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Spanish taxes in Alicante City

Modelo 210, IBI bonifications, ITP and ISD for property owners in Alicante City — handled by a licensed colegiado who lives the Costa Blanca.

Quick answer

Buying a resale home in Alicante costs ITP at 9 % of the value, 11 % on the whole value when it exceeds €1,000,000, plus AJD at 1.4 % on the deed (arts. 13.Uno and 14.Cuatro Ley 13/1997). IBI afterwards is municipal: art. 72.1 TRLRHL sets the band at 0.4 % to 1.10 % on urban property and the ayuntamiento picks the rate inside it, year by year.

What property owners in Alicante City need to know

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.

Top services for Alicante City

Regional tax framework

ITP general rate
9%
ITP reduced rate (vivienda habitual)
6%
AJD (stamp duty)
1,4%
ISD bonification grupo I/II
99%
Autonomic law reference
Ley 13/1997 CV

These rates reflect the autonomic (CCAA) framework in force at the time of writing. Municipal IBI rates and bonifications are set separately by each ayuntamiento and we confirm the current figures from the latest ordenanza tax before any filing.

In Alicante City: municipal taxes and paperwork

Plusvalía settled with
Ayuntamiento de Alicante
IBI billed by
Ayuntamiento de Alicante or SUMA: check your receipt

Municipal plusvalía (IIVTNU) when you sell

In the provincial capital the plusvalía municipal is settled with the Ayuntamiento de Alicante, which fixes the IIVTNU rate and the annual coefficients in its own ordenanza fiscal under the 30 % ceiling of art. 108 TRLRHL. Alicante has the full range of urban land situations — consolidated centre, redeveloped waterfront, peripheral neighbourhoods — and cadastral land values differ enormously between them, so the base of the tax on two flats sold at the same price can diverge widely. The seller pays on a sale (art. 106.1.b), with the buyer stepping in as substitute taxpayer whenever the seller is a non-resident individual (art. 106.2). Since RDL 26/2021 both the objective and the real-gain method are available and the lower one applies.

Plusvalía calculator →

The 3 % retention and modelo 211

The 3 % retention applies to any sale where the seller is not a Spanish tax resident, and in Alicante city that includes a growing group of remote workers and recent arrivals whose residence status is genuinely uncertain. It is worth resolving before completion, because the answer changes everything: a Spanish tax resident declares the gain in the annual IRPF and no 3 % is withheld at all, while a non-resident has 3 % held back on modelo 211 and settles on modelo 210 at 19 % or 24 %. Residence is decided by the facts — 183 days, centre of economic interests — not by what your padrón certificate says, and getting it wrong in either direction produces a filing that has to be corrected later.

Guide: selling as a non-resident →

IBI: the annual bill and who issues it

Who bills the IBI in Alicante is worth confirming before you set up payment rather than assuming. Delegating collection is a decision each ayuntamiento takes on its own under art. 7 TRLRHL, so across Alicante province some municipalities are billed by SUMA Gestión Tributaria and others directly by the town hall, and that can change. Read the issuing body printed on your own receipt: it tells you where the payment references, the direct-debit mandate and any objection have to go. Being a provincial capital does have a legal consequence for the amount, though not for who collects it: art. 72 TRLRHL allows capitals a supplementary increase on the general urban rate, which is one reason a capital's headline rate does not sit at the level of a small coastal town's. The rest is the ordinary regime: the rate and the bonifications are approved annually in the ordenanza fiscal, the tax accrues on 1 January (art. 75 TRLRHL), and arrears attach to the property under art. 64.1 TRLRHL.

IBI calculator →

NIE and empadronamiento

Alicante is where the provincial Oficina de Extranjería sits, and it is the office that resolves NIE applications for the whole province, including every Costa Blanca town. Applications go in on form EX-15 with the €9.84 fee (790/012) and by prior appointment through the official cita previa system — there is no walk-in service, and the appointment is personal to whoever attends. Empadronamiento with the Ayuntamiento de Alicante is unrelated: it is the municipal population register under Ley 7/1985, it applies to people actually living in the city, and the certificate is what you present for a health card, a school place or a residence-linked municipal benefit. Registering in the padrón does not make you a Spanish tax resident and not registering does not stop you becoming one — the tax test is factual.

