How Much Tax Do You Pay When Buying Property in Spain?

There’s no single national rate for buying a home in Spain — the tax you pay depends heavily on which of the 17 autonomous communities the property is in, and that difference can run into thousands of euros on the same purchase price.

The tax that varies: ITP

For a resale property, the main tax is the Impuesto de Transmisiones Patrimoniales (ITP) — a transfer tax set not nationally, but by each autonomous community. Two buyers paying the exact same price for a similar property can end up with very different tax bills purely because of where in Spain it’s located.

Below, we’ve mapped out two of the largest markets — Madrid and Catalonia — so you can see just how much this varies even between two major regions:

*El ITP de Cataluña es progresivo: 10% hasta 600.000 €, subiendo por tramos hasta el 13% a partir de 1,5 M€. Las Islas Canarias se muestran recuadradas fuera de su posición geográfica real, como es habitual en los mapas de España.

Why we’re only showing two regions here

Every other autonomous community sets its own ITP rate — and several of them go further, offering reduced rates for first-time buyers, buyers under a certain age, large families, officially protected housing, or properties in specific rural areas. Some of these reductions can cut the rate by half.

Because the exact rate — and whether you qualify for a reduction — depends entirely on the region, the property, and your own situation, publishing a single generic table wouldn’t actually tell you what you’d pay. It’s exactly the kind of detail we work through with clients directly, region by region and case by case.

What applies if you’re buying new-build instead of resale

ITP only applies to resale properties. If you’re buying directly from a developer, the tax structure is different — and, unlike ITP, it’s largely consistent nationally:

• VAT (IVA) — 10% of the purchase price, applied on mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands
• Stamp duty (AJD) — an additional 0.5–1.5%, set regionally, paid alongside VAT on new builds
• IGIC — in the Canary Islands, VAT and AJD are replaced by IGIC, generally around 6.5–7%

---