The Spanish rate is 19 %
| Item | Your position |
|---|---|
| Non-resident income tax rate | 19 % |
| Inside the EU, Iceland, Norway or Liechtenstein? | Yes |
| Costs deductible against rent? | Yes, apportioned to the days actually let |
| Residence certificate | Issued by the federal finance administration |
| Rental return | Annual, 1 to 20 April from the 2026 tax year |
Being resident in a Member State puts you on the favourable side of Spanish law. Loan interest, the charges of the owners' association, the Spanish local property tax, insurance, repairs, letting commission and a depreciation allowance on the building all reduce the base before the rate applies — in the proportion the nights let bear to the whole year. A flat let for ten weeks carries about a fifth of its annual costs, and no more.
Two Spanish returns for one property
- Rental income, one filing per property and per owner, covering the whole year. For 2024 and 2025 the window ran from 1 to 20 January; from the 2026 year it becomes 1 to 20 April of the following year, under Order HAC/623/2026.
- Imputed income for the days the property stood available to you, at 1.1 % of the rateable value if that value was revised in the last decade and 2 % if not, apportioned by share and days, under period code 0A.
Spain files by owner. A couple owning jointly lodges four returns a year for a single flat, two on the rent and two on the imputed income, each on their own half. It is mechanical, but it has to be complete: the land registry tells the Spanish authorities exactly which combinations they should be seeing.
The certificate, and the treaty
The 19 % rate and the double taxation convention between Spain and Belgium both depend on a current certificate of residence from the federal finance administration. Spain accepts it for one year. The treaty itself is the convention of the mid-1990s as amended by later protocols; for rental income its operation is uncontroversial, since immovable property is taxed where it stands, but the version applicable to a particular year is worth confirming with your own adviser if anything beyond ordinary letting is in play.
What Belgium asks of you
Here is what distinguishes the Belgian owner from almost every other reader of these pages. Belgium does not simply take note of your foreign rent; it assigns the foreign property a notional cadastral value of its own, on the same conceptual footing as a Belgian house, and expects you to report the acquisition so that value can be fixed. That obligation arrives with the purchase, not with the first tenant, and owners who bought quietly and told nobody are the ones who later receive a letter.
Once the property is in the Belgian system, the income attributed to it is declared each year and relieved under the treaty by being exempted in Belgium while still being taken into account in setting the rate that applies to your Belgian income. The consequence is familiar to Belgian advisers and startling to everyone else: the Spanish house can increase the tax on a Belgian salary or pension without itself producing any Belgian tax. Communal surcharges follow the same logic.
None of this changes the Spanish computation. Spain taxes the actual rent, apportioned expenses and the imputed income on the empty days; Belgium works from its own attributed value. The two figures are not reconcilable and are not meant to be.
We are Spanish lawyers and we advise on Spanish law. What is written above about the Belgian declaration and the exemption with progression is orientation, offered so that you know what to ask. Keep your own accountant in Belgium; we will provide the Spanish figures, dated and receipted.
Where it goes wrong
- Nothing declared in Belgium at the time of purchase. The duty to report the acquisition is easy to miss and unpleasant to discover late.
- Full-year expenses against a part-year letting in the Spanish return. The apportionment is compulsory.
- Silence about the empty months. Imputed income is charged on availability, not on use.
- A single Spanish return for two owners. There is no joint filing.
- Treating the 3 % withheld on a sale as the final bill. It is a deposit, and it is frequently more than the tax really due.
Beyond the rent: death and sale
Two events take the Belgian owner outside the annual routine, and both are worth thinking about before they arrive rather than after.
On a sale, Spain taxes the capital gain of a non-resident at 19 % whatever country you live in. That is one of the few points on this site where the line between European and non-European owners does not apply: a Belgian and an American pay the same rate on the gain. The buyer withholds 3 % of the price and pays it over on your account, and where the real gain is modest the surplus is reclaimed by making a claim within time.
