The rate is 24 %, and nothing comes off first
| Item | Your position |
|---|---|
| Non-resident income tax rate | 24 % |
| Inside the EU, Iceland, Norway or Liechtenstein? | No |
| Costs deductible against rent? | No — gross rent is the base |
| Residence certificate | Certificate of residency from the Canada Revenue Agency |
| Rental return | Annual, 1 to 20 April from the 2026 tax year |
Canadian owners are usually startled by this, because the Canadian system is generous about rental expenses and because Canada's relationship with Spain is cordial and fully documented by treaty. None of that matters here. The Spanish rule keys off membership of the European Union or the European Economic Area, and Canada is in neither. So the 24 % applies to the rent before the community charges, the local property tax, the insurance, the agent's commission and the mortgage interest that produced it. On 16,000 € of summer lettings with 9,000 € of costs, a Dutch owner pays 1,330 € and you pay 3,840 €.
The Spanish Supreme Court agreed in July 2026 to examine whether excluding non-EU residents from the deduction breaches the free movement of capital, which in European law also protects capital movements to and from third countries. The outcome is genuinely unknown. What we do meanwhile is file on the law as it stands and then lodge a rectification claim, which stops the year going out of time. It is cheap insurance against a decision that may or may not come.
Your CRA certificate of residency
The Canada Revenue Agency issues a certificate of residency on request, confirming that you were resident in Canada for the purposes of the double taxation convention with Spain. That convention dates from 1976 and was substantially amended by a protocol that took effect in the middle of the last decade. Spain treats the certificate as good for one year, so it is an annual errand. Ask for the calendar year that matches the Spanish return, keep the superseded ones, and do not let a gap open: a Spanish file without a current certificate is a file that invites the least favourable treatment available.
If you hold Spanish or another European nationality alongside your Canadian one, it makes no difference at all. The Spanish rule looks at where you are tax resident, not at the passports in the drawer. A Canadian resident with an Italian passport is on the 24 % side of the line.
What happens on the Canadian return
Canada taxes residents on worldwide income, so the Spanish rent belongs on your Canadian return as gross rental income with the expenses Canadian law allows, on the statement of real estate rentals, and the Spanish tax is claimed as a foreign tax credit. Four practical points.
The credit is limited. It relieves Canadian tax on the same foreign income and no more. Since Spain taxes the gross and Canada taxes a net figure after expenses, and since the Canadian rate on that smaller net figure may be lower than 24 % of the larger gross one, part of the Spanish tax can go unrelieved. That gap is the real price of being outside the European Union, and it is bigger than the five-point difference in headline rates suggests.
Foreign property reporting is a separate duty. Canada requires residents to report specified foreign property once the cost amount crosses the statutory threshold. The important nuance for readers of this page is that property held purely for personal use is excluded from that reporting, while property held to earn income is not. A flat that you rent out during the season is therefore on a different footing from one you never let, and the moment you start letting, the reporting question should be put to your Canadian accountant. It is a filing obligation with its own penalties, quite separate from any tax.
Currency. Everything Spanish happens in euros and everything Canadian in dollars. Rent, expenses and Spanish tax paid all need converting on a consistent and defensible basis, and the receipts we issue are dated so that your accountant can do it properly.
The tax years agree. Both countries run on the calendar year, which spares Canadians the apportionment headache British owners face.
We are Spanish lawyers. The Canadian paragraphs above are orientation so that you know what to raise with your own accountant, including the foreign property reporting question. Keep an adviser in Canada; we will give them the Spanish figures, dated and receipted.
The Spanish returns themselves
- One form 210 for each property and each owner. No joint filing, no household return. A couple with one apartment files two rental returns and two imputed income returns each year.
- Rental income, once a year. The 2024 and 2025 years were filed between 1 and 20 January; from the 2026 year the window moves to 1 to 20 April of the following year, under Order HAC/623/2026.
- Imputed income for the rest of the calendar, at 1.1 % of the rateable value where that value was revised in the last ten years and 2 % where it was not, apportioned by share and by days, filed under period code 0A. The months your flat sat waiting for the next Canadian winter are taxed months. See imputed income.
- On a sale, the buyer withholds 3 % of the price and pays it to the Spanish authorities on your account. It is not the tax; it is a deposit against it, and where the real gain is modest a large part of it is recoverable.
What we do with Canada
We take the properties, the shares and the rateable values once, count the nights let from your booking statements, prepare every return, and send you the figures before anything is filed. Where the deduction point is worth keeping alive we file and then claim rectification. We watch the date on your CRA certificate. Everything is in English, the fee is fixed and set out on the pricing page, and if your case does not fit the standard shape you can simply tell us about it. The general rules are in our guides to non-resident property tax and form 210.
Robert's year in Fuengirola, month by month
The Canadian owners we see are usually retired, or nearly so, from Ontario, Quebec or British Columbia, and swapped Florida for southern Spain. They arrive after Christmas, stay until spring, and hand the flat to an agency for the busy months. Robert fits the pattern exactly. Resident in Canada and sole owner of a flat in Fuengirola, in 2026 he lives there from January to March, the agency lets it for 100 nights between June and September for 12,500 €, and the rest of the year it is shut. The rateable value is 88,000 €, with a revised valuation.
| Stretch of 2026 | What happens | Spanish consequence |
|---|---|---|
| January to March | Robert lives there | Imputed income |
| April and May | Closed | Imputed income |
| June to September, 100 nights | Let through the agency | Rental income at 24 % |
| Loose summer days without guests | Available to him | Imputed income |
| October to December | Closed | Imputed income |
The rent: 12,500 € at 24 % is 3,000.00 €, with the agency's commission left exactly where it is. The empty and personal days: 88,000 × 1.1 % = 968 € a year, which for the 265 days not let is 702.79 €; at 24 %, 168.67 €. Total for the year: 3,168.67 € across two Modelo 210 returns. Were the flat owned half each with his wife, each would declare half of each item, and two returns would become four.
Many Canadians assume that the weeks spent in their own flat produce no Spanish tax because nothing is earned. It is the other way round: every day the flat is available to you, used or not, carries imputed income. Only a let day escapes it. If only the summer return is filed, the other one is missing.
Reading the agency's end-of-season statement
At the end of the season the agency sends a statement: what guests paid, its commission, cleaning, perhaps some maintenance. For a Canadian resident's Spanish return only the first line matters, the gross value of the bookings. If the agency transfers only the net, the gross has to be rebuilt, and that is where errors creep in. Ask every year for the detail per booking, with dates, and keep it with the IBI bill.
When the family comes over in May
Children, siblings or friends from Canada often use the flat in spring without paying. For Spanish purposes those days are not letting but days at your disposal, and they go into the imputed income as if you had been there yourself. If they pay something, even just to cover the bills, it is rent and goes into the rental return at 24 % of whatever they hand over. There is no middle ground, so decide in advance which it is and keep a record. House swaps, popular among retirees, are not free in the tax authority's eyes either.
What we need from you each spring
The year's CRA certificate, the deed, the latest IBI bill, the dates you used the flat and the agency's statement. If the agency already filed something for you in past years, send those copies too: the first thing we check is whether the imputed income return was ever made. If you eventually decide to settle in Spain, the flat moves into your Spanish income tax return and new obligations appear, such as Modelo 720 for assets abroad — a move worth planning rather than discovering.