Where we work
Costa Blanca, Valencia and Murcia: the tax on your property changes with where it sits. Pick your area.
- The whole coast
Costa Blanca
Costa Blanca — the Mediterranean strip running from Dénia down through Benidorm, Altea, Calpe, Jávea, Alicante and Torrevieja to Orihuela Costa — is where foreign-owned homes in Spain are most densely concentrated. What every owner along it shares is the Comunitat Valenciana’s autonomic layer. ITP on a resale purchase is 9 %, and 11 % on the whole value when it exceeds €1,000,000 (art. 13.Uno Ley 13/1997). There is no general "habitual home" discount: the reduced rates of 6 % and 8 %, or 3 % and 4 %, reach only the categories art. 13 lists — a first habitual home bought under 35, familia numerosa or monoparental, qualifying disability, victims of gender violence, and protected housing (VPO) — with the lower figure of each pair applying when the value does not exceed €180,000. AJD on the notarial deed is 1.4 %, and 0.1 % on the first copy documenting the purchase of a habitual home (art. 14.Cuatro). Inheritances and gifts between spouses, children, parents and grandchildren bonify 99 % of the quota (art. 12 bis). What is not autonomic is IBI: it is a municipal tax, and each ayuntamiento fixes its rate, its bonifications and its payment calendar in an ordenanza fiscal it revises every year. We are based in Torrevieja and work across every Costa Blanca municipio.
Torrevieja
Torrevieja is the densest British and Northern European enclave on the Costa Blanca, and the municipio where we file most of our modelo 210 returns. Two things drive the workload. The first is imputed income: a home that is not let still produces a taxable imputed rent every year — 2 % of the cadastral value, or 1.1 % where the municipality’s cadastral values were revised in a general collective valuation that took effect in the tax period or the ten preceding ones (art. 85.1 Ley 35/2006, applied to non-residents through art. 24.5 TRLIRNR). That condition is decided municipality-wide, not street by street, so it either applies to your flat or it applies to none of them. The second is the post-Brexit rate. Arts. 24.6 and 25.1.a TRLIRNR reserve the 19 % rate and the deduction of expenses for residents of an EU Member State, or of an EEA state with effective exchange of tax information. The United Kingdom is neither, so a UK-resident landlord here is taxed at 24 % on gross rent with nothing deductible — the single most expensive misunderstanding we correct for owners arriving from a previous adviser.
Orihuela Costa
Orihuela Costa — Playa Flamenca, Cabo Roig, Campoamor, Villamartín — is one of the most internationally owned stretches of the Alicante coast. The distinction that trips up new owners is administrative: despite the name, Orihuela Costa is not its own municipality. It is part of Orihuela, whose town hall sits some twenty-five kilometres inland, and it is that ayuntamiento whose ordenanza fiscal fixes the IBI rate and the plusvalía municipal coefficients, and to whom those taxes are paid. Torrevieja, five minutes up the road, has nothing to do with them. What Orihuela Costa shares with the rest of the coast is the autonomic layer — ITP, AJD and ISD under Ley 13/1997 — and the state layer, modelo 210, where the rate turns on tax residence: 19 % with expenses for EU and qualifying EEA residents, 24 % on gross for everyone else, the United Kingdom now included.
Benidorm
Benidorm concentrates British, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish second-home owners alongside a smaller established Russian-speaking community, in a market dominated by apartment blocks and a high share of properties that are let at least part of the year. Two rules do most of the work here. The first is that the rate follows tax residence and not the passport: 19 % on net rent with deductible expenses for residents of an EU Member State or a qualifying EEA state, 24 % on gross rent with nothing deductible for everyone else (arts. 24.6 and 25.1.a TRLIRNR). The second is that letting and taxing are separate regimes: authorisation to let to tourists is regulated by the Comunitat Valenciana and the ayuntamiento, and a correctly filed modelo 210 does not cure a missing registration any more than a registration excuses an unfiled return. The municipal layer — IBI, plusvalía, tasas — sits in the Benidorm ordenanza fiscal, which the town revises every year.
Altea
Altea draws a markedly different owner profile from Benidorm a few kilometres south: Dutch, Belgian, German and French residents, often retired or working remotely, in detached homes across Altea Hills, the Sierra de Altea and the old town. Two consequences follow for the tax work. First, purchase costs matter more when the value is higher: ITP is 9 % but 11 % on the whole value when it exceeds €1,000,000 (art. 13.Uno Ley 13/1997), and the reduced rates of art. 13 are not a general habitual-home discount — they reach only defined categories, at 6 %/8 % or 3 %/4 % depending on whether the value clears €180,000. Second, succession and lifetime gifts come up constantly, because the Spanish villa is often the largest single asset in a Dutch, Belgian or German estate. Art. 12 bis bonifies 99 % of the ISD quota for the closest family on both inheritance and gift, which makes the choice between the two a question of planning rather than of rate.
Jávea / Xàbia
Jávea — Xàbia in valencià — has a strongly Dutch, German and British owner profile and a housing stock weighted towards detached homes, which pushes two questions to the front. The first is the purchase bill. ITP is 9 % of the value, and 11 % on the whole value when it exceeds €1,000,000, so in a villa market the higher rate is not theoretical; art. 13.Ocho even aggregates acquisitions of the same registral property from the same seller within three years so the threshold cannot be split across deeds. AJD on the purchase deed is 1.4 % and falls on the buyer; on the mortgage deed it falls on the lender. The second is succession. Spouses, children, parents and grandchildren bonify 99 % of the ISD quota (art. 12 bis), but a foreign will still has to be executed through a Spanish notary, and the group of the heir decides everything — a sibling or a nephew is not group II. The municipal layer, IBI and plusvalía, sits in the Xàbia ordenanza fiscal and is revised yearly.
