IBI and Local Property Taxes on the Costa Blanca
Every year a Costa Blanca property generates a small stack of local charges that nobody explains to a foreign owner until something goes wrong: the IBI, the waste tasa, sometimes a vado, and the vehicle tax if a car is registered at the same address. None of them is filed by you. They arrive as receipts built from registers you never see, they are announced by public edict rather than by letter, and the one that matters most, the IBI, attaches to the property rather than to the person, so an unpaid receipt from a previous owner can be enforced against your villa years after you bought it. This guide works through the whole chain: what the IBI charges and on what base, who the taxpayer is when a usufruct or a concession is in play, why 1 January decides the entire year, how the cadastral value is set and corrected and why an error in it costs you in three different taxes at once, what bonuses and surcharges the law lets an ayuntamiento create, who actually issues the receipt in the province of Alicante, and what the enforcement route looks like if a direct debit silently fails.
Quick answer
IBI is an annual municipal tax on the cadastral value of your Spanish property (arts. 60 and 65 TRLRHL). Whoever holds the property on 1 January owes the whole year (art. 75), with no proration in a sale. The statutory rate band is 0.4% to 1.10% for urban property; your ayuntamiento fixes the exact figure. Unpaid IBI follows the property itself (art. 64).
Reviewed by
Valery Grinkevich
Licensed economist · tax adviser · 20+ years of experience · Torrevieja, Costa Blanca
Key takeaways
- The base is the cadastral value, not the price you paid (art. 65 TRLRHL). The rate is set by each ayuntamiento inside a statutory band of 0.4% to 1.10% for urban property (art. 72.1).
- The tax accrues on the first day of the calendar year and the holder on that date owes all twelve months (art. 75). The law provides no proration for a sale, so any apportionment is a private clause in the deed under art. 63.2, not something the town hall recognises.
- The property itself answers for unpaid IBI, in subsidiary liability, whoever owns it now (art. 64.1 TRLRHL and art. 79.1 LGT). Debts stay claimable for four years (art. 66.b LGT), so a debt certificate before signing is not optional.
- One wrong cadastral value hits three taxes: the IBI, the modelo 210 imputed income at 2% or 1.1% of that value (arts. 13.1.h and 24.5 TRLIRNR), and the wealth tax base (art. 10.Uno Ley 19/1991). Cadastral value is not the valor de referencia.
- Collection may be delegated to the provincial body (art. 7 TRLRHL); in Alicante that body is SUMA Gestión Tributaria. Which municipalities delegated what is decided municipality by municipality, so read the emitter printed on your own receipt before assuming anything.
On this page
- What the IBI is and what it actually taxes
- Who owes it: an order of rights, not the name on the deed
- From cadastral value to the figure printed on the receipt
- The rate: a statutory band, a municipal decision
- 1 January decides the year — and a sale does not change that
- Afección real: the debt that travels with the property
- The cadastral value: where it comes from and how to correct it
- One wrong cadastral value, three taxes at once
- Bonuses and surcharges: what the law allows, what the ordinance decides
- Who actually issues the receipt: delegation and SUMA
- The rest of the annual bill: waste, vado and vehicles
- Payment periods, direct debit and what non-payment costs
- How to challenge a receipt, and how to pay from abroad
- How to check the IBI position of a Costa Blanca property before you sign
- Frequently asked questions
What the IBI is and what it actually taxes
The Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles is a direct tax of a real nature that charges the value of real property (art. 60 of the consolidated Local Finance Act, TRLRHL). It is municipal, annual and, unlike almost everything else a non-resident owner deals with in Spain, it involves no filing on your side. The ayuntamiento manages it from the padrón catastral that the Dirección General del Catastro sends to the managing bodies before 1 March each year (art. 77.5), issues a receipt, and expects it paid. Your only two moves are to pay it or to challenge it.
What it charges is the cadastral value (art. 65), an administrative figure built by the Catastro from the value of the land and the value of the construction, and never the market price and never the price in your deed. Whether a property counts as urban, rustic or of special characteristics is decided by the cadastral rules, not by the town hall (art. 61.3). Some things are outside the tax altogether, such as roads and other public land in free public use and the maritime-terrestrial public domain (art. 61.5), and a list of exemptions runs through art. 62, which also lets an ordinance exempt receipts whose net amount falls below a threshold it sets (art. 62.4).
The practical consequence surprises buyers constantly: two apparently identical apartments on the same Torrevieja street can carry visibly different IBI, because their cadastral descriptions differ in surface, use, year of construction or share of the plot. The receipt is only as accurate as the cadastral record behind it, which is why the sections on correcting that record below are the most valuable part of this guide.
