Taxes in Spain for Non-Residents: What You Pay, How to File, and the New Form 210 Deadlines

Owning an apartment on the coast, renting out an inherited flat, or collecting dividends from a Spanish company without living here creates tax obligations in Spain, even if you don’t set foot in the country all year. This is the territory of the Non-Resident Income Tax (IRNR), a tax that hits only your Spanish-source income and is filed with the well-known Form 210. Its reputation as a minor formality is deceptive: the surcharges for filing late are automatic, the Tax Agency cross-references the cadastre, notaries, and banks effortlessly, and most foreign owners who receive a letter from the tax authorities weren’t evading anything, they simply didn’t know they had to file.

And there’s a compelling reason to read this even if you think you have it under control: the Form 210 deadlines have just changed. Order HAC/623/2026 has reorganized the calendar for rental and imputed income returns, with transitional rules that coexist during the changeover. This guide covers the whole map: who counts as a non-resident in the tax authorities’ eyes, what you pay in each situation (a vacant property, a rented one, or a sold one), what rates apply depending on your country, the new calendar, the other taxes that reach you, and the mistakes that turn out expensive.

Are You a Non-Resident for Tax Purposes?

The answer isn’t given by your passport or your residence card, but by three criteria under Spanish law. You are a tax resident if you stay more than 183 days of the calendar year on Spanish soil, if the main center of your activities or economic interests is located in Spain, or if your non-separated spouse and dependent minor children reside here (a rebuttable presumption). If you fit none of them, you are a non-resident and you’re taxed only on your Spanish-source income.

Two clarifications that spare you unpleasant surprises. The first: you can have an NIE, properties, and even a residence card in Spain and still be a non-resident for tax purposes, because these are separate planes; and the other way around, someone who spends a good half of the year at their house in Alicante may have become a resident without realizing it, with the obligation to be taxed on their worldwide income. It’s the line we analyze in detail in our guide on non-lucrative residency and the double 183-day rule. The second: when two countries claim you at the same time, the applicable double taxation treaty resolves the conflict with its tie-breaker rules (permanent home, center of vital interests, habitual abode, nationality), and Spain has more than ninety of them in force.

The Property in Spain: Three Situations, Three Taxes

This is the majority case, so let’s go scenario by scenario, because each one has its own rule, its own rate, and its own deadline.

A Property at Your Disposal: Imputed Income

Even if you don’t rent it out or use it, the tax authorities take the view that an urban property at your disposal generates notional income. It’s calculated by applying 1.1% of the cadastral value (if the value was revised and came into force in the previous ten tax periods) or 2% otherwise, and your tax rate is then applied to that base. In numbers: an apartment with a cadastral value of 150,000 euros and a recent revision imputes 1,650 euros, which at 19% comes to around 314 euros a year, and at 24%, around 396. Not much money, true, but with surcharges if it’s forgotten year after year, and it’s the return that foreign owners most often ignore entirely.

A Rented Property: And the Expenses Trap

Rental income is taxed on its gross amount, with one difference that decides the bill and that many discover too late: only residents of the European Union, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein can deduct the expenses connected to the property (IBI, community fees, insurance, utilities borne by the landlord, loan interest, repairs, depreciation). Residents outside that area, such as the United States, the United Kingdom after Brexit, or Latin America, are taxed on the gross income without deducting a single euro.

The contrast, with a rental of 12,000 euros a year and 3,000 in expenses: a German owner is taxed on 9,000 at 19% (1,710 euros), while an American owner is taxed on 12,000 at 24% (2,880 euros). Almost double for the same property. It’s worth knowing that this difference in treatment has been challenged through administrative and judicial channels by invoking the free movement of capital, so if you’re in the second group it’s worth reviewing your returns with professional advice before considering them closed.

Selling the Property: The 3% Withholding and the Capital Gain

When a non-resident sells, the mechanics are peculiar and surprise almost every seller. The buyer is required to withhold 3% of the price and pay it to the tax authorities with Form 211 within one month: it’s a payment on account of your tax, not an additional tax. Afterward, you declare the capital gain (the difference between the transfer value and the acquisition value, with the associated costs and taxes) at 19%, using Form 210, within three months once the month of the withholding has elapsed. If the withholding exceeds your liability, you request a refund of the excess; if your gain was large, you pay the difference.

And the detail no seller should ignore: in sales with a non-resident seller, the buyer is liable for the municipal capital gains tax as substitute taxpayer, something that in practice is negotiated and also withheld at the notary’s office. We break down the whole purchase circuit, from the NIE to the deed, in our guide on buying property in Spain.

