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What Changed in 2026 for Non-Resident Owners in Spain

What changedPublished:

Spanish non-resident taxation changed in one real way this year and in several imagined ones. Orden HAC/623/2026 rewrote the modelo 210 filing calendar for income accruing from 2026 onwards; the Catastro reference value goes on setting the base for transfer and inheritance tax; and the rules most often reported as new are the ones that have not moved. Here is the balance, with the article behind each line.

The short version

From 2026 accruals a non-resident owner in Spain files deemed income between 1 April and 31 December of the following year, and rental income with tax to pay in the first twenty days of April, under Orden HAC/623/2026.

Valery Grinkevich

Written by

Valery Grinkevich

Licensed economist · tax adviser · 20+ years of experience · Torrevieja, Costa Blanca

Two modelo 210 calendars now run side by side

The rule behind every modelo 210 deadline is the accrual date of the income, not the year you happen to file. Article 27 of the consolidated non-resident income tax act (TRLIRNR) fixes that date at 31 December for deemed income on a home kept for your own use, and at the date of transfer for a capital gain. Orden HAC/623/2026, published in the BOE of 23 June 2026, rewrote article 5 of Orden EHA/3316/2010, and its single final provision applies the new wording for the first time to income accrued in 2026.

So two calendars now run at once. Deemed income accrued on 31 December 2025 is still filed at any point during 2026; deemed income accrued on 31 December 2026 cannot be filed before 1 April 2027 and closes on 31 December 2027. Rental income with tax to pay accrued in 2026 moves to the first twenty calendar days of April 2027, where the 2025 accrual was due in January 2026. An owner who repeats last year’s routine in January 2027 will find the window has not opened yet.

The reference value is not news any more — it is the base

Nothing about the valor de referencia changed this year, and that is exactly why it belongs in a balance: it has been the taxable base of transfer tax and of inheritance and gift tax since 2022, and buyers still meet it for the first time at the notary. Ley 11/2021 rewrote article 10.2 of the transfer tax act and article 9.3 of the inheritance tax act so that the base for real property is the reference value at the date of accrual, and the declared price only when that price is higher. Buying below it does not lower the bill.

It is not the valor catastral printed on the IBI receipt, and it is not a valuation of your house: the Dirección General del Catastro builds it from the prices notaries report, by homogeneous valuation zones, with a reduction factor. It is refreshed on its own yearly calendar, approved by resolution and published by edict before 30 October of the preceding year with an informative announcement in the BOE in the first twenty days of December, so the figure that binds is the one in force on the day of the deed or the day of death. There is no appeal before paying: you self-assess on it and then ask for rectification.

What did not change: the 19% on a sale, and who may deduct expenses

Two things are announced as reforms every year and are not. The first is the rate on a capital gain. Article 25.1.f.3.º TRLIRNR taxes gains arising on the transfer of assets at 19% for every non-resident without a permanent establishment, whatever their country of residence. The 24% of article 25.1.a is the general rate for other income — deemed income, rent — and it never reaches the gain on the sale of the property.

The second is the deduction of expenses. Article 24.6 TRLIRNR allows expenses directly and inseparably linked to the income obtained in Spain to be deducted, in the terms of the personal income tax act, only where the taxpayer is resident in another EU member state and, in the same terms, in a European Economic Area state with an effective exchange of tax information. A British owner since Brexit, or one resident in the United States or Russia, is taxed on the gross rent with no deduction at all.

The buyer’s 3% is still what finds the owners who never filed

The mechanism that enforces all of this sits in the buyer’s hands. Article 25.2 TRLIRNR obliges any acquirer of Spanish property from a non-resident seller to withhold 3% of the agreed price and pay it on modelo 211 within one month of the deed; if the buyer does not withhold, the property itself answers for the lower of that retention and the seller’s tax. The seller then declares the gain on modelo 210 in the three months that follow that month, whatever the result.

That is why a sale is where unfiled years surface. The 211 puts the seller’s identity, the property and the date in front of the Agencia Tributaria with a payment on account attached, and anything withheld above the tax due has to be claimed back by the seller. An owner who never declared the deemed income arrives at that moment with a file that does not match. Filing late on your own initiative, before any demand, costs a surcharge and never a penalty — which is the entire argument for doing it before the buyer’s form does it for you.

How to check whether what you are reading is still in force

Most of what circulates about Spanish non-resident tax is wrong through sediment rather than malice: a paragraph written when it was true, copied long after it stopped being true. The clearest example is the special levy on real property of non-resident entities. Until 2012, article 42 TRLIRNR exempted entities entitled to a double tax treaty containing an exchange-of-information clause, provided the individuals ultimately owning them were resident in Spain or in a treaty country. That exemption was removed with effect from 1 January 2013 by the fifth final provision, paragraph 3, of Ley 16/2012. Article 42 today has three exemptions and the treaty is not one of them.

Anyone can verify that in a minute, and the habit is worth acquiring. The BOE publishes consolidated legislation with the full history of every article: each version carries its own date of entry into force and, at the end, the note naming the reform that changed it. Open the article, go to the last version, read its date. If the text your adviser, your forum or your search engine quoted is not that one, it is describing a law that no longer exists — and an answer built on it is wrong even when every word has been transcribed correctly.

What to do

Work out which accrual year each return belongs to before you diarise anything, and check the date of the last version of any article you are relying on. If a year is missing, file it yourself now, before a sale makes the buyer’s 3% do it for you.

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