Who owes it: an order of rights, not the name on the deed
The taxable event is holding one of four rights over the property, and the law lists them in a strict order: an administrative concession over the property or over the public services it serves, a real right of surface, a real right of usufruct, and finally the right of ownership (art. 61.1). Realising the taxable event through one of them removes the property from the remaining ones (art. 61.2). The order is not decorative: it decides who receives the bill.
The taxpayer is the natural or legal person, or the entity of art. 35.4 of the General Tax Act, holding whichever right constitutes the taxable event in that case (art. 63.1). Where a will or an inheritance has split ownership, so that a surviving spouse holds a usufruct over the flat and the children hold the bare ownership, the IBI is owed by the usufructuary, not by the bare owners. That is a routine outcome in Valencian inheritances and a routine source of family arguments, and it does not depend on who lives there or who receives the post.
Two adjustments follow. The taxpayer may pass the burden on to somebody else under ordinary civil law rules (art. 63.2), which is what a contractual apportionment relies on. And where the holder is one of those entities without legal personality, the co-owners answer jointly and severally in proportion to their shares if they appear as such in the Catastro, and in equal shares if they do not (art. 64.2), which is a good reason to make sure a jointly bought property shows the real percentages.
From cadastral value to the figure printed on the receipt
The base imponible is the cadastral value, determined, notified and challengeable under the cadastral rules (art. 65). The base liquidable is what remains after applying the reduction of the following articles (art. 66.1). In collective valuation procedures both are notified together, with reasons stating the base value of the property, the amount of the reduction and the base liquidable for the first year the new cadastral value applies (art. 66.2), and in those procedures the base liquidable is determined by the Dirección General del Catastro and appealable before the state economic-administrative tribunals (art. 66.4), not before the town hall.
The reduction exists to soften revaluations. It applies where the cadastral value rises as a result of a general collective valuation procedure (art. 67.1), lasts nine years from the entry into force of the new values (art. 68.1), and works through a reducing coefficient worth 0.9 in the first year that falls by 0.1 annually until it disappears (art. 68.3). It is applied to an individual component equal to the positive difference between the new cadastral value in its first year and the base value of the property (art. 68.4), the base value being in principle the base liquidable of the year immediately before the new cadastral value took effect (art. 69). A revaluation therefore lands over nearly a decade rather than in one jump.
From there the arithmetic is short. The cuota íntegra is the base liquidable multiplied by the rate (art. 71.1), and the cuota líquida is the cuota íntegra less any bonus the law provides (art. 71.2). If the town has created the surcharge for permanently unoccupied homes, that is a separate annual liquidation on top, accruing on 31 December (art. 72.4). Everything else printed on the receipt, from the collection period to the discount for direct debit, comes from the ordinance and from the collecting body, not from the statute.
The rate: a statutory band, a municipal decision
The law fixes floors and ceilings and leaves the rest to each town. The minimum and default rate is 0.4% for urban property and 0.3% for rustic property, and the maximum is 1.10% for urban and 0.90% for rustic (art. 72.1). Property of special characteristics carries a default 0.6%, and an ayuntamiento may set differentiated rates for each group of them within a band of 0.4% to 1.3% (art. 72.2).
Above those figures the law allows specific increases in percentage points where the municipality is a provincial or regional capital, provides surface public transport, provides more services than those it is obliged to provide, or is overwhelmingly rustic in surface, and a town may use one, several or all of them (art. 72.3). Within the resulting limits an ayuntamiento may also set differentiated rates by cadastral use, expressly excluding residential use, applicable at most to the 10% of urban properties with the highest cadastral value in each use, with the threshold written into the ordinance (art. 72.4). And where new cadastral values from a general collective valuation come into force, reduced rates are allowed for up to six years, with a floor of 0.1% urban and 0.075% rustic (art. 72.5).
All of which means there is exactly one honest answer to the question of what the IBI rate is in Torrevieja, Jávea, Dénia or Orihuela Costa: the rate in the ordenanza fiscal in force for that year in that municipality, which is also the rate printed on your own receipt. Any figure quoted from memory, from a portal or from a sales brochure is a figure that was true in some year, in some town, for some use.
Tip
Your IBI receipt already contains everything an adviser would ask you for: the cadastral reference, the cadastral value, the base liquidable, the rate applied, any bonus, the surcharge if there is one, the collection period and the name of the body that issued it. Photograph it once a year and the rest of your Spanish tax life gets easier.
1 January decides the year — and a sale does not change that
The tax accrues on the first day of the tax period and the tax period is the calendar year (art. 75.1 and 75.2). Whoever holds the taxable right on 1 January owes the full twelve months, and the law provides no mechanism to split the receipt when the property changes hands in March or in October. The silence is deliberate: for the vehicle tax in the same statute the legislator did write a proration rule, by natural quarters on first acquisition or definitive deregistration (art. 96.3). For the IBI it did not.
