid, regardless of the transfer tax base.12 The taxes and fees of the purchase do add to that acquisition value, so keep every invoice: in twenty years they are worth money.
What you pay at the notary (and what the bank pays)
There are two separate deeds on the same day, and since Law 5/2019 they are not paid by the same person.
The mortgage is almost entirely the bank’s. The law splits the costs like this, and it is not negotiable: “The property appraisal costs shall be borne by the borrower and the agency fees by the lender”, “The lender shall bear the cost of the notarial fees for the mortgage loan deed” and “The costs of registering the security at the land registry shall be borne by the lender”.13 Stamp duty on the mortgage deed has also been the bank’s since 2018: the law says “the lender shall be considered the taxable person”.14
The purchase is yours: the notary’s fees for that deed, registering the property in your name at the Land Registry and, if you use one, the agency that handles the paperwork. Notary and registry fees are set by royal decree and depend on the value, so they don’t vary from one notary to another: they move hundreds of euros, not thousands.
In one line: from the loan you pay the appraisal; from the house, everything else.
Two bills that show up unannounced
The IBI for the year you buy. The council property tax accrues on 1 January and is owed by whoever holds title that day, that is, the seller.15 But the law expressly allows the taxpayer “to pass on the tax burden borne in accordance with common law rules”,15 which is why most purchase contracts agree to split the bill according to the days each party owns the property. It is neither an abuse nor compulsory: it is a pact, and it gets looked at before signing, not after.
Buying from a non-resident. If the seller is not tax resident in Spain, two things become yours. First, you are required to withhold 3% of the price and pay it to the Agencia Tributaria as a payment on account of the seller’s tax.16 Second, for the council capital gains tax (plusvalía municipal) you become the substitute taxpayer, meaning the town hall claims it from you even though the tax is the seller’s.17 In a sale between residents, the plusvalía is paid by the seller, full stop.17 If your seller is a foreigner living abroad, those two lines need to be discussed and budgeted before the deed.
The full example: a €200,000 flat
Resale, agreed price €200,000, appraisal €205,000, and the Catastro reference value is €210,000. Transfer tax rate of 8%, which is an example figure: check your own region’s, because it is what moves the result most.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Property price | €200,000 |
| Mortgage (80% of the lower of price and appraisal) | €160,000 |
| Deposit | €40,000 |
| Transfer tax (8% on €210,000, the reference value) | €16,800 |
| Notary, purchase deed (estimate) | €700 |
| Land Registry (estimate) | €450 |
| Conveyancing agency (estimate) | €300 |
| Appraisal (paid by the buyer) | €350 |
| Savings needed on signing day | €58,600 |
Two readings of that table.
First: a €200,000 flat doesn’t need €40,000, it needs almost €59,000. That’s 29% of the price, not 20%. That is the figure your savings goal should carry, and it is why so many people arrive with exactly the deposit and discover they cannot sign.
Second, and subtler: transfer tax was computed on €210,000, not on the €200,000 you pay. That is €800 extra because of a figure that appears in no listing and that you could have looked up in two minutes. With a bigger gap between price and reference value (a property needing work, a rushed sale) that difference multiplies.
And if what you’re weighing is buying to rent out, the number that decides isn’t the gross yield: rental income is taxed at your marginal rate, not the savings rate. You can check yours in the income tax simulator, and the detail of what you can deduct is in what a rented-out flat really pays.
And after signing
The big spending ends on deed day, but another one starts that hardly anyone budgets: IBI every year, the community of owners every month, home insurance (the bank will require at least damage cover), special levies when they come and the normal upkeep of a house. On an ordinary flat that is a three-figure monthly sum you didn’t have before.
And if the property will be neither your main home nor rented out, watch out for deemed property income: an empty second home is taxed in your income tax return every year even though it brings in nothing.
If you are deciding between fixed and variable for the mortgage, we cover that separately in fixed or variable mortgage.
How does Cuéntamo help with this?
Buying a house is the extreme case of what Cuéntamo does: a large figure, with a date, that you need to have on an exact day and that is built over years.
To run the numbers right now, with no sign-up and no email, there’s the home buying costs and taxes calculator: pick your region (all nineteen territories are there, including the chartered ones and Ceuta and Melilla), the price and the reference value, and it tells you what you need saved on signing day. The rates are verified one by one against the consolidated text of each rule, so the figure isn’t an average or a number copied from an article.
And if you want that sum to become a plan, that’s what the app does. You set the purchase as a savings goal with the full figure (deposit plus taxes plus fees, not just the deposit) and a date, and see month by month whether your current pace gets you there, instead of finding out at the end. The assistant works out the goal with the same rates as the calculator, so the figure you saw here is the one you’ll see inside.
