Tax and accounting in Seville

Saturated zones and limits by neighbourhood: what we check

The mechanism is always the same, here and across half of Spain: the city council marks out zones where tourist use is restricted or closed outright to new dwellings, and the planning instrument fixes on which floors and with which entrances it may take place. On top of that, in some cases, sits the declaration of an acoustically saturated zone, which affects the bars and restaurants around you and what you are allowed to offer.

We do not publish the specific percentage or the list of affected census districts here. It shifts with every amendment of the plan, it is frequently appealed, and an out-of-date figure would be worse than none. What we do is request the planning information for your particular building and read it against the by-law in force that day.

One term confuses readers from abroad more than any other: the comunidad de propietarios. Every block of flats in Spain has one by law, it is made up of the owners themselves, and it takes decisions binding on all of them about the shared parts of the building and about what may be done inside the flats. It is neither the council nor the tax office, but its statutes and the minutes of its meetings are part of what has to be read before a property is bought with letting in mind.

The tax side keeps its own calendar

Licence or no licence, while you are taking money there are obligations. If you supply services proper to the hotel industry — cleaning during the stay, a change of linen, a reception desk — the operation leaves the exemption in article 20.Uno.23 of the Spanish VAT Act and quarterly VAT begins. If you supply none of them there is no VAT today: the decree that would have put 10 % on every stay of up to 30 nights lapsed in Congress on 2 October 2026, leaving the change undated, with July 2028 as the European limit. Either way, the income still goes into your income tax return.

The second front is the apportionment: the costs of the flat are only deductible in the proportion of days actually let, and the empty days generate imputed property income. It is mechanically dull and it is what produces more enquiry letters than anything else. It is in deductible costs of a tourist rental.

Note the order of the two fronts. The apportionment is arithmetic and is defended with a calendar and invoices; the planning position is not arithmetic at all. We treat each on its own terms rather than answering a planning letter with tax reasoning, which does not work.

Inheritances under Andalusian rules

Andalusia applies a very large relief of its own to the closest relatives in inheritance tax, to the point where a great many estates end with nothing to pay. From there comes the usual confusion: believing that if nothing is payable, nothing is declared. It is declared all the same, and on time, because the deadline is the part that cannot be fixed afterwards.

Beyond that, inheriting an urban property triggers plusvalía municipal at the city council — the local tax on the increase in land value — which is a different tax, with its own counter and its own deadline. Since Constitutional Court judgment 182/2021 and Royal Decree-Law 26/2021 two methods of calculation coexist and the lower one is payable, but it is you who has to choose it. We deal with it in plusvalía municipal and in plusvalía on inheritances and gifts.

Who writes to us from Seville

Who	What they usually face
Owner of a tourist flat in Santa Cruz or the Alfalfa	Checking whether the zone still admits new registrations and, meanwhile, VAT, income tax and apportionment
Someone who bought to let and found the zone closed	Letting alternatives, imputed income and what to do with a registration already filed
Heir to the family house	Inheritance tax filed on time even where the result is zero, and plusvalía municipal separately
Licensed professional with their own practice	Modelo 130, withholding on Modelos 111 and 115 and the annual reconciliation
Owner resident in another country	Modelo 210 and the rate in article 25 of the non-resident income tax act, according to where they live

Working with Sevilla, remotely

With a rule that saves us trouble: deadlines first, strategy second. If there is an enquiry letter or an estate with six months running, that gets dealt with this week and the rest waits.

The rest is a quarterly routine, remote, with no travelling and no paper. We tell you what is safe, what is defensible and what is arguable, in those three words, because not everything in this field has a closed answer and promising you otherwise would be selling you something we cannot deliver.

In practice the work is a quarterly exchange of emails and a power of attorney so that we can file and receive notifications on your behalf. We guarantee no result before the tax office, the council or a court. What we do is set out the options, put a cost and a risk on each of them, and leave the choice where it belongs, which is with you.

Selling an inherited flat in Seville: the sum done before signing the deposit contract

A sister inherits her mother's flat in Nervión in 2019, declares it for Inheritance Tax at 180,000 € and pays 2,100 € of plusvalía municipal — the local tax on the rise in land value — on the inheritance. In 2026 she sells it for 260,000 €. She lives in Seville and the flat was never her main home, so the gain goes into the savings part of her income tax return.

Step	Amount
Sale price	260,000 €
Less the costs of sale: agency 5,000 € and plusvalía municipal on the sale 2,900 €	− 7,900 €
Less the acquisition value: value declared in the inheritance plus the plusvalía paid on inheriting	− 182,100 €
Capital gain	70,000 €
First 6,000 € at 19 %	1,140 €
From 6,000 € to 50,000 € at 21 %	9,240 €
The remaining 20,000 € at 23 %	4,600 €
Tax on the sale	14,980 €

The savings scale is the same throughout Spain, so here the figure can be given as a closed number. What changes the result is the acquisition value: if the inheritance was declared in 2019 below its real value to pay less, more is paid now, because the gain is calculated from that value. The full calculation is in calculating the gain on a sale, and if your sale is under way, the form is I have sold a property.

If three siblings were selling in equal shares, the gain would be split three ways and each would declare it in their own return on the same scale, so part of each third falls in the low bands and the combined tax goes down. And if one of them lives outside Spain, their third does not go into the resident return: it goes on a Modelo 210 at 19 %, with the buyer withholding 3 % of their share of the price. One deed of sale can end up producing three different returns.

From death to sale: the dates of a Sevillian inheritance

When	What is due	Before whom
First five months after the death	Request an extension for Inheritance Tax, if needed	Junta de Andalucía, the regional government
Six months after the death	Inheritance Tax self-assessment, even if it comes to zero	Junta de Andalucía
Six months, extendable to one year if requested within them	Plusvalía municipal on the inheritance	Seville City Council
Afterwards	Registration in the Land Registry	Land Registry
Thirty working days from the sale	Plusvalía municipal on the sale	City Council
From April to 30 June of the following year	The gain, in the income tax return	Agencia Tributaria, the state tax authority