Changes to the cadastral record take effect at the accrual immediately following the moment they produce cadastral effects (art. 75.3), which is why a purchase completed in July usually shows up in your name on the receipt of the following year rather than the current one. Until then the receipt keeps arriving with the seller as taxpayer, and quite often to the seller’s old address, which is where a chain of unnoticed non-payment starts.
In practice buyer and seller apportion the year between themselves in the deed, and the legal hook for that is the taxpayer’s power to pass the burden on under ordinary civil law rules (art. 63.2). But that is a private agreement between two parties. The ayuntamiento or its collecting body continues to claim the whole receipt from whoever held the right on 1 January, and a buyer who agreed to reimburse the seller has a civil claim if the money is not handled, not a tax one. Put the apportionment in the deed with a figure, a payment method and a date, or do not rely on it.
Example
Generic example. A sale completes on 1 August. The seller held the property on 1 January, so the seller is the taxpayer for the whole year and the receipt will be issued in the seller’s name. If the deed apportions the year by days, the buyer reimburses roughly five twelfths. If the deed says nothing, the seller pays the lot and has no automatic right to recover anything from the buyer; and if the seller simply does not pay, the ayuntamiento can still pursue the property in the buyer’s hands under art. 64.
Afección real: the debt that travels with the property
This is the clause that ruins purchases. Where the holding of the rights that constitute the taxable event changes for any reason, the property becomes affected to payment of the whole tax quota, in subsidiary liability, under the terms of the General Tax Act (art. 64.1 TRLRHL). The General Tax Act completes the picture: acquirers of assets affected by law to the payment of a tax debt answer subsidiarily with those assets, by derivation of the tax action, if the debt is not paid (art. 79.1 LGT). Nobody is asking you to pay the previous owner’s IBI out of goodwill. They are enforcing against the villa you just bought.
How far back it reaches is set by prescription: the right of the administration to demand payment of liquidated and self-assessed tax debts prescribes in four years (art. 66.b LGT), a period that restarts every time the administration takes a valid action against the debtor. So what you inherit is every unpaid, unprescribed IBI receipt attached to the property, plus its executive-period surcharges and interest. The same article puts a duty on the notary: notaries must request information and expressly warn the parties in the deed about pending IBI debts associated with the property being transferred, about the deadline to file the tax declaration where the obligation survives because the cadastral reference was not provided (art. 43.2 of the consolidated Cadastre Act), about the affection of the property to payment of the quota, and about the liability incurred for failing to file declarations, filing them late, or filing false, incomplete or inaccurate ones (art. 70 of that Act).
The check itself is cheap and takes days, not weeks. Ask the collecting body, which may be the ayuntamiento or a delegated provincial body, for a certificate of outstanding debt on the cadastral reference. Get a fresh nota simple from the Land Registry and read it for embargo annotations and affection notes. Read the last IBI receipt the seller received and confirm the cadastral reference on it matches the one in the deed. Then make sure the notarial warning of art. 64.1 is actually recorded, and hold back from the price whatever is needed to clear anything that appears.
Watch out
A clause in the private contract saying the seller is responsible for all charges up to completion protects you against the seller, never against the ayuntamiento. Article 64.1 attaches the debt to the property, and a subsidiary liability derivation can arrive years after completion, when the seller has left Spain and the clause is worth what it costs to litigate abroad.
The cadastral value: where it comes from and how to correct it
The cadastral value is determined objectively for each property and is made up of the value of the land and the value of the constructions (art. 22 of the consolidated Cadastre Act, TRLCI). It may never exceed market value, and a ministerial reference coefficient to the market is applied for that purpose (art. 23.2). It originates in a ponencia de valores, whose approval agreements are published by edict on the electronic site of the Dirección General del Catastro before 1 July for total ponencias and before 1 October for partial ones (art. 27.3), which is the moment to look if your value jumped and you want to know why.
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). A declaration is the document by which you tell the Catastro that circumstances producing an alta, a baja or a modification of the cadastral description have occurred (art. 13), and the list of what must be declared includes new construction, extension, rehabilitation, reform, demolition or knocking down, changes of use or destination, segregation, division and aggregation, acquisition of ownership, and the constitution of concession and usufruct rights (art. 16.2). For IBI purposes the same duty is repeated on the taxpayer (art. 76.1 TRLRHL), with one relief: in municipalities that adopted the communication procedure by ordinance, the declaration is deemed made when the alteration appears in the municipal licence or authorisation, and the taxpayer is released from declaring (art. 76.2).
