What buying a property in Spain actually costs

A €300,000 resale in Andalucía costs €21,599 in tax and statutory fees as at August 2026: 7% transfer tax under the Junta de Andalucía, €388.01 of notary arancel and €211.41 of registry arancel. Your lawyer is on top, and a new build is taxed differently.

The taxes

Which tax you pay depends on whether the seller is a developer selling the property for the first time or anybody else. There is no overlap and no choice.

What the tax is charged on, before the rate

Take this first, because every figure below is a rate applied to a base, and the base is not the price you agreed.

Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1993 art. 10.2 sets it out:

«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.»

In English: the base is the valor de referencia the Catastro assigns to the property, and if the declared price is higher, the higher of the two is taken. Where no valor de referencia exists or cannot be certified, the base is the highest of the declared value, the agreed price and the market value.

Two consequences for a buyer. You are never taxed on less than the valor de referencia, however little you pay. And you can look that figure up before you make an offer, at the Sede Electrónica del Catastro. The worked example below assumes the two are the same, which is the common case and not the universal one.

A resale: ITP, set by the autonomous community

The transfer tax (Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales, ITP) is a regional tax, so the rate depends on where the property is.

| Where the property is | General rate on a resale home | Source, read 26 August 2026 | |---|---|---| | Comunidad de Madrid | 6% | Comunidad de Madrid, page updated 23 April 2026 | | Andalucía | 7% | Junta de Andalucía | | Región de Murcia | 7.75% | Decreto Legislativo 1/2010 de la Región de Murcia art. 6.1, as amended by Ley 3/2025 | | Comunitat Valenciana | 9%, and 11% above 1 million | Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria d'Hisenda | | Illes Balears | 8% to 400,000, then 9%, 10%, 12% and 13% by band | Agència Tributària de les Illes Balears |

Two warnings on that table, and both are real.

The Región de Murcia's own tax-agency page still published 8% on 26 August 2026, which is the rate that was superseded on 25 July 2025. The figure above comes from the consolidated statute at Decreto Legislativo 1/2010 de la Región de Murcia instead. And the Balearic rate is a progressive scale, not a single number: each band applies to the slice of the price inside it.

A new build: IVA plus AJD

Where the seller is the developer and this is the first delivery of the dwelling, the Agencia Tributaria charges IVA rather than ITP:

"Los tipos impositivos establecidos en la venta de viviendas, incluidas hasta dos garajes por vivienda y anexo situados en el edificio que se transmitan conjuntamente, actualmente son: 10% con carácter general, 4% cuando se trate de viviendas de protección oficial de régimen especial o de promoción pública."

So 10% on an ordinary new-build home from the Agencia Tributaria, including up to two garage spaces transferred with it, and 4% on certain subsidised housing.

Because the sale is subject to IVA rather than transfer tax, the deed falls into stamp duty (Actos Jurídicos Documentados, AJD) under Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1993 art. 31.2, at the rate the autonomous community has set. As at 26 August 2026 that is 1.2% in Andalucía, 1.4% in the Comunitat Valenciana, 1.5% in Murcia and the Illes Balears, and 0.75% in the Comunidad de Madrid.

The fees

The notary and the registrar do not set their own prices. Both are on published statutory scales, and both scales carry an across-the-board 5% reduction introduced by Real Decreto-ley 8/2010 and later written into the tariffs themselves.

The notary's scale sits in Real Decreto 1426/1989, Anexo I, Número 2.1. The registrar's sits in Real Decreto 1427/1989, Anexo I, Número 2.1, with a separate lodging fee in Número 1 and a global collar: the registry item can never exceed 2,181.673939 euros nor fall below 24.040484 euros.

Your lawyer is the one genuinely open figure. The published bases we read on 26 August 2026 are 1% of the price plus IVA, and a flat 3,000 euros plus IVA up to a purchase value of 1 million. The full comparison, with what each fee covers and excludes, is on who checks a Spanish property, and what the fee buys at each stage is on what a Spanish property lawyer does.