Tax Rates: Your Country Decides How Much You Pay

• 19% for residents of the European Union, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein: applicable to imputed income, rentals (with deductible expenses), and investment income.
• 24% for residents of all other countries, with no right to deduct expenses on rentals.
• 19% for capital gains (sales of property, shares, or funds) whatever your country of residence.
• Dividends, interest, and royalties: a general rate of 19%, frequently reduced or eliminated by the applicable double taxation treaty, which has to be invoked with a valid tax residence certificate from your country.

That certificate is the most profitable piece of paperwork in the system: without it, the Spanish payer withholds at the domestic rate; with it, they apply the treaty rate. Its usual validity is one year, so it forms part of the annual maintenance of any non-resident with recurring income in Spain.

The New Form 210 Calendar

Here’s the change that forces you to review your routines: Order HAC/623/2026 (BOE of June 23) has modified the filing deadlines, adding to the earlier change that had already turned quarterly rental returns into annual ones. The resulting calendar:

The practical reading for the average owner: the first annual grouped rental return under the new regime is filed in April 2027, and the imputed income for the 2026 tax year also opens its window in April 2027, not in January. Anyone with an automatic direct debit set up with their tax advisor should confirm that the calendar has been adjusted, because routines inherited from the quarterly system are now the main source of late filings.

The Other Taxes That Reach the Non-Resident

• IBI and municipal charges: the annual property tax, paid by whoever holds title on January 1 regardless of where they live, plus refuse collection and other local charges.
• Wealth Tax: non-residents are taxed under real tax liability, only on assets and rights located in Spain, with a tax-free threshold of 700,000 euros and a progressive scale starting at 0.2%. There’s also an obligation to file (Form 714) when the gross value of the assets exceeds 2,000,000 euros even if the liability comes out at zero. This is the terrain of our Wealth Tax in Spain service.
• Solidarity Tax on Large Fortunes: it complements the previous one from 3,000,000 euros of assets in Spain, with a deduction for what was paid in Wealth Tax. Its treatment for non-residents has evolved favorably through administrative doctrine, which in some cases opens the door to claiming refunds: it deserves an individual review.
• Purchase taxes: Transfer Tax of between 6% and 11% depending on the autonomous community for a resale home, or 10% VAT plus Stamp Duty on a new build, identical for Spaniards and foreigners.
• Inheritance and gifts: inheriting or receiving assets located in Spain is taxed here, and non-residents now apply the connecting autonomous community’s rules with their allowances, as we explain in our guide on inheritance tax in Spain.
• Economic activity in Spain: if your presence goes beyond assets (people operating on your behalf, premises, construction work), you can unintentionally cross the line into a permanent establishment, with taxation at 25% on the attributable income.

One piece of good news among so many obligations: Form 720 on assets held abroad doesn’t apply to you. It’s an obligation exclusive to tax residents, so your accounts and properties outside Spain aren’t declared here as long as you’re a non-resident. The general picture of a foreigner’s taxation in Spain is in our guide on Spanish taxes for foreigners.

The Mistakes That Cost the Most

• Ignoring the imputed income of a vacant property for years, until the assessment arrives with surcharges and interest for all the non-time-barred years.
• Carrying on filing rentals quarterly out of habit, when the regime is already annual and the calendar has just been modified.
• Deducting expenses with no right to do so as a resident outside the EU, or failing to deduct them when entitled by residing inside it.
• Selling without planning for the 3% withholding and finding out at the notary’s office that the buyer is withholding, with your cash flow thrown off.
• Not requesting the tax residence certificate and bearing withholdings at the domestic rate on dividends and interest that the treaty would have reduced.
• Confusing IBI with the IRNR: paying the municipal bill doesn’t replace the state return, and they’re different administrations that don’t share that debt with each other.
• Crossing the 183 days without noticing and continuing to file as a non-resident, the fast lane to a tax residence audit.

Non-resident taxation in Spain isn’t complicated, it’s systematic: a few facts (owning, renting, selling, inheriting) that trigger a few obligations with specific deadlines. The whole problem comes from two things: not knowing they exist, and working with calendars that have just become obsolete. At ILLAY Legal we handle the taxes of non-resident owners and investors fully online: calculation and filing of Form 210 in all its scenarios, regularization of pending years without shocks, application of double taxation treaties, property sales with their withholding and their refund, and wealth planning through our personal tax returns service. Tell us what you own in Spain and which country you’re taxed in, and we’ll tell you exactly what you have to file, when, and how much you’re going to pay.

Frequently Asked Questions About Taxes in Spain for Non-Residents