In practice this is done on the Catastro declaration forms, of which the two an owner meets are the one for changes of ownership and shares of participation, known as 900D, and the one for physical and economic alterations such as a new build, extension, reform, rehabilitation or demolition, known as 901N. Confirm the current form and its channel on the Sede Electrónica del Catastro before filing, because the naming and the electronic route change more often than the law does. Where the mismatch was not created by you but by the record itself, there is a second route: the subsanación de discrepancias procedure, started ex officio when the administration learns that the cadastral description does not match reality (art. 18 TRLCI), which is the right frame for a surface that was never right or a use that was miscoded decades ago.
One wrong cadastral value, three taxes at once
The first bill it moves is the IBI, because the cadastral value is the base imponible (art. 65 TRLRHL). The second is the one non-resident owners meet through the modelo 210. A non-resident individual holding urban property in Spain that is not assigned to a business activity has an imputed income on it (art. 13.1.h of the consolidated Non-Resident Income Tax Act), quantified by reference to the personal income tax rule (art. 24.5 of the same Act), which today is 2% of the cadastral value, or 1.1% where that value was revised, modified or determined by a general collective valuation procedure that took effect in the tax period itself or in the ten preceding tax periods (art. 85 of Ley 35/2006). It accrues on 31 December each year (art. 27.1.c of the Non-Resident Act).
The third is the wealth tax. Urban and rustic property is computed at the highest of three values: the cadastral value, the value determined or verified by the administration for the purposes of other taxes, or the price, consideration or value of acquisition (art. 10.Uno of Ley 19/1991). For a property bought long ago and never revalued the cadastral value rarely wins that comparison, but for a recent general revaluation it can, and then a cadastral error propagates straight into a wealth tax base.
Which is why the arithmetic of a bad cadastral record is worse than it looks. A surface recorded 20% too large, a garage counted twice, a use coded as commercial on a home: each of them multiplies through the IBI rate, through the 2% or 1.1% imputation of the modelo 210, and potentially through the wealth tax base, every single year until somebody corrects it. Correcting it once pays for itself in a way very few Spanish tax steps do.
Watch out
Cadastral value and valor de referencia are different figures and the cadastral description contains both as distinct items (art. 3.1 TRLCI). The valor de referencia drives transfer tax and inheritance tax bases; the cadastral value drives IBI, the modelo 210 imputed income and the wealth tax. Correcting one does not correct the other, and quoting one in place of the other is how a filing gets rejected.
Bonuses and surcharges: what the law allows, what the ordinance decides
A short list of bonuses is compulsory. Property that is the object of the activity of urbanisation, construction and property development businesses and is not held as fixed assets is entitled to a bonus of between 50% and 90% of the cuota íntegra, if applied for before works start, for at most three tax periods, and the maximum applies in the absence of a municipal agreement (art. 73.1). Officially protected housing carries a 50% bonus for the three tax periods after definitive qualification, and an ordinance may extend a further bonus of up to 50% afterwards (art. 73.2). Rustic property of agrarian and communal-exploitation cooperatives carries 95% (art. 73.3).
A much longer list is optional and exists only if the ordinance creates it: up to 90% for urban property in singular rural settlements with a lower level of municipal services (art. 74.1), a cap on the annual increase of the cuota líquida for up to three periods after a general revaluation (art. 74.2), up to 95% for public research bodies and university teaching (art. 74.2 bis), up to 95% for activities declared of special municipal interest or utility by the plenary (art. 74.2 quáter), up to 90% for large-family holders (art. 74.4), up to 50% where solar thermal or electric systems have been installed with the required homologation (art. 74.5), up to 95% for residential property let at a rent limited by a legal rule (art. 74.6), and up to 50% where charging points for electric vehicles have been installed (art. 74.7). Almost all of them require an application, and the ordinance sets the duration, the annual amount and the compatibility with other reliefs.
The surcharge runs the other way. For residential property permanently unoccupied an ayuntamiento may demand up to 50% of the cuota líquida (art. 72.4). Permanently unoccupied means continuously unoccupied without justified cause for more than two years, under the requirements, means of proof and procedure the ordinance establishes, and belonging to holders of four or more residential properties. Beyond three years of vacancy the surcharge may reach 100%, modulated by the length of the vacancy, and up to 50 further percentage points may be added where the holder has two or more unoccupied residential properties in the same municipality. The law itself lists justified causes, and second homes are expressly among them for up to four continuous years of vacancy. The surcharge accrues on 31 December, is liquidated annually, and requires a prior hearing of the taxpayer and proof by the ayuntamiento of the indicia of vacancy it has defined in the ordinance.