On a death, Spain charges its own inheritance and gift tax on the Spanish property whoever inherits it and wherever they live, with reductions that vary enormously from one Spanish region to another. Belgium, for its part, applies its regional succession duties to the worldwide estate of a Belgian-resident deceased, with relief in respect of foreign duties paid on immovable property situated abroad. How the two interact, and what the Belgian relief actually covers, is a question for a Belgian notary. What we can tell you is the Spanish half, and it is better planned than discovered. See inheritance and gifts.
Our method with Belgium
We take each property and each owner once, pull the rateable values, count the nights let from your statements, apportion the costs defensibly, prepare every return and send you the figures before anything is filed. We keep track of your certificate. We write in French, English or Spanish. The fee is fixed and set out on the pricing page; if the case is unusual, describe it and we will quote. The rules behind it all are in our guides to non-resident property tax and form 210.
Parents with the usufruct, children with the bare ownership
In many Belgian families the apartment in Calpe is no longer quite the parents'. They kept the usufruct — the right to use the property and collect its income — and the children hold the bare ownership. It is sensible family planning, common in Belgium and carried into the Spanish deed or a gift. It also changes who files Modelo 210, and it is often filed by the wrong person.
The rule is simple to state: whoever has the right to use the property and receive its rent declares it. If the parents are usufructuaries, they file the rental return for what is collected and the imputed income return for the days the flat is at their disposal. The children, as bare owners, declare no income from it while the usufruct lasts. Depreciation is another matter: the 3 % on the building is designed for a full owner, while a usufructuary depreciates, where appropriate, what the usufruct itself cost, under rules of its own. Because the answer depends on how the usufruct was acquired, the example below leaves it out.
Calpe, 2026: the parents file, the daughters do not
Marc and Anne live in Namur and each hold 50 % of the usufruct of an apartment in Calpe; their two daughters have the bare ownership. In 2026 an agency lets it for 120 nights, pays them 11,000 € and invoices a 15 % commission, 1,650 €, separately. The rateable value is 110,000 €, revised within the last ten years. Year-round costs are 3,580 €: IBI 540 €, community 1,380 €, insurance 260 € and utilities 1,400 €.
| Line | Basis | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Income for the year | 120 nights | 11,000.00 € |
| Agency commission | in full, it exists only for the letting | − 1,650.00 € |
| IBI, community, insurance, utilities | 3,580 € × 120/365 | − 1,176.99 € |
| Net rent | 8,173.01 € | |
| For each usufructuary (50 %) | 4,086.51 € | |
| Rental Modelo 210, each | 19 % | 776.44 € |
| Imputed income of the flat | 110,000 € × 1.1 % × 245/365 | 812.19 € |
| Imputed income Modelo 210, each | 406.10 € × 19 % | 77.16 € |
Marc and Anne pay 1,707.20 € in Spain between them for 2026, in four returns. The daughters file nothing for this flat, although their names are on the deed too. If the usufruct is unequal, or only one parent kept it, the split follows the deed; and if it is successive, first both and then the survivor, the returns change from the date of death.
A frequent slip in families that have split the ownership: the child who handles the papers, because they speak Spanish or live closer, files Modelo 210 in their own name as though they were the owner. The tax authority cross-checks the Catastro and the land registry and sees two things at once: a bare owner declaring income that is not theirs, and two usufructuaries declaring nothing.
Catastro, IBI and deed should tell the same story
Under the cadastral rules the usufructuary takes precedence over the bare owner as the registered holder, and the IBI follows the same order. Before the first return, check that the land registry extract shows the usufruct and bare ownership with holders and shares; that the Catastro lists the usufructuaries (if not, a correction can be requested with the deed); and that the IBI bill arrives in the right name, since it is also the receipt for a cost you deduct. It is a one-off job; after that each campaign is routine.
The day the usufruct ends
When the usufructuary dies, or the usufruct ends for another reason, the children become full owners. In Spain that can have succession and gift tax consequences, depending on how the bare ownership was acquired, and from that day they are the ones filing. A sale before then means usufructuaries and bare owners each sell their own right, with the buyer's 3 % withheld on the whole price and each seller's gain worked out on the value of their own right. Start with international inheritances and gifts.