19 % in Spain, after expenses
| 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 Agenzia delle Entrate |
| Rental return | Annual, 1 to 20 April from the 2026 tax year |
Union membership puts you on the lower rate and gives you the deduction. Interest on a loan secured on the flat, the condominium charges, the Spanish local property tax, insurance, repairs, agency commission and a depreciation allowance all come off, restricted to the proportion of the year the property was genuinely let. Where Italian domestic practice often works with a flat percentage abatement, Spain wants real invoices tied to real dates, so the documentation habit has to change.
The two Spanish charges
- Rental income, one return for each property and each owner, gathered annually. 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 days the apartment was at your disposal, at 1.1 % of the rateable value where it was revised within the last ten years and 2 % otherwise, apportioned by ownership share and by days, under period code 0A.
Spain has no joint return. Two owners means two of everything, each on their own share, and the Spanish authorities know from the land registry how many filings a given address should generate.
Your Agenzia delle Entrate certificate
The 19 % rate and the double taxation convention between Spain and Italy, which dates from the late 1970s and has been in force since the beginning of the 1980s, both depend on a current certificate of fiscal residence from the Agenzia delle Entrate. Spain accepts it for one year from its date. Ask for the calendar year the Spanish return covers — a simple matter, since both countries use the calendar year — and keep the superseded certificates, because a question raised three years later is answered by the certificate for the year in question, not the current one.
What Italy does with the same apartment
An Italian resident is taxed on worldwide income, so the Spanish rent is declared in Italy too, in the schedule for foreign income, with a credit for the Spanish tax paid on the same income. The credit is limited to the Italian tax attributable to that income, and since Spain and Italy compute the taxable figure differently, the two will not match.
The feature that catches Italian owners out is the separate Italian tax on the value of property held abroad. It is charged on the value of the Spanish apartment, usually taken from the purchase deed or from the value used for tax purposes in Spain, in proportion to your share and to the months of ownership, and it is payable whether or not the flat produced a single euro of rent. Italian law allows a credit against it for property taxes paid abroad on the same asset, which in practice means the Spanish local property tax. The rate was increased with effect from the 2024 tax year, so a figure you remember from an older return may be out of date; your own adviser will confirm the current rate and the current valuation rules.
The practical conclusion for an Italian owner is that a Spanish flat generates an Italian filing every year, even in a year when it was never let, and the Spanish local property tax receipt is a document worth keeping rather than discarding.
We are Spanish lawyers and we advise on Spanish law. The description above of the Italian tax on foreign property is orientation so that you know it exists and can ask about the current rate. Keep your commercialista; we will supply the Spanish figures and receipts, dated and itemised.
Common mistakes
- Applying an Italian-style flat abatement to the Spanish return. Spain wants itemised costs, apportioned to days let.
- Declaring in Spain only the months of letting. The other months carry imputed income.
- A single Spanish return for a couple. There is no such thing.
- Throwing away the local property tax receipts. They feed both the Spanish deduction and the Italian credit against the tax on foreign property.
- Assuming the 3 % withheld on a sale settles the matter. It is a payment on account, and where the gain is small a refund is usually due.
What happens when the apartment changes hands
On a sale, Spain taxes the capital gain of a non-resident at 19 %, and that rate is the same for every seller regardless of where they live. It is one of the few places in this area where the European line makes no difference at all. The buyer is obliged to withhold 3 % of the price and pay it to the Spanish authorities on your account; it is a deposit against the tax, not the tax, and where the gain is small or there is a loss the balance comes back to whoever claims it.
On a death the picture is more complicated, and Italian families with Spanish property should not leave it to chance. Spain charges its own inheritance tax on the Spanish apartment whoever inherits and wherever they live, with reductions that differ sharply between Spanish regions, while Italy taxes the worldwide estate of an Italian-resident deceased under its own rules and rates. Separately, the European Succession Regulation decides which country's civil law governs the succession itself, which is a different question from which country taxes it and can be influenced by a properly drafted will. Both questions are better settled in advance. Our note on inheritance and gifts covers the Spanish side.
Our method with Italy
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 for approval before filing. We diarise the certificate. We write in English or Spanish. The fee is fixed and published on the pricing page, and unusual cases can simply be described to us. The rules behind it are in our guides to non-resident property tax, form 210 and imputed income.
Islands, Ibiza and the city
The Italian community is now one of the largest among foreign owners in Spain, with an unusual map: the Canaries hold much of it — southern Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote — followed by Ibiza and Formentera and by cities such as Barcelona, Valencia or Málaga, where buyers are younger and often invest. In the Canaries the high season is the European winter, the reverse of the Mediterranean. An Italian owner who does not live there usually lets from November to March and keeps August for the family, which does not change the rules but does change the split of days.
Costa Adeje, 2026: the winter let
Luca, resident in Turin, is sole owner of an apartment in Costa Adeje bought for 195,000 €, 65 % of it attributable to the building. A local manager lets it for 150 nights across January to March and November to December 2026, for 13,500 €, and takes 18 %: 2,430 €. Luca uses it in August.
| Item | Annual | Deductible |
|---|---|---|
| Manager's fees | 2,430.00 € | 2,430.00 € (in full) |
| IBI | 410.00 € | apportioned |
| Community | 1,560.00 € | apportioned |
| Insurance | 230.00 € | apportioned |
| Electricity, water and internet | 1,350.00 € | apportioned |
| Depreciation, 3 % of 126,750 € | 3,802.50 € | apportioned |
| Apportionable subtotal × 150/365 | 7,352.50 € | 3,021.58 € |
| Total deductible | 5,451.58 € |
13,500 € less 5,451.58 € leaves net rent of 8,048.42 €, taxed at 19 %: 1,529.20 €, filed once for the whole of 2026 between 1 and 20 April 2027. The other 215 days, August included, carry imputed income: with a rateable value of 92,000 € revised in the previous ten years, 92,000 × 1.1 % × 215/365 = 596.11 €, and tax of 113.26 €. In all, 1,642.46 € in Spain for the year.
The error we see most among Italian owners in the Canaries is continuing to file Modelo 210 with an Italian certificate when in fact they now spend more time on the island than in Italy. Someone who spends more than 183 days of the year in Spain, or has the centre of their interests here, may be resident here whatever Italian registers say. The paper says one thing; the flights, the municipal register, the health card and the electricity contract say another. If the tax authority concludes you were resident, the Modelo 210 returns do not count and the Spanish income tax for those years is unfiled.
The Canaries are not the rest of Spain, but Modelo 210 is
Non-resident income tax is a state tax and applies identically in Tenerife and Madrid. What changes in the Canaries is indirect tax: the islands have their own general indirect tax, the IGIC, instead of VAT, and their own rules on holiday homes. So the 10 % VAT planned for short stays on the mainland and the Balearics does not carry over to the islands as such. In Ibiza, Barcelona or Valencia it will apply in full once it has a start date: the decree that set one was voted down by Congress on 2 October 2026, and the outer limit is July 2028. See the 10 % VAT on holiday lets.
A flat in Barcelona, Valencia or Ibiza
In those cities tourist licences are scarce or frozen, and many Italian owners let by the month to students and visiting professionals, under a contract. The Modelo 210 arithmetic is the same as in Costa Adeje; what differs is everything around it, because a seasonal contract is not a tourist let and confusing them has administrative consequences. If your children live in the flat without paying rent, those days are not letting: they are days at your disposal and carry imputed income.