Who actually issues the receipt: delegation and SUMA
Liquidation, collection and the review of acts issued in the management of the IBI are the exclusive competence of the ayuntamiento, and include recognising exemptions and bonuses, issuing the payment documents, resolving refunds of undue payments and resolving appeals against those acts (art. 77.1 TRLRHL). But competence and counter are not the same thing. Local entities may delegate the powers of management, liquidation, inspection and tax collection to the autonomous community or to other local entities in whose territory they are integrated (art. 7.1 TRLRHL, on the basis of art. 106.3 of Ley 7/1985). The delegation is agreed by the plenary, must fix its scope and content, and is published in the provincial and regional official gazettes once accepted (art. 7.2). Acts issued under delegation are challenged under the procedure of the managing body and ultimately before the contentious-administrative courts (art. 7.3). The same statute adds that these competences may be exercised directly or through agreements and other forms of collaboration with any public administration (art. 77.8).
In the province of Alicante the provincial body that performs this function is SUMA Gestión Tributaria, the tax management body of the Diputación de Alicante. That is a structural fact about the province. What is not a structural fact, and what this guide will not assert, is which specific municipalities have delegated which specific taxes to it, because each delegation is a separate plenary agreement with its own scope, published in the Boletín Oficial de la Provincia, and both the list and the scope change over time.
The practical rule is therefore short. Look at the emitter printed at the top of your own receipt, or ask the ayuntamiento directly. That name is what determines where the direct debit order is filed, where you request a certificate of outstanding debt before a purchase, where an application for a bonus is presented, where a payment plan is negotiated and where the recurso de reposición must be lodged. Getting it wrong does not just waste a trip: a document filed at the wrong counter can miss a one-month appeal deadline.
Watch out
Never assume from a neighbouring town, from a forum post or from an old article that a particular Costa Blanca municipality does or does not collect through the provincial body. Delegation is agreed municipality by municipality and published in the provincial gazette. The only source that is always right for your property is the receipt issued for your property.
The rest of the annual bill: waste, vado and vehicles
Local entities may charge tasas both for the private use or special exploitation of local public domain and for the provision of public services that refer to, affect or specially benefit the taxpayer (art. 20.1 TRLRHL). Two of them reach almost every Costa Blanca owner. Collection, treatment and disposal of urban solid waste appears expressly in the list of services that may carry a tasa (art. 20.4.s). Vehicle entrances across pavements and reservations of public road for exclusive parking, loading or unloading, the vado, appear expressly in the list of private uses of public domain (art. 20.3.h).
The mechanism is what matters, because the amounts are municipal. A tasa for a service may not exceed, as a whole, the real or foreseeable cost of the service or activity, taking into account direct and indirect costs including financing and depreciation (art. 24.2). Its amount consists of a tariff, a fixed sum or both, as the ordinance provides (art. 24.3), and generic criteria of economic capacity may be taken into account (art. 24.4). Where the nature of the tasa requires it and the ordinance so determines, it accrues on 1 January and the period is the calendar year, prorated if use starts or ceases (art. 26.2). If the service is not actually provided for reasons not attributable to you, the amount is refunded (art. 26.3). The tasa for private use of public domain is quantified by reference to the market value of the utility obtained (art. 24.1.a).
The vehicle tax follows a similar logic with statutory numbers. The IVTM charges the holding of vehicles apt to circulate on public roads (art. 92.1) and is owed by the person in whose name the circulation permit stands (art. 94), managed by the ayuntamiento of the address on that permit (art. 97). The tariff table is statutory (art. 95.1) and each ayuntamiento may raise it by a coefficient no higher than 2, which may differ by class of vehicle and by band (art. 95.4); ordinances may add bonuses of up to 75% by fuel or by engine characteristics and up to 100% for historic vehicles or vehicles at least twenty-five years old (art. 95.6). The period is the calendar year, accrual is the first day, and the amount prorates by natural quarters on first acquisition, definitive deregistration and temporary deregistration for theft (art. 96). One detail catches sellers of cars: Traffic will not process a change of ownership until the registered holder proves payment of the IVTM for the year before the one in which the step is taken (art. 99.2).
Payment periods, direct debit and what non-payment costs
These are debts of periodic collection and collective notification. Once the liquidation corresponding to entry in the register, padrón or matrícula has been notified, successive liquidations may be notified collectively by edicts saying so (art. 102.3 LGT), and the payment period is communicated collectively through edicts published in the relevant official gazette and at the offices of the affected town halls (art. 24.1 of the General Collection Regulation, RGR). The announcement must state the payment period, the payment methods, the places, days and times, and the warning that once the period has passed the debts will be demanded through the enforcement procedure with the executive-period surcharges, late interest and any costs (art. 24.2 RGR). That is exactly why an owner living abroad can receive nothing in the post and still be in default: no one is obliged to write to you individually.