When you sign, one button adds the house to your net worth with its linked mortgage and amortisation schedule, and stores it at the full acquisition value, not the price. That last part sounds like a detail and isn’t: it’s what reduces your capital gain the day you sell and what feeds the 3% depreciation if you end up renting it out, and it’s a figure you can no longer reconstruct years later. The difference from a spreadsheet is that you don’t have to update it: the forecast already accounts for the instalment, the IBI and the insurance when they land.
Frequently asked questions
How much do you need saved to buy a home in Spain?
On top of the 20% the bank won’t lend, the purchase taxes and fees. In the example of a €200,000 flat with an 8% transfer tax, the savings needed go from €40,000 to about €58,600, nearly 29% of the price. The exact percentage depends mostly on your region’s transfer tax rate.
Is transfer tax paid on the purchase price?
Not necessarily: it is paid on the Catastro reference value, unless the price or the declared value is higher, in which case the larger of the two applies.5 If the property has no reference value, you go back to the greater of declared value, price and market value.6
I bought below the reference value, what do I do?
File and pay on the reference value within the deadline, then request a rectification of the self-assessment challenging that value. The Directorate General of Taxes has confirmed that challenging it does not exempt you from filing on that figure first.9 The administration decides with a binding report from the Catastro.11
Does the reference value raise my IBI?
No. The IBI base is the cadastral value, a different figure determined under its own rules.8 The reference value affects transfer tax and inheritance and gift tax.5
Who pays the notary and the registry when buying with a mortgage?
The loan deed is the bank’s business (notarial fees, registering the security, the agency and the stamp duty on the loan); you pay the appraisal.13 14 The purchase deed, its registration and its conveyancing are the buyer’s.
I’m buying from someone who lives outside Spain, does anything change?
Yes, two things: you must withhold 3% of the price and pay it to the Agencia Tributaria as a payment on account of the seller’s tax,16 and for the council capital gains tax you become the substitute taxpayer, so the town hall claims it from you.17
Figures for 2026. The reference value as the transfer tax base has applied since 1 January 2022 (Law 11/2021); the reduced 10% VAT on the delivery of housing, since 2012 (RDL 20/2012); the split of mortgage costs, since 2019 (Law 5/2019), and stamp duty on the loan payable by the lender since 2018 (RDL 17/2018). Transfer tax and stamp duty rates are set by each comunidad autónoma and reviewed every year: the amounts in the example are illustrative. Notary and registry fees are set by Royal Decree 1426/1989 and Royal Decree 1427/1989.
This article is checked against official sources and reviewed periodically. If you spot anything out of date, email us at [email protected].
Article 11.1.a) of the Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty Act: the rate on property transfers is the one «que (…) haya sido aprobado por la Comunidad Autónoma», and «si la Comunidad Autónoma no hubiese aprobado el tipo (…) se aplicará el 6 por 100 a la transmisión de inmuebles». Current regional rates are published by each comunidad autónoma. ↩︎
Article 8.a) of the Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty Act: the tax is payable «a título de contribuyente, y cualesquiera que sean las estipulaciones establecidas por las partes en contrario (…) en las transmisiones de bienes y derechos de toda clase, el que los adquiere». ↩︎
Article 91.Uno.1.7.º of the VAT Act (Law 37/1992): the reduced rate applies to «los edificios o partes de los mismos aptos para su utilización como viviendas, incluidas las plazas de garaje, con un máximo de dos unidades, y anexos en ellos situados que se transmitan conjuntamente». ↩︎
Article 31.2 of the Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty Act: first copies of deeds with a valuable amount and eligible for registration are taxed «al tipo de gravamen que (…) haya sido aprobado por la Comunidad Autónoma», and «si la Comunidad Autónoma no hubiese aprobado el tipo (…) se aplicará el 0,50 por 100». ↩︎
Article 10.2 of the consolidated Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty Act (Royal Legislative Decree 1/1993), as amended by Law 11/2021: «En el caso de los bienes inmuebles, su valor será el valor de referencia previsto en la normativa reguladora del catastro inmobiliario, a la fecha de devengo del impuesto. No obstante, si el valor del bien inmueble declarado por los interesados, el precio o contraprestación pactada, o ambos son superiores a su valor de referencia, se tomará como base imponible la mayor de estas magnitudes». The same rule applies to inheritance and gift tax. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Article 10.2, third paragraph, of the Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty Act: «Cuando no exista valor de referencia o este no pueda ser certificado por la Dirección General del Catastro, la base imponible, sin perjuicio de la comprobación administrativa, será la mayor de las siguientes magnitudes: el valor declarado por los interesados, el precio o contraprestación pactada o el valor de mercado». ↩︎ ↩︎
