Form 210 for residents of Finland

19 %, after costs

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 Verohallinto
Rental return	Annual, 1 to 20 April from the 2026 tax year

Membership of the Union, not the treaty, is what buys you the lower rate and the deduction. Loan interest, the maintenance charges of the building, the Spanish local property tax, insurance, repairs, letting commission, the utilities you pay and a depreciation allowance on the structure all come off before the rate is applied, restricted to the proportion of the year the property was genuinely let. Finnish owners, who are used to a domestic system in which rental income is taxed as capital income with its own list of allowable costs, should not assume the two lists coincide. They do not, and the Spanish return has to be built on Spanish rules and Spanish invoices.

The two charges

• Rental income, one return per property and per owner, filed once for the whole year. The 2024 and 2025 years went in between 1 and 20 January; from the 2026 year the window is 1 to 20 April of the following year, under Order HAC/623/2026.
• Imputed income for the days the property was at your disposal, at 1.1 % of the rateable value where it was revised in the last ten years and 2 % where it was not, apportioned by share and days, under period code 0A.

There is no joint return in Spain. Two names on the deed means two of each filing, each on its own half, every year. And the second charge is the one Finnish owners most often discover late: a flat bought to escape the winter and let to nobody still generates a Spanish return, because the tax attaches to the property being available to you rather than to any income it produced.

Your Verohallinto certificate, and the treaty

Spain applies the correct rate and the convention only on proof of residence, which Verohallinto issues and which Spain accepts for one year from its date. Ask for the calendar year that matches the Spanish return and keep the old ones for later queries.

On the treaty itself: the convention between Spain and Finland now in force replaced the much older one from the 1960s and has applied since the end of the last decade. Its best-known consequence affects Finnish pensioners resident in Spain rather than Finnish residents with a Spanish flat, because it changed the method by which certain Finnish income is relieved. For rental income from Spanish property the position is the ordinary one — immovable property is taxed where it stands, and Finland gives relief for the Spanish tax against the Finnish tax on the same income. If your circumstances involve pensions as well as property, that is a conversation to have with a Finnish adviser, because the answer there is genuinely different from what it was under the old treaty.

What happens on the Finnish return

Finland taxes residents on worldwide income, so the Spanish rent is declared at home as well and the Spanish tax is set against the Finnish tax on the same income by way of credit. Two things follow. First, the credit relieves Finnish tax on that income and no more, so where the Finnish charge on the same letting is smaller than the Spanish one, part of the Spanish tax is not recovered. Second, the two taxable figures will differ, because the Spanish apportionment of costs to days let has no Finnish equivalent and the depreciation rules are not the same. That divergence is normal and does not indicate an error in either return.

The traps

• Deducting twelve months of costs against a short season. Spain apportions to the days let.
• Filing nothing in a year with no tenants. Imputed income still applies.
• One return for a couple. Spain files by owner.
• Letting the certificate expire. A lapsed certificate is an unproven position.
• Assuming the 3 % withheld on a sale is the tax. It is a payment on account, and the balance is reclaimed by claiming it.
• Mixing up the pension question with the property question. They are governed by different articles of the convention and have different answers.

If the flat becomes the home

A great many Finnish owners buy on the coast while still working, let the property for a few years, and then spend progressively longer here until the question arises of whether they still live in Finland at all. That question has a hard edge, and it is worth facing deliberately rather than drifting across it.

Spanish law treats you as resident if you spend more than 183 days of the calendar year in Spain, or if your main centre of economic interests is here. Cross that line and everything on this page ceases to apply: form 210 disappears, a Spanish resident income tax return takes its place, and it reaches your worldwide income — Finnish pensions, Finnish investments, the lot — with the treaty deciding which country taxes what. There are also reporting duties on assets held outside Spain once certain thresholds are passed. The change is not a formality and it is not optional; it follows from the facts.

It is also, for many people, the better outcome rather than the worse one, depending on the mix of income. But it has to be planned in the year before it happens, not reconstructed afterwards. If you are approaching that point, say so and we will look at both sides together.

How we handle Finland

We set up each property and each owner, take the rateable values, count the nights let from your statements, apportion the costs, prepare every return and send you the figures before filing. We watch the date on your certificate. Correspondence is in English or Spanish, and the fee is a fixed monthly figure set out on the pricing page. If your case involves a pension as well as a property, tell us and we will look at both together. The rules are in our guides to non-resident property tax, form 210 and imputed income.

When the winters stop: from holiday flat to long let

Fuengirola has one of the most recognisable Finnish communities anywhere outside Finland, with a school, a parish, shops and associations; Torrevieja has another. The classic profile is the retiree who spends the cold season here. Over the years that changes: health, grandchildren or simply the tiring journey mean many stop coming, and the flat is let long term to a local family. For the tax authority that changes a great deal: fewer days at your disposal, more let days, and a different split of costs. One thing does not come with it. The reduction Spanish residents may know for letting a home to a tenant (generally 50 % on contracts signed since 26 May 2023) does not exist for non-residents.

Pirkko's flat: eleven months let, one empty

Pirkko, resident in Tampere, is sole owner of a flat she bought for 170,000 €, 60 % of it attributable to the building. She lets it at 850 € a month. In 2026 the first tenant leaves on 31 October and the next moves in on 1 December: the flat is let for 335 days and collects 9,350 €. November, 30 days, is empty. Electricity and water are paid by the tenant, so they do not appear.

Pirkko's costs for 2026	Amount
IBI	430 €
Community of owners	840 €
Insurance	200 €
Water heater repair	600 €
Depreciation, 3 % of 102,000 €	3,060 €
Total	5,130 €

Deductible share: 5,130 × 335/365 = 4,708.36 €. Net rent: 9,350 − 4,708.36 = 4,641.64 €, and at 19 % the rental return is 881.91 €. November carries imputed income: the rateable value of 95,000 € was revised within the previous ten years, so 95,000 × 1.1 % × 30/365 = 85.89 €, taxed at 16.32 €. Total for the year, 898.23 €. The 30 empty days between tenants are taxed as days at her disposal, even though the flat was advertised and Pirkko never set foot in it.

With monthly contracts, days are counted on the real calendar of the contract, not in thirty-day months. A tenant who moves in on 15 March contributes 17 days to that month, and the days between one departure and the next arrival, however few, go to imputed income.

The managing agent who collects for you

An owner who no longer travels usually leaves the flat with a managing agent: they collect the rent, pay the community and the IBI, deal with the tenant and transfer what is left to Finland. It is convenient, with one trap: what reaches the Finnish account is not the income on Modelo 210. The income is the full rent the tenant pays. The agent's fees, and the community and IBI paid on your behalf, are costs deducted afterwards, each with its own treatment. Ask the agent for an annual summary in three columns: rent collected month by month, costs paid for you with their invoices, and transfers made to you. If a tenant stops paying, note that too from the first missed month. And switching to a long let does not end the paperwork: the deposit a tenant pays has to be lodged with the regional body, an obligation that is not a tax one but is still enforced.