Direct debit is the standard defence, and it has a lead time. Persons liable may domicile payment of these debts in accounts opened at credit institutions, addressing the communication to the corresponding collection body at least two months before the collection period starts; otherwise it takes effect from the following period, and once made it is valid indefinitely until cancelled by you, rejected by the bank or declared invalid by the administration for justified reasons (art. 25.2 RGR). As for the calendar, where the rules of a periodic debt of collective notification set no other period, the voluntary payment period runs from 1 September to 20 November, and the competent administration may modify it provided the period is not shorter than two months (art. 62.3 LGT). Every Costa Blanca town uses that power differently, so the anuncio de cobranza is the only reliable calendar.
Miss the voluntary period and the executive period begins the day after it expires (art. 161.1.a LGT), which triggers late interest and the executive-period surcharges (art. 161.4). There are three, incompatible with each other and calculated on the whole amount unpaid in the voluntary period: 5% if the entire debt is paid before the providencia de apremio is notified, 10% if the debt and the surcharge itself are paid within the deadline that follows notification of the providencia, and 20% otherwise, the last of the three being the only one compatible with late interest (art. 28). After that the enforcement procedure runs over the debtor’s assets: cash and money in bank accounts first in the statutory order, immovable property further down it (art. 169.2), and seized assets are ultimately sold by auction, tender or direct award (art. 172.1). Asking for a deferral or an instalment plan while still inside the voluntary period prevents the executive period from starting while the application is processed (arts. 65 and 161.2 LGT), which is the single most useful thing to know if a receipt has caught you short.
How to challenge a receipt, and how to pay from abroad
Against acts applying local taxes only one administrative appeal exists: the recurso de reposición (art. 14.2.a TRLRHL). It is heard by the body of the local entity that issued the act (art. 14.2.b) and must be lodged within one month counted from the day after express notification of the act, or from the day after the end of the public exhibition period of the corresponding padrón or register of taxpayers (art. 14.2.c). Taxpayers, responsible parties and anyone whose legitimate and direct interests are affected may lodge it (art. 14.2.d), and neither a lawyer nor a procurador is required (art. 14.2.e). Lodging it does not suspend collection unless suspension is granted with sufficient guarantee (art. 14.2.i). It must be resolved within one month and is deemed dismissed if it is not (art. 14.2.l), and against the resolution the route is directly to the contentious-administrative courts (art. 14.2.ñ).
Choose the target carefully. If what is wrong is the cadastral value or the base liquidable set in a collective valuation procedure, that is a cadastral act reviewable before the state economic-administrative tribunals (art. 66.4 TRLRHL), and once the appeal period in those notifications has passed without being used, the bases are treated as consented and final and cannot be challenged again when the annual receipt is issued (art. 77.4). If what is wrong is the rate applied, a bonus not granted or a surcharge you should not be paying, that is a municipal act and the recurso de reposición is the right instrument.
Paying from abroad is more workable than owners expect. The general rule is that the person liable is the holder of the account where the payment is domiciled and that the account is open at a credit institution, but in the terms and conditions each administration establishes the payment may be domiciled in an account that is not the liable person’s, provided the holder of that account authorises the domiciliation (art. 38.1.a RGR). The order is communicated to the administration through the procedure established in each case (art. 38.1.b), payment counts as made on the date of the charge, and the bank’s document evidences it (art. 38.2). Where the charge is not made, or is made late, for reasons not attributable to the person liable, no surcharges, late interest or penalties may be demanded from that person (art. 38.3). What that protection does not cover is an account with nothing in it on the charge date, so the practical duty of a non-resident owner is to guarantee the funds. Confirm the exact forms, identification and channel with the body that issues your receipt, and do not assume the procedure of one collecting body applies to another.
Step-by-step
How to check the IBI position of a Costa Blanca property before you sign
Get the cadastral reference and the cadastral record
Take the cadastral reference from the deed or the last receipt and pull the descriptive and graphic certificate from the Sede Electrónica del Catastro. Compare surface, use and year of construction with what you are actually buying, because the cadastral value behind the IBI, the modelo 210 and possibly the wealth tax is built from that description (arts. 22 and 23.2 TRLCI).
Identify who collects
Read the emitter printed on the seller’s last receipt, or ask the ayuntamiento. Local entities may delegate management and collection to the provincial body (art. 7.1 TRLRHL), and in Alicante that body is SUMA Gestión Tributaria. That name decides where every later step is filed.
Request a certificate of outstanding debt
Ask the collecting body for a certificate of debts pending on that cadastral reference. The property answers for the whole unpaid quota in subsidiary liability whoever owns it (art. 64.1 TRLRHL and art. 79.1 LGT), and debts stay claimable for four years, interruptions aside (art. 66.b LGT).
Read the last receipt line by line
Check the cadastral value, the base liquidable, the rate applied, any bonus, and whether a surcharge for permanent vacancy has been liquidated (art. 72.4). A surcharge on the record is a sign the town has both created it and applied it, and it accrues on 31 December.