Third final provision of the consolidated Land Cadastre Act (Royal Legislative Decree 1/2004): the Directorate General of the Catastro determines the reference value «de forma objetiva y con el límite del valor de mercado (…) resultante del análisis de los precios comunicados por los fedatarios públicos en las compraventas inmobiliarias efectuadas», with «un factor de minoración al mercado» set by ministerial order. The annual resolution is published «antes del 30 de octubre del año anterior a aquel en que deba surtir efecto» and, «en los 20 primeros días del mes de diciembre», the Catastro publishes the informative announcement of the values in the official gazette, «que, al no tener condición de datos de carácter personal, podrán ser consultados de forma permanente a través de la Sede Electrónica del Catastro». ↩︎ ↩︎
Article 65 of the consolidated Local Finance Act (Royal Legislative Decree 2/2004): «La base imponible de este impuesto estará constituida por el valor catastral de los bienes inmuebles, que se determinará, notificará y será susceptible de impugnación conforme a lo dispuesto en las normas reguladoras del Catastro Inmobiliario». ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Binding ruling V1359-22 of the Directorate General of Taxes, on acquiring properties below their reference value because of their condition: «El hecho de que el inmueble necesite reparaciones no modifica en nada lo anterior, en tanto el valor de referencia no puede superar el valor de mercado. En todo caso, si el valor de referencia superase el precio de venta y la consultante entendiese que el valor asignado perjudica sus intereses legítimos, podrá impugnar la autoliquidación y solicitar su rectificación (…) bien entendido que ello no le exime de su obligación de practicar la correspondiente autoliquidación por el valor de referencia». ↩︎ ↩︎
Article 102.1 of the Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty Regulation (Royal Decree 828/1995): «El plazo para la presentación de las declaraciones-liquidaciones (…) será de treinta días hábiles a contar desde el momento en que se cause el acto o contrato». As a ceded tax, some regions have extended that deadline. ↩︎
Article 10.3 and 10.4 of the Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty Act: «El valor de referencia solo se podrá impugnar cuando se recurra la liquidación que en su caso realice la Administración Tributaria o con ocasión de la solicitud de rectificación de la autoliquidación», and the administration resolves «previo informe preceptivo y vinculante de la Dirección General del Catastro, que ratifique o corrija el citado valor, a la vista de la documentación aportada». ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Binding ruling V1694-22 of the Directorate General of Taxes, on a purchase deeded below the reference value: the acquisition and transfer values under article 35 of the Personal Income Tax Act are determined by «el importe real por el que dicha adquisición se hubiere efectuado» and by the amount «efectivamente satisfecho, siempre que no resulte inferior al normal de mercado», «con independencia de la determinación de la base imponible que proceda en el Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales y Actos Jurídicos Documentados». ↩︎
Article 14.1.e) of Law 5/2019 on real estate credit agreements: «Los gastos de tasación del inmueble corresponderán a prestatario y los de gestoría al prestamista. El prestamista asumirá el coste de los aranceles notariales de la escritura de préstamo hipotecario y los de las copias los asumirá quien las solicite. Los gastos de inscripción de las garantías en el registro de la propiedad corresponderán al prestamista». ↩︎ ↩︎
Article 29 of the Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty Act, as amended by Royal Decree-Law 17/2018: «Cuando se trate de escrituras de préstamo con garantía hipotecaria, se considerará sujeto pasivo al prestamista». ↩︎ ↩︎
Articles 75.1 and 75.2 of the consolidated Local Finance Act: «El impuesto se devengará el primer día del período impositivo», which «coincide con el año natural». Article 63.2 adds that the taxable person rule applies «sin perjuicio de la facultad del sujeto pasivo de repercutir la carga tributaria soportada conforme a las normas de derecho común». ↩︎ ↩︎
Article 25.2 of the consolidated Non-Resident Income Tax Act (Royal Legislative Decree 5/2004): «Tratándose de transmisiones de bienes inmuebles situados en territorio español por contribuyentes que actúen sin establecimiento permanente, el adquirente estará obligado a retener e ingresar el 3 por ciento (…) de la contraprestación acordada, en concepto de pago a cuenta del impuesto correspondiente a aquéllos». ↩︎ ↩︎
Article 106.1.b) of the consolidated Local Finance Act: in transfers for consideration the taxable person is «la persona física o jurídica (…) que transmita el terreno». Paragraph 2 adds that in those cases «tendrá la consideración de sujeto pasivo sustituto del contribuyente (…) que adquiera el terreno (…) cuando el contribuyente sea una persona física no residente en España». ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