Spain: taxes when selling a home

IRPF taxes the gain, not the price

The capital gain is the difference between the transfer value and the acquisition value (IRPF Law, article 34). The transfer value is the real sale price, which cannot be lower than the market price, minus the sale expenses and taxes you pay: agency, notary, registry, energy certificate and the municipal plusvalía (article 35.2).

The acquisition value adds the purchase price, the purchase costs and taxes (notary, registry, ITP or VAT and AJD, agency, without mortgage interest) and improvement works, not conservation works (article 35.1).

If the transfer value does not exceed the acquisition value there is a capital loss: no tax, and the loss is offset against other gains of the year and, up to a limit of 25%, against movable capital income, with a four-year carry-forward (article 49).

How much you pay

The gain is added to the savings tax base and pays the scale in force since 2025, which adds the state and the regional part (articles 66 and 76): 19% up to €6,000, 21% up to €50,000, 23% up to €200,000, 27% up to €300,000 and 30% above. Each rate applies only to the part that falls in its band, stacked on top of your other savings income of the year.

With a gain of €64,500, the IRPF is €13,715, which is 21.3% of the gain. It is paid with the tax return of the year after the sale; in a sale between private individuals the buyer withholds nothing (article 99).

When you pay nothing

There are three exemptions that matter to someone selling a home:

• A main residence sold by people over 65, or by people with severe dependency or great dependency: exempt, without reinvesting anything (article 33.4.b).
• Reinvestment in another main residence, in the two years before or after the sale: the gain is exempt in proportion to what is reinvested. What has to be reinvested is the transfer value less the mortgage left to pay, and the value of the new home counts even if you finance it (article 38.1 of the law and 41 of the regulation).
• Properties bought between May 12, 2012 and December 31, 2012: 50% of the gain is exempt, except purchases from relatives (additional provision 37).

Main residence and deadlines

A main residence is one you have lived in continuously for at least three years, with exceptions for justified reasons such as a job relocation (article 41 bis of the regulation). Arras do not count as a purchase: the deed or the delivery does. If you do not reinvest in time, you pay with a supplementary self-assessment and late-payment interest.

The municipal plusvalía

It is the Tax on the Increase in Value of Urban Land, the town hall’s, and in a sale the taxpayer is the seller (article 106). It is calculated with the cadastral value of the land and a coefficient according to the years held, up to 20, with the rate the town hall sets, 30% at most (articles 107 and 108). If you show that the real gain was lower, you are taxed on the real one, and if there was no gain nothing is paid (articles 104.5 and 107.5). The return is filed within 30 working days of the sale (article 110.2).

The maximum coefficients are set by law and have changed several times: the latest change, from a royal decree-law of September 29, 2026, was repealed by Congress on October 2. Check your town hall’s ordinance.

What else is on you

The costs of executing the deed are the seller’s, and those of the first copy and later ones the buyer’s, unless agreed otherwise (Civil Code, article 1455). A public deed is needed to transfer rights in rem over real estate (article 1280). To sell you need the energy efficiency certificate, with its label in the ad (Royal Decree 390/2021).

The buyer answers with the property itself for community debts of the overdue part of the year of purchase and the three previous years. That is why the seller declares in the deed that they are up to date and provides the debt certificate, which the community issues in seven calendar days (Horizontal Property Law, article 9.1.e). The IBI also goes with the property: the notary asks about debts and warns the buyer (article 64 of the Local Finance Law).