Cross-check the Land Registry
Get a fresh nota simple and look for embargo annotations and affection notes. A registry charge and a cadastral debt are different things and you need both pictures before agreeing a price.
Put it in the deed and hold back the money
Record the apportionment of the current year with a figure, a method and a date, relying on art. 63.2 TRLRHL, make sure the notarial warning about pending IBI debts and the affection of the property is included (art. 64.1), and retain from the price whatever is needed to clear anything the certificate showed.
| Item | Statutory limit | Article |
|---|---|---|
| IBI rate, urban property | Minimum and default 0.4% · maximum 1.10% | Art. 72.1 |
| IBI rate, rustic property | Minimum and default 0.3% · maximum 0.90% | Art. 72.1 |
| IBI rate, property of special characteristics | Default 0.6% · differentiated band from 0.4% to 1.3% | Art. 72.2 |
| Reduced rate after a general revaluation | Up to six years · floor 0.1% urban and 0.075% rustic | Art. 72.5 |
| Surcharge on permanently unoccupied residential property | Up to 50% of the cuota líquida · up to 100% beyond three years · up to 50 further points in some cases | Art. 72.4 |
| Bonus for officially protected housing | 50% for the three periods after definitive qualification, extendable by ordinance | Art. 73.2 |
| Bonus for large-family holders | Up to 90% of the cuota íntegra, only if the ordinance creates it | Art. 74.4 |
| IVTM | Statutory tariff × a municipal coefficient no higher than 2 | Arts. 95.1 and 95.4 |
| Charge | Legal basis | Who fixes the amount | Accrual |
|---|---|---|---|
| IBI | Arts. 60 to 77 TRLRHL | Cadastral value from the Catastro × the rate in the ordenanza | 1 January (art. 75) |
| Waste collection tasa | Arts. 20.4.s and 24.2 TRLRHL | The ordinance, capped as a whole by the cost of the service | 1 January where periodic (art. 26.2) |
| Vado tasa | Arts. 20.3.h and 24.1.a TRLRHL | The ordinance, by reference to the market value of the use | 1 January where periodic (art. 26.2) |
| IVTM | Arts. 92 to 99 TRLRHL | Statutory tariff × a municipal coefficient of no more than 2 | 1 January (art. 96.2) |
| Modelo 210 imputed income | Arts. 13.1.h and 24.5 TRLIRNR | 2% or 1.1% of the same cadastral value | 31 December (art. 27.1.c) |
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Who pays the IBI in the year I buy the property?
Whoever held the property on 1 January of that year, for the whole year (art. 75 TRLRHL). The tax accrues on the first day of the calendar year and the law contains no rule splitting the receipt on a sale, unlike the vehicle tax, which does prorate by quarters (art. 96.3). Buyer and seller normally apportion it privately in the deed, relying on the taxpayer’s power to pass the burden on under ordinary civil law (art. 63.2), but the ayuntamiento still claims the whole receipt from the 1 January holder.
Can I be made to pay the previous owner’s unpaid IBI?
Yes, through the property. On any change in the holding of the rights that constitute the taxable event, the property becomes affected to payment of the whole tax quota in subsidiary liability (art. 64.1 TRLRHL), and acquirers of assets affected by law to a tax debt answer subsidiarily with those assets (art. 79.1 LGT). You are not personally liable for the seller’s conduct, but your villa can be pursued, which in practice comes to the same thing.
How far back can unpaid IBI be claimed?
Four years, restarting each time the administration takes valid action. The right to demand payment of liquidated and self-assessed tax debts prescribes in four years (art. 66.b LGT), and that period is interrupted by administrative acts against the debtor, so a debt that has been chased is not four years old in practice. This is why a debt certificate on the cadastral reference before completion matters more than a seller’s assurance.
Is the cadastral value the same as the valor de referencia?
No, they are two different figures and the cadastral description includes both separately (art. 3.1 TRLCI). The cadastral value is determined objectively from land and construction values and may not exceed market value (arts. 22 and 23.2 TRLCI); it is the base of the IBI, of the modelo 210 imputed income and, where it is the highest of the three comparison values, of the wealth tax. The valor de referencia is the figure that drives transfer tax and inheritance tax bases.
The surface on my cadastral record is wrong. How do I correct it?
By filing a cadastral declaration, or by triggering the correction procedure if the error is the record’s. Declarations are the documents by which alterations are reported to the Catastro (art. 13 TRLCI), and the list of what must be declared includes new construction, extension, reform, demolition, changes of use, segregation and division, and acquisitions of ownership (art. 16.2), a duty repeated on the IBI taxpayer by art. 76.1 TRLRHL. Owners normally use the Catastro forms known as 900D for ownership changes and 901N for physical alterations. Where the mismatch was created by the record rather than by you, the subsanación de discrepancias procedure applies (art. 18 TRLCI).