The worked example

One purchase price, every line, the arithmetic shown. A resale flat at €300,000 (about £256,650 at the European Central Bank reference rate of 0.85550 for 25 August 2026), in Andalucía.

| Line | How it is worked out | Amount | In sterling | Source | |---|---|---|---|---| | Transfer tax (ITP) | 7% of 300,000 | 21,000.00 euros | about 17,966 pounds | Junta de Andalucía | | Notary, band a | fixed, first 6,010.12 | 90.151816 euros | not applicable | Real Decreto 1426/1989 | | Notary, band b | 24,040.48 at 4.5 per 1,000 | 108.182160 euros | not applicable | Real Decreto 1426/1989 | | Notary, band c | 30,050.59 at 1.5 per 1,000 | 45.075885 euros | not applicable | Real Decreto 1426/1989 | | Notary, band d | 90,151.81 at 1 per 1,000 | 90.151810 euros | not applicable | Real Decreto 1426/1989 | | Notary, band e | 149,746.96 at 0.5 per 1,000 | 74.873480 euros | not applicable | Real Decreto 1426/1989 | | Notary, statutory reduction | subtotal 408.44, less 5% | 388.01 euros | not applicable | Real Decreto 1426/1989 | | Registry, bands a to e | 24.04 + 42.07 + 37.56 + 67.61 + 44.92 | 216.21 euros | not applicable | Real Decreto 1427/1989 | | Registry, statutory reduction | less 5% | 205.40 euros | not applicable | Real Decreto 1427/1989 | | Registry, lodging the deed | fixed, per title | 6.01 euros | not applicable | Real Decreto 1427/1989 | | Land registry extract before you buy | per property, tax excluded | 9.02 euros | not applicable | Colegio de Registradores | | Tax and statutory fees | | 21,599.42 euros | about 18,478 pounds | as above | | Lawyer, if you instruct one at 1% | 1% of 300,000, plus IVA | 3,000.00 euros plus IVA | about 2,567 pounds plus IVA | Junta de Andalucía rate not applicable; provider figure, 26 August 2026 |

So the Junta de Andalucía rate and the two aranceles together give €21,599 in tax and statutory fees, of which the tax is 97% and the fees are the rest. That proportion is the useful thing to take away: the notary and the registrar are close to a rounding error against the transfer tax, and any advice that treats them as the expensive part is wrong.

The same flat as a new build would be taxed at 10% IVA under the Agencia Tributaria, or 30,000 euros, plus AJD at 1.2% under the Junta de Andalucía, or 3,600 euros, so 33,600 euros in total, about 28,745 pounds, against 21,000 euros of transfer tax on the resale.

The filing deadline

A transfer-tax return has to be filed and paid within a period that runs from the deed, and filing late carries a surcharge. This page does not tell you what that period is, because we have not read the instrument that sets it. Your lawyer or your gestor will, and it is one of the first questions to ask them.

What the example does not include

Furniture and fittings. The cost of moving money between currencies, which on a sum this size is frequently larger than the notary. A survey, if you have one. A gestoría, where one is used. Anything you negotiate with the seller. And the mortgage, which changes several lines at once.

What changes if you buy with a mortgage

The lender pays some of it. Under Ley 5/2019 art. 14.1.e) the borrower pays the valuation and any copies of the deed they ask for, while the lender pays the gestoría, the notary's fees on the mortgage deed and the registry inscription of the mortgage. Stamp duty on a mortgage deed is the lender's. None of that touches the purchase deed, where your own costs sit exactly as set out above. The detail, including the pre-signature protection Spanish law gives you, is on Spanish mortgages for non-residents.

What you pay every year afterwards

Three things, and this page does not price them.

IBI, the annual municipal property tax, set by the town hall on the cadastral value. Community charges, if the property is in a comunidad de propietarios, set by the community itself. And non-resident income tax, which a non-resident owner declares on Modelo 210 whether or not the property is let.

We are not going to explain the filing here, and we will never offer to do it for you. Explaining a tax filing is in scope for this site. Performing one is not.

What this page does not cover

Capital gains tax on a later sale, the plusvalía municipal the seller usually pays, inheritance tax, wealth tax, or the tax position of any particular buyer. Every figure above is a published rate applied to a stated price, not advice about your circumstances.

How the purchase runs from first offer to registration is on buying property in Spain, the moment you first commit money is on the deposit contract, and every Spanish term used here is in the glossary.

We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. Before you commit money, instruct an independent lawyer who acts only for you.