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Across the Costa Blanca the autonomic taxes are the Comunitat Valenciana's: ITP is 9 % on a resale home and 11 % on the whole value when it exceeds €1,000,000 (art. 13.Uno Ley 13/1997), AJD on the deed is 1.4 % (art. 14.Cuatro), and heirs in groups I and II bonify 99 % of the ISD quota (art. 12 bis). IBI is municipal and set town by town.

What property owners in Costa Blanca need to know

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.

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 fiscal before any filing.

In Costa Blanca: municipal taxes and paperwork

Plusvalía settled with
the Costa Blanca town halls
IBI billed by
SUMA Gestión Tributaria (Diputación de Alicante)

Municipal plusvalía (IIVTNU) when you sell

Plusvalía municipal — properly the IIVTNU — taxes the increase in the value of the land under a property between the day you bought it and the day you sell it, and it is charged by the town hall, never by the Agencia Tributaria. It is an optional municipal tax (art. 59.2 TRLRHL): every Costa Blanca ayuntamiento levies it, but each one sets its own rate and coefficients in its ordenanza fiscal, within the 30 % statutory ceiling of art. 108 TRLRHL. In an ordinary sale the seller is the taxpayer (art. 106.1.b), with one exception that matters here: when the seller is a non-resident individual, art. 106.2 makes the buyer the substitute taxpayer, which is why the amount is normally retained at the notary's table. Since STC 182/2021 and RDL 26/2021 there are two ways to compute the base and you may take whichever is lower — and where the land produced no gain at all, nothing is due.

Plusvalía calculator

The 3 % retention and modelo 211

When a non-resident sells Spanish property the buyer is legally obliged to withhold 3 % of the agreed price and pay it to AEAT on modelo 211, generally within one month of the notarial deed. This is not an extra cost for the buyer and it is not the seller's final tax: it is a payment on account of the seller's non-resident income tax on the capital gain. The seller then files modelo 210 for the gain — 19 % for EU/EEA residents, 24 % otherwise — and either tops up the difference or reclaims the excess. Selling at a loss or after many years almost always means money to recover, but only if the return is actually filed: no modelo 210, no refund. Keep the stamped modelo 211 the buyer hands over; it is the document the refund rests on.

Guide: selling as a non-resident

IBI: the annual bill and who issues it

IBI is the annual municipal tax on owning the property. It accrues on 1 January (art. 75 TRLRHL), so whoever is registered as owner on that date owes the whole year, and each ayuntamiento sets the rate and the bonifications in its ordenanza fiscal. The part that surprises foreign owners is who sends the bill. Across most of Alicante province the town halls have delegated assessment and collection to SUMA Gestión Tributaria, the Diputación de Alicante's tax body, under art. 7 TRLRHL — so the receipt arrives from SUMA, not from the ayuntamiento. Alicante city and Xàbia bill through their own municipal tax offices, and outside the province — València, Murcia, Cartagena — the ayuntamiento bills you directly. If you live abroad, set up a direct debit: an unpaid IBI does not lapse quietly, because art. 64.1 TRLRHL attaches the debt to the property itself, and it surfaces at the next sale.

IBI calculator

NIE and empadronamiento

The NIE is your Spanish tax identity: without it you cannot sign an escritura, open the utility contracts or file a modelo 210. It is applied for on form EX-15, the fee is €9.84 (form 790, code 012), and the authorities must resolve within five days. In Spain the application is made by prior appointment at the Oficina de Extranjería or an authorised National Police station in Alicante province; from abroad, at the Spanish consulate for your area or through a representative with a power of attorney that expressly covers it. Empadronamiento is a completely different thing and it is municipal: under Ley 7/1985 anyone who habitually lives in Spain must register in the padrón of the town where they live, and the certificate is what the ayuntamiento asks for before granting local bonifications, a health card or a school place. You do not need padrón to obtain a NIE (RD 1155/2024 art. 205.1), and an owner who only uses the property for holidays does not register at all.

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 Costa Blanca

Which Costa Blanca town has the lowest property tax for non-residents?

No honest ranking exists to quote. IBI is set by each ayuntamiento in its own ordenanza fiscal, inside the band art. 72.1 TRLRHL lays down — 0.4 % minimum to 1.10 % maximum on urban property, before the increments art. 72.3 allows a provincial capital or a town running extra services to add — and it is revised every year, so any table of town-by-town rates published online has usually aged out before you read it. Two practical consequences. Ask for the ordenanza in force in the town you are actually buying in, not a coastal average. And read who issues the receipt off the receipt itself: arts. 7 and 77.8 TRLRHL let a town hall delegate the management and collection of IBI to another body, and whether a given municipio has done so varies, so we never send an owner to a counter without seeing their own bill.

Is the ISD inheritance bonification the same across all Costa Blanca?

Yes, everywhere inside the Comunitat Valenciana. Every town from Dénia to Orihuela applies the same 99 % bonification on the ISD quota for groups I and II under art. 12 bis of Ley 13/1997 — raised from 75 % by Ley 6/2023 de la Generalitat, with effect for chargeable events from 28 May 2023. The bonification is autonomic, so the municipio makes no difference to it. What does change the answer is crossing into the Región de Murcia, which has its own consolidated text: its ISD deduction for groups I and II is also 99 % (art. 3.Cinco DLeg 1/2010), but its ITP and AJD rates are not the same, so a family holding property on both sides of that line needs both compared.

Do I need a local Costa Blanca advisor or can a Madrid gestoría handle it?

Modelo 210 is a state return and can be filed from anywhere in Spain. What is not state is the layer underneath it. The ITP and ISD figures above come from a Comunitat Valenciana law; IBI and plusvalía municipal come from each town’s own ordenanza fiscal; and the ITP self-assessment (modelo 600) is filed with the autonomous community that collects it — the Generalitat for Alicante and Valencia, the Región de Murcia for the Costa Cálida. That is where local knowledge earns its keep, along with the languages: we are based in Torrevieja and work in English, Spanish, Dutch, German, French and Russian.

Is the plusvalía municipal the same across the whole Costa Blanca?

No. IIVTNU is a municipal tax: each ayuntamiento fixes its own rate and its own coefficients in its ordenanza fiscal, under the 30 % ceiling of art. 108 TRLRHL, so the same gain produces a different bill in Dénia and in Torrevieja. What is identical everywhere is the mechanism — two calculation methods since RDL 26/2021, the lower one applies, and no tax at all where the land produced no gain. We run both methods against the current ordenanza before completion.

Recent regulatory changes

Three changes matter for anyone buying or inheriting here. Ley 6/2023 de la Generalitat raised the ISD bonification for groups I and II from 75 % to 99 % of the quota, for chargeable events from 28 May 2023 (art. 12 bis Ley 13/1997). Ley 5/2025 then cut the general ITP rate on immovable property from 10 % to 9 % and the general AJD rate from 1.5 % to 1.4 %, both for chargeable events accruing from 1 June 2026 (arts. 33 and 34). On the state side, Orden HAC/623/2026 took non-resident rental income off the old quarterly calendar: modelo 210 on let property is now an annual return, filed in the first twenty calendar days of April of the following year. None of this touches IBI or plusvalía municipal rates, which live in each ordenanza fiscal and are revised town by town every year.

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