Does SUMA collect the IBI for my municipality?
Check the emitter printed on your own receipt, because it is decided municipality by municipality. Local entities may delegate management, liquidation, inspection and collection to the provincial body (art. 7.1 TRLRHL), and in the province of Alicante that body is SUMA Gestión Tributaria; each delegation is a separate plenary agreement published in the provincial gazette, with its own scope, and both the list and the scope change. The emitter of your receipt is what determines where the direct debit, the debt certificate, the bonus application and the appeal go.
What is the IBI rate in Torrevieja, Jávea or Dénia?
The rate is whatever the ordenanza fiscal in force in that municipality and year says, inside the statutory band. The law sets a minimum and default rate of 0.4% for urban property and a maximum of 1.10% (art. 72.1), with specific increases in percentage points available to certain municipalities (art. 72.3) and reduced rates permitted for up to six years after a general revaluation (art. 72.5). No fixed figure can honestly be quoted for a named town: read the ordinance, or read the rate printed on your receipt.
Can I be charged a surcharge because my Spanish home stands empty?
Only if your ayuntamiento has created the surcharge and your situation fits the statutory definition. The law lets a town demand up to 50% of the cuota líquida on residential property permanently unoccupied, meaning continuously unoccupied without justified cause for more than two years and belonging to holders of four or more residential properties, rising to up to 100% beyond three years and up to 50 further percentage points in some cases (art. 72.4). The same article lists justified causes and expressly includes second homes for up to four continuous years of vacancy. It requires a prior hearing and proof of the indicia of vacancy.
Do I need a Spanish bank account to pay the IBI by direct debit?
The rule is that the account belongs to the person liable and is held at a credit institution, but the payment may be domiciled in somebody else’s account when the administration allows it and the account holder authorises it (art. 38.1.a RGR). The direct debit order must reach the collecting body at least two months before the collection period begins to take effect that year (art. 25.2 RGR), and it then runs indefinitely until cancelled. Confirm the exact channel and identification with the body that issues your receipt.
I never received the IBI receipt. Does that excuse non-payment?
No, because these debts are notified collectively. Once the liquidation for entry in the register has been notified, successive ones may be notified by edicts (art. 102.3 LGT), and the payment period is announced through edicts in the official gazette and at the affected town halls (art. 24.1 RGR). Nothing obliges the administration to write to a non-resident owner individually each year, which is precisely why a working direct debit and a current address in the register are the only reliable protection.
What happens if I simply do not pay?
The executive period starts the day after the voluntary deadline expires (art. 161.1.a LGT), bringing late interest and one of three surcharges on the whole unpaid amount: 5% if you pay before the providencia de apremio is notified, 10% if you pay the debt and the surcharge within the deadline after that notification, and 20% otherwise, the last being compatible with late interest (art. 28 LGT). Then the enforcement procedure runs over your assets, starting with money in bank accounts and reaching immovable property (art. 169.2), and seized assets can be sold by auction, tender or direct award (art. 172.1).
Does the IBI have anything to do with my modelo 210?
Yes: they share the same base figure. A non-resident individual owning urban property in Spain not assigned to a business has an imputed income (art. 13.1.h TRLIRNR) calculated by reference to the personal income tax rule (art. 24.5 TRLIRNR), which is 2% of the cadastral value or 1.1% where that value was revised by a general collective valuation taking effect in the tax period or the ten preceding ones (art. 85 Ley 35/2006), accruing on 31 December (art. 27.1.c TRLIRNR). So the cadastral value that drives your IBI also drives your annual modelo 210.
Sources
- BOE — TRLRHL, Real Decreto Legislativo 2/2004, Local Finance Act (arts. 7, 14, 20, 24, 26, 60-77 and 92-99)
- BOE — Ley 58/2003, General Tax Act (arts. 28, 62, 65, 66, 79, 102, 161, 169 and 172)
- BOE — Real Decreto 939/2005, General Collection Regulation (arts. 24, 25 and 38: announcements of collection and direct debit)
- BOE — TRLCI, Real Decreto Legislativo 1/2004, consolidated Cadastre Act (arts. 3, 11, 13, 16, 18, 22, 23 and 27)
- BOE — TRLIRNR, Real Decreto Legislativo 5/2004 (arts. 13.1.h, 24.5 and 27.1.c: imputed income of urban property)
- BOE — Ley 35/2006, Personal Income Tax Act (art. 85: imputation of property income)
- BOE — Ley 19/1991, Wealth Tax Act (art. 10: valuation of real property)
- BOE — Ley 7/1985, Local Government Act (art. 106.3: delegation of tax management and collection)
Last updated: 2026-09-10