Cadastral Value Is Not the Reference Value: Which Figure Feeds Which Tax

Two different numbers, both published by the same register

The cadastral description of a Spanish property contains the valor catastral and the valor de referencia as separate items (art. 3.1 of the consolidated Cadastre Act, TRLCI). They are not two versions of one estimate. The cadastral value is built objectively from the value of the land and the value of the constructions, it may not exceed market value, and it originates in a ponencia de valores approved for a whole municipality (arts. 22 and 23.2 TRLCI). It is the older, deliberately conservative figure that local taxation has used for decades.

The reference value is younger and is built the other way round. The Dirección General del Catastro determines it objectively, with market value as an absolute ceiling, from the analysis of the prices notaries report on completed sales, by homogeneous valuation zones with average value modules and a reduction factor set by ministerial order, and approves by resolution every year the elements needed to calculate it for each property (disposición final tercera TRLCI, as rewritten by Ley 11/2021 on measures to prevent and fight tax fraud). Neither figure is a valuation of your particular house: no surveyor went in.

What the cadastral value pays for: IBI, modelo 210 and wealth tax

The base of the IBI is the cadastral value, and nothing else (art. 65 TRLRHL). Less obviously, so is the imputed income a non-resident declares on the modelo 210 for a property kept for personal use: art. 24.5 of the consolidated Non-Resident Income Tax Act sends that calculation to the imputed-income rule of the personal income tax law, which applies a percentage to the cadastral value (art. 85 of Ley 35/2006).

Wealth tax uses it as well, though only as a candidate: real estate is computed at the highest of three magnitudes — the cadastral value, the value determined or verified by the administration for the purposes of other taxes, and the price, consideration or value of acquisition (art. 10.Uno of Ley 19/1991). Three separate annual bills, then, hang off one line of the cadastral record.

What the reference value pays for: transfer tax, inheritance and gift tax

Since 2022 the taxable base of transfer tax on real estate is the reference value at the date of accrual, and the declared price or agreed consideration only where either is higher (art. 10.2 TRLITPAJD). Inheritance and gift tax works identically, at the date of death or of the gift (art. 9.3 of Ley 29/1987). Buying below the reference value therefore does not reduce the tax: the reference value is the floor, not the estimate.

That is why the figure a buyer needs before signing and the figure an owner needs when the IBI arrives are not the same one. Where a property has no reference value, or the Catastro cannot certify it, both laws fall back to the higher of the declared value, the agreed price and market value, with the administration free to verify.

Where each figure is consulted

The cadastral value is printed on the IBI receipt and appears on the descriptive and graphic certificate, which any owner can pull from the Sede Electrónica del Catastro using the cadastral reference from the deed. The reference value sits elsewhere on that same site: the yearly resolution is published by edict before 30 October of the preceding year, after a collective hearing period, an informative announcement goes into the BOE in the first twenty days of December, and because it is not personal data the value can be consulted permanently (disposición final tercera TRLCI). Ask for the certificado de motivación when you want to see the modules and factors behind your figure.

If the wrong figure is the cadastral one, one correction fixes three taxes

A surface that was never right, a use miscoded decades ago or an annexe demolished years ago and still on the record inflates the cadastral value, and with it the IBI, the modelo 210 imputed income and, where it is the highest of the three magnitudes, the wealth tax computation — every year, quietly. Property is incorporated into and updated in the Catastro through declarations, communications, requests, the subsanación de discrepancias procedure, cadastral inspection and valuation (art. 11.2 TRLCI).

Where the change was yours — new construction, extension, reform, demolition, a change of use, a segregation, an acquisition of ownership — it goes in as a cadastral declaration (arts. 13 and 16.2 TRLCI, a duty the IBI rules repeat on the taxpayer in art. 76.1 TRLRHL). Where the mismatch was created by the record rather than by you, the subsanación de discrepancias procedure is the right frame (art. 18 TRLCI). Confirm the current form and its electronic channel on the Sede Electrónica del Catastro before filing anything.

If the wrong figure is the reference value, the route is the opposite one

Here there is no appeal before you pay. The reference value can only be challenged by appealing an assessment the tax office issues, or on the occasion of a request to rectify your own self-assessment (art. 10.3 TRLITPAJD, art. 9.4 LISD). So you self-assess on the reference value, pay, and then ask for the money back under art. 120.3 of the General Tax Act; the tax office resolves after a preceptive and binding report from the Catastro that ratifies or corrects the figure in the light of the evidence you produced, and that report must state the resolution, the average value modules and the reduction factors it relied on (art. 10.4 TRLITPAJD, art. 9.5 LISD).

Two consequences surface years later. The reference value does not reach the wealth tax of a property you already owned: art. 10.Uno of Ley 19/1991 lists three magnitudes to compare, and a reference value published for your flat is not one of them. It does, however, reach a future capital gain when the property came to you by inheritance or gift, because art. 36 LIRPF takes the acquisition value from the inheritance and gift tax rules, capped at market value; on a purchase the acquisition value stays the real amount paid (art. 35.1 LIRPF).