How much tax will you actually pay buying a house in Spain?

You've budgeted for the deposit. You've budgeted for the mortgage. There's a third number — a property transfer tax called ITP — that your lender will never finance, that nobody sends you a bill for, and that's entirely yours to calculate and pay.

It isn't a scam or a hidden fee. It's the law. The problem is the number most English-language property sites quote for it is already out of date.

It's 9%, not 10% — and the discount almost certainly isn't for you

In the Comunitat Valenciana (Costa Blanca, Alicante province), the general property transfer tax rate is 9% of the taxable value. It dropped from 10% on 1 June 2026 — recent enough that plenty of still-published English guides have not caught up.

There are reduced rates in this region, down to 3–4%. They are for Spanish tax residents buying their actual main home. If you are buying a second home, a holiday property, or anything that will not be your sole habitual residence under Spanish tax rules, none of them apply to you — there is no separate "non-resident rate," there is simply no route to the discount.

The million-euro cliff

Above €1,000,000, the rate jumps to 11% — and it isn't a marginal rate like UK stamp duty, where only the amount over the threshold is taxed higher. The entire price is taxed at the higher rate. One euro over the line changes the whole bill.

You might be taxed on more than you actually paid

Spain does not simply tax what you agreed to pay. The law sets the taxable amount as the higher of your purchase price or the Catastro's official "reference value" for that property — a government-assigned figure that can run above market price in some areas.

This reference value is checkable, for free, before you sign anything. Finding out about it after you have signed the arras (private purchase contract) is finding out when you can no longer negotiate on it.

The one-month deadline nobody puts on a checklist

This tax is self-assessed. No letter arrives, no invoice, no reminder from your bank. You — or whoever you hire — file it yourself, on a form called Modelo 600, with the regional tax agency. The deadline is one calendar month from the day you sign, not from whenever you get around to it.

Until this tax is paid, your purchase deed will not be registered at the Land Registry (Registro de la Propiedad). The sale is not fully yours on paper until it is.

Two charges you won't pay, whatever a disclosure sheet implies

On a resale home, you pay ITP OR stamp duty (AJD) — never both. If anyone's breakdown shows both on top of each other for a resale purchase, that line is wrong.

And the municipal "plusvalía" tax, on the increase in land value since the last sale, is the seller's bill, settled with their own town hall — not yours.