Gipuzkoa's rules are not a variant of the state ones
Personal income tax in Gipuzkoa is governed by its own Norma Foral, the provincial legislation, with its own scale, its own rules on deductions and its own filing season. The same is true of taxation on wealth: the foral territories have a figure of their own, with its own name, valuation rules, exemptions and thresholds, and it does not correspond point by point either to the common-regime wealth tax or to the state tax on large fortunes.
We are not going to give you foral scales or thresholds here. We do not handle them as we handle the state ones, and a figure quoted from memory in this field is worth nothing. What we do know how to do is recognise when the question is a provincial one, say so, and keep our hands off it.
It is worth saying why this distinction matters so much here and so little elsewhere. A search in Spanish for almost any tax question returns the common-regime answer, because that is what applies to most of the country. In Gipuzkoa that answer can be right, partly right or simply inapplicable, and the difference is not visible from the text. The first useful thing anybody can do with a Gipuzkoan question is work out which system it belongs to.
We work with common-regime Spanish tax and with international tax. If your matter is resolved entirely at the Hacienda Foral de Gipuzkoa, the provincial tax authority, the right thing is for a firm here to carry it, and we will tell you so and coordinate with the one you appoint. Where we contribute is in the cross-border part — posted workers, estates with assets abroad, accounts held outside Spain — and in what is still a state matter, normally working alongside your provincial adviser.
Tourist housing: the use first, the tax afterwards
Donostia has ordered tourist housing use by zone and by floor, and the result is that two flats in the same doorway can be in different positions. As always in this field, we publish no percentages and no lists of streets: the planning instrument and the by-law applicable to your building are checked in the wording in force.
What is common to the whole of Spain is the indirect taxation of the transaction, because VAT is not a tax with its own autonomous provincial legislation: if you supply services proper to the hotel industry, you leave the exemption in article 20.Uno.23 of the Spanish VAT Act. That rule has not changed after all: Royal Decree-law 26/2026, which put stays of up to 30 nights at 10 %, lost its vote in Congress on 2 October 2026, and the change now waits for a new date, July 2028 at the latest under Directive (EU) 2025/516. You have it in tourist rentals.
The French border: what reaches us most
Because of proximity, a good part of what we work on here has France inside it: people who cross to work, French pensions drawn from Spain, property on the other side, estates with assets in both countries. That is resolved with the double tax treaty, which is interpreted the same way anywhere in Spain, and with residence certificates kept in order.
It is the kind of matter where we are genuinely useful from start to finish. It is in the certificate of tax residence and in the dual residence conflict.
Being useful from start to finish here also means knowing when a French question has to go to a French adviser. You appoint that adviser and we work alongside them; we do not opine on French rules we do not practise. Cross-border files fail more often because two advisers each assumed the other had a point covered than because anybody got the law wrong.
Who writes to us from Donostia-San Sebastián
| Who | What they usually face |
|---|---|
| Owner of a tourist flat in Gros or the centre | Finding out whether the building admits the use, and in parallel the indirect taxation of the services |
| Cross-border worker with France | Where they are resident, which treaty applies and how it is proved each year |
| Retired person with a French pension | How the pension is taxed depending on whether it is public or private, and recovering withholding |
| Heir with assets in both countries | The law applicable to the succession, valuation and double taxation |
| Non-resident owner with a flat here | Modelo 210 per property and per owner, which is not a provincial matter |
Working with Donostia-San Sebastián, remotely
By dividing the work with whoever carries the provincial side, without treading on each other and without anyone being billed twice for the same thing. We define in writing, at the start, which part is ours and which part is not, so that nobody assumes the other one was looking at it.
On our own side, routine: one person to talk to, paperwork in writing, figures before filing and clear warnings when a position is arguable. In international matters it is arguable more often than anybody would like.
We promise no result before the provincial authority, the state authority or a French one. What we do undertake is that you will know, in writing and from the first week, which obligations are yours, before whom and by when, and which of them we are actually carrying.
Three lives on either side of the Bidasoa, seen from San Sebastian
What we work on most with clients from Donostia is the border, and almost never in the abstract: it is usually one person with a home in one country and their job or pension in the other. These are the three profiles that write to us most, with what decides each one. We do not give the result from memory because it depends on the treaty with France read for each case and on facts that have to be proved.
| Profile | What has to be decided | Which paper proves it |
|---|---|---|
| Lives in Hendaye and works as an employee in Donostia | Whether they are resident in France and how Spain taxes their employment income | French certificate of residence for the year |
| Lives in Donostia and works a few days a month in Biarritz | Which part of the salary France may tax and how paying twice is avoided | A calendar of days worked in each country and the payer's certificate |
| French retiree settled in Donostia | Whether the pension is public or private for treaty purposes, because that decides who taxes it | Certificate from the fund paying it, stating the type of pension |
In all three cases, residence in Gipuzkoa makes the annual return a foral one — Gipuzkoa, like the other Basque provinces, has its own tax authority and rules — and that is the ground of your adviser here, with whom we coordinate. Our part is the reading of the treaty and the documentation, delivered ready for them to carry into the return. The distinction between pensions is in public or private pension under the treaty, and the form is the one for pensioners.
A calendar nuance: a change of residence from one side to the other does not take effect for tax purposes on the day of the move, but over the year as a whole, and each country applies its own criterion.
The San Sebastian inheritance with a house in the Landes and a flat in Gros
The other quintessential Donostia matter. When someone dies with assets in both countries, the first question is civil: which law governs the succession, which under the European succession regulation is usually that of the deceased's last habitual residence, unless they chose the law of their nationality in a will. The second is tax, and it is two questions: what Spain taxes and what France taxes on the house that is there. If the deceased lived in Gipuzkoa, the Spanish part is foral and is dealt with before the foral authority, with your adviser there; if they lived in common territory or outside Spain, we can handle it. What the French administration does will be seen to by a French notary or adviser, and we coordinate with them. It is in international inheritances and gifts.
It is what almost nobody asks and what later holds up a refund in France for months. The French payer or administration asks you for a certificate proving that you are resident in Spain for treaty purposes, and the natural thing is to request it from the state tax authority's online office. But if your tax address is in Gipuzkoa, the administration that knows you as a resident is the provincial one, the Hacienda Foral, and it is the one that has to issue it. Asking at the wrong counter brings back a refusal or a document that is of no use. How it is used afterwards is in certificate of tax residence.