Guide: how to get a NIE →

Municipal rates, coefficients and bonifications are set by each ayuntamiento in its ordenanza fiscal and revised every year, so none are quoted here. We read the ordenanza in force and confirm the exact figures before any filing.

Specific questions about Alicante City

I work remotely from Alicante on a UK contract. Spanish tax resident?

The contract is irrelevant; the test is art. 9 of Ley 35/2006. You become Spanish tax resident if you spend more than 183 days of the calendar year in Spain, or if the main core or base of your activities or economic interests sits here — either limb alone is enough, and a UK employer does not displace it. Once resident you are taxed on worldwide income under IRPF plus the Comunitat Valenciana scale, and your UK obligations are then resolved through the Spain-UK double-tax treaty rather than by ignoring one side. Before assuming that outcome, check art. 93 of the same law: the special regime, widened by Ley 28/2022 to cover work performed remotely using exclusively computer and telecommunications means, taxes employment income at 24 % up to €600,000 and 47 % above, for the tax period of the change of residence and the five following ones.

Buying in Alicante from outside Spain — what taxes hit on signing?

On a resale purchase: ITP at 9 % of the value, and 11 % on the whole value when it exceeds €1,000,000 (art. 13.Uno Ley 13/1997), with the reduced rates of the same article available only if you fall into one of its categories. On the deed, AJD at 1.4 % (art. 14.Cuatro), or 0.1 % on the first copy documenting the purchase of a habitual home; if the purchase is mortgaged, the AJD on the mortgage deed falls on the lender, not on you (art. 29 TRLITPAJD since RDL 17/2018). A new-build from a developer is outside ITP and bears IVA instead, plus the same AJD. Notary, land-registry and gestoría fees sit on top and are quoted per transaction rather than as a percentage — we put the whole closing figure in writing before you sign.

Alicante city IBI is set per ordenanza — high or low vs the coast?

We will not rank it, because the honest answer is that the rate is decided locally and changes yearly. What the state law fixes is the range: art. 72.1 TRLRHL sets a minimum of 0.4 % and a maximum of 1.10 % on urban property, and art. 72.3 then allows increments in percentage points on top for particular situations — among them being a provincial capital, which Alicante is, and running public surface transport. Within that frame the ayuntamiento chooses, and it also chooses whether to adopt the optional bonifications the law permits. So the number that applies to your flat comes from the Alicante ordenanza fiscal in force for the year in question; send us the cadastral reference and we will read it.

Where do I apply for a NIE if my property is in a Costa Blanca village?

At the Oficina de Extranjería in Alicante or at an authorised National Police station within the province — the NIE is a state procedure, not a municipal one, so your town hall has nothing to do with it. You apply on form EX-15, pay €9.84 on form 790 code 012, and book a prior appointment through the official system; there is no walk-in service. If you are still abroad, the Spanish consulate for your area or a representative acting under an express power of attorney can file it for you.

Recent regulatory changes

Everything on this page that carries a number is autonomic or state law, and both moved. Ley 5/2025 de la Generalitat takes the general ITP rate on immovable property to 9 % and the general AJD rate to 1.4 % for chargeable events accruing from 1 June 2026; the 11 % ITP rate for homes above €1,000,000 predates it and was left unchanged. The ISD bonification for groups I and II has been 99 % of the quota since Ley 6/2023, and Ley 5/2025 added a group III bonification of 25 % from 1 June 2026, rising to 50 % from 1 June 2027. On the state side, Orden HAC/623/2026 made the rental modelo 210 an annual return filed in the first twenty calendar days of April. The Alicante IBI rate and its bonifications are in the municipal ordenanza fiscal, not in any of these.

Official sources

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