19 %, 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 Administration des contributions directes |
| Rental return | Annual, 1 to 20 April from the 2026 tax year |
Residence in a Member State, not nationality, is what places you on the favourable side of Spanish law. Loan interest, the charges of the owners' association, the Spanish local property tax, buildings insurance, repairs, letting commission, the utilities you bear and a depreciation allowance on the building all reduce the base before the 19 % applies, cut back to the proportion of the year during which the property was genuinely let. A house let for three months carries a quarter of its annual running costs into the rental return.
Two Spanish charges
- Rental income, declared property by property and owner by owner, though the year's lettings are brought together into one filing. That filing fell between 1 and 20 January for the 2024 and 2025 years; Order HAC/623/2026 moves it to 1 to 20 April from the 2026 year onwards.
- Imputed income for the days the property was at your disposal, at 1.1 % of the rateable value where it was revised within the last ten years and 2 % where it was not, apportioned by share and by days, under period code 0A.
Spain files by owner rather than by household, so a couple owning one apartment lodges four returns a year, each on their own half. The imputed income charge applies even in a year with no tenant at all, because it arises from the property being available to you rather than from any income. Our note on imputed income sets out how it is computed.
Your certificate from the ACD
The 19 % rate and the double taxation convention between Spain and Luxembourg both depend on a current certificate of tax residence from the Administration des contributions directes, which Spain accepts for one year from its date. Ask for the calendar year that matches the Spanish return and keep the superseded ones, because a Spanish query about an earlier year is answered by that year's document and not