Calpe / Calp
Calpe — Calp in valencià — sits between Altea and Benidorm and mixes apartment stock with villa areas, which in practice means a lot of owners who let for part of the year and keep the property for themselves the rest. That split is the thing to get right, because the two halves are declared differently. The let months are rental income on modelo 210, at 19 % on the net for residents of an EU Member State or a qualifying EEA state, and 24 % on the gross for everyone else (arts. 24.6 and 25.1.a TRLIRNR). The empty months are imputed income at 2 %, or 1.1 % where the municipality has had a general cadastral revaluation take effect in the tax period or the ten preceding ones (art. 85.1 Ley 35/2006). Since Orden HAC/623/2026 the rental return is annual, filed in the first twenty calendar days of April, which ends the old quarterly rhythm. On top sit the autonomic taxes of Ley 13/1997 and, separately, the Calp ordenanza fiscal for IBI and plusvalía.
Dénia
Dénia is the northernmost of the major Costa Blanca destinations, with Dutch, German, Belgian and British owners making up most of its foreign profile, and a market that mixes town apartments with villas on the Montgó slopes. The tax picture has three layers and it is worth keeping them apart. The state layer is modelo 210: imputed income on a home you keep for yourself, rental income if you let it, and a 3 % retention withheld by the buyer when you sell (art. 25.2 TRLIRNR). The autonomic layer is Ley 13/1997: 9 % ITP, 1.4 % AJD, and 99 % off the ISD quota for the closest family. The municipal layer is the Dénia ordenanza fiscal, which sets the IBI rate, whatever bonifications the town has chosen to adopt, and the plusvalía coefficients — revised every year, which is why we read the version in force instead of publishing a number that would be wrong by spring.
Alicante City
Alicante capital is a working city rather than a resort, and its owner mix shows it: second-home buyers sit alongside year-round residents and remote workers, which means imputed-income modelo 210 filings on one desk and full IRPF returns on the next. The purchase side follows the Comunitat Valenciana rules — ITP at 9 %, 11 % when the value exceeds €1,000,000, AJD at 1.4 %, and the art. 13 reduced rates only for the defined categories. The annual side depends on which side of the residence line you are on: a non-resident declares imputed income or rent on modelo 210, a resident declares worldwide income under IRPF plus the autonomic scale, and the test that separates them is art. 9 of Ley 35/2006, not the nationality of your employer. IBI, plusvalía and tasas belong to the ayuntamiento and its ordenanza fiscal, revised annually.
Valencia
València capital draws a different buyer from the Costa Blanca coast: British, Italian, French, Dutch and German purchasers of urban apartments, and a steady flow of people relocating to live here rather than to holiday. Fiscally the city sits inside exactly the same autonomic frame as Dénia or Torrevieja — Ley 13/1997 governs ITP, AJD and ISD, with no municipal variation — so what changes is not the law but which return you file. Someone who keeps a València flat as a second home files modelo 210; someone who moves and crosses the residence test of art. 9 Ley 35/2006 files IRPF on worldwide income, with the special regime of art. 93 worth checking first. The municipal layer, IBI and plusvalía, belongs to the ayuntamiento and its ordenanza fiscal, which is revised every year and is the only place its rates and bonifications can be read.
Murcia & Cartagena
Región de Murcia — Murcia capital inland, Cartagena and the Mar Menor on the Costa Cálida — runs its own set of ceded-tax rules, and the differences from the Comunitat Valenciana are real enough to change a decision. ITP on immovable property is 7.75 % under art. 6.1 of DLeg 1/2010, a figure Ley 3/2025 brought down from 8 % with effect from 25 July 2025, against 9 % on the Costa Blanca; AJD is 1.5 % here and 1.4 % there. On inheritance the two have converged: art. 3.Cinco DLeg 1/2010 deducts 99 % of the ISD quota for groups I and II, the same headline as art. 12 bis Ley 13/1997 does in Valencia. Gifts are where Murcia is broader — art. 4.Seis extends the 99 % to group III as well, which the Valencian rules do not. Owners in San Javier, Torre Pacheco, La Manga or Los Alcázares therefore file the same state modelo 210 as a Torrevieja owner but a different modelo 600.
Why the municipality matters
Much of what you pay on a home in Spain is not decided by the State but by the town hall and the autonomous region where it stands. Two similar flats in Torrevieja and in Jávea can come with very different bills, and the same purchase or the same inheritance is not taxed the same way in the Valencia region as in the Region of Murcia.
Each town hall sets the IBI in its tax bylaw, within a statutory band, and it is calculated on the property's cadastral value. The municipal plusvalía, which arises when you sell or inherit, also depends on each municipality's bylaw. The transfer tax (ITP) paid by the buyer of a resale home and inheritance tax are regulated by the autonomous region, with its own rates, reductions and credits. And in the province of Alicante, the municipal bill may be issued by the town hall itself or by the provincial body it has delegated collection to.
Each destination page brings together a quick answer for owners in that area, the regional tax framework that applies (ITP, AJD and the inheritance tax credit), frequently asked questions, recent regulatory changes and the official sources. If your municipality is not on the list, start with the Costa Blanca page, which covers the framework shared by the whole coast.