The 3 % the buyer kept from the price is not your tax: it is a payment on account of it. When the real gain is small, or when you actually sold for less than the property cost you, that advance exceeds what you owed and the difference is refunded. But it does not come back by itself. You have to ask for it, ask for it within the deadline, and ask for it with the document that proves the money really reached the Spanish tax authority (Hacienda). This guide is about that procedure, seen from the seller's side.
Why there is nearly always something left over
The 3 % is calculated on the whole sale price, with nothing deducted. Your tax, on the other hand, is calculated on the gain. On a sale with a moderate gain, 3 % of the price is a good deal more than 19 % of the gain, which is why a refund is the usual outcome.
| Sale (€) | 3 % paid in | Gain | Tax at 19 % | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 300,000 | 9,000 | 0 (sold at a loss) | 0 | 9,000 refunded |
| 300,000 | 9,000 | 20,000 | 3,800 | 5,200 refunded |
| 300,000 | 9,000 | 47,368 | 9,000 | Nothing to pay, nothing refunded |
| 300,000 | 9,000 | 90,000 | 17,100 | You pay 8,100 |
The middle line is the break-even point: at the 19 % rate, 3 % of the price equals the tax on a gain of a little under 16 % of the sale price. Above that you pay; below it, you get money back. That 19 % is the same for every non-resident seller, so the break-even point does not depend on the country you live in.
The deadline: three months, but not from the deed
The Modelo 210 for the gain is filed within the three months following the end of the period the buyer has to pay in the 211, and that period is one month from the transfer. In practice it is four months from the deed, not three. Anyone counting three months from signing is early; anyone counting four from the buyer's payment is late.
A sale signed on 12 March gives this calendar: the buyer has until 12 April to file and pay the 211, and you have from then until 12 July to file your 210. There is no need to wait for the buyer to file theirs before you start preparing yours, but you do need their receipt to close it.
What you need to file it
- The seller's NIF or NIE (the Spanish tax identification number, or the one given to foreigners). If you do not have one, it has to be obtained first: without a tax identification number there is no return to file and no refund to collect.
- The copy of Modelo 211 the buyer is obliged to hand you, with proof of payment. It is the document that proves what was withheld.
- Both deeds and the receipts for the costs and taxes of both, which are what build up the gain.
- A bank account to be paid into. The refund is made by transfer, and this is where a good share of files belonging to people who no longer have a Spanish account get stuck.
The bank account, which is where everything runs aground
Many people close their Spanish account the same month as the sale, because they no longer need it, and discover months later that the refund has nowhere to go. The Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax agency, accepts refunds into an account held abroad within the Single Euro Payments Area, if you provide the IBAN, the BIC and proof that the account belongs to the person filing; outside that area things get more complicated and are usually resolved through a representative with a Spanish account.
It is the cheapest advice in this whole guide. Keeping an account you no longer use open for six more months costs little; redirecting a refund of several thousand euros when the destination account no longer exists costs months of correspondence. If you have already closed it, it can be sorted out, but the road is longer.
How long it takes, and what happens if it does not arrive
The administration has the general period of six months, counted from the end of the filing period for the return, to make the refund. If it does not do so within that period for reasons attributable to it, late-payment interest is due without the taxpayer having to claim it. That does not mean the refund will take six months, nor that it will arrive the day after they run out: it means that from then on there is an argument and a possible claim.
When it is late, the usual reason is that the administration has opened a check on how the gain was calculated. It tends to arrive as a formal request asking for invoices for the items that add to the acquisition value. It is answered with documents, not explanations; the page on what to do when a letter from Hacienda arrives sets out the general procedure, and it is worth reading before replying to anything.
If the buyer did not pay in the 3 %
This is the uncomfortable scenario, and it comes in two very different versions.
| What happened | Where the seller stands |
|---|---|
| The buyer deducted the 3 % from the price and did not pay it in | You received 97 %. You have the deed and the contract proving the deduction, and a civil claim against the buyer for the amount they kept. On the tax side, the main problem is theirs: the law makes them liable to pay it in and the property is charged with the debt. |
| The buyer withheld nothing and paid you 100 % | You received the whole price. There is no earlier payment to deduct and no refund to claim: your 210 shows the whole tax as payable. What you cannot do is declare as withheld an amount that was never paid in. |
In the first case it pays to act quickly and in writing: ask the buyer for the 211 receipt and, if it does not turn up, make a formal, provable record of the demand. There are arguments for saying that whoever suffered the withholding may deduct it even if the person withholding did not pay it in, but it is disputed ground and not something that can be taken as won in advance. The prudent course is to file the return with the facts well documented and to flag the risk from the start, not to present as settled something that depends on how the tax office sees it.
The buyer, for their part, has a way out: filing the 211 late with the surcharge that applies, which is far cheaper than waiting to be chased. It is explained on the page on the 3 % withholding and, in detail, in that line's guide on the 211 filed late.
The mistake of filing nothing
Some people take it for granted that the 3 % settles everything and do not file the 210. That has two consequences, and neither is the one they expect.
- If the withholding was more than you owed, the money stays with Hacienda. The refund is not made automatically: it is Modelo 210 that claims it. And the right to claim it expires after four years.
- If it was less, the debt stays alive with interest, and when the administration claims it there will no longer be a reduced surcharge but penalty proceedings.
A third thing turns up in the same file almost every time: the years the property stood empty generate imputed property income, and the years it was let generate rental income. A sale is the moment when all of that comes to light at once, because the administration cross-checks the transaction against the property's history. If there are years left undeclared, the sensible thing is to look at them at the same time and decide whether to put them right before the request arrives; the page on voluntary regularisation explains the difference between doing it on your own initiative and doing it once they have already written to you.
What we do with your property sale
- We rebuild the acquisition value from whatever exists, including the building work and the years of letting, and we say from the outset which items are solid and which are arguable.
- We prepare and file Modelo 210 with the refund claim, and leave the file documented in case a request arrives.
- If the destination account is outside Spain, we sort it out by whichever route applies to where it is held.
- If a check is opened, we answer it with the documents gathered. What we do not do is guarantee the outcome: no refund is certain until it has been granted.
To start, just tell us about the transaction in the intake form for this line. With the sale deed, the purchase deed and the buyer's 211, we can already work out whether yours ends in a refund and how much.
Three formal mistakes that delay the refund by months
- A single form for two owners. If the property belonged to two people, there are two returns, each for its own percentage, each deducting its own share of the withholding. A joint return does not exist in the non-residents' tax and forces everything to be redone.
- Deducting a 3 % that does not match what was paid in. What you deduct is the amount shown on Modelo 211, exactly, not the theoretical 3 % worked out on the price. If the buyer paid in a different amount, the computer cross-check flags it.
- Identification details that do not match. The seller's name and tax number must be the same on the 211 and the 210. A surname spelt differently is enough for the refund to sit waiting for a manual check.
All three are avoided by looking at the 211 before filling anything in. It is a one-page document and it holds everything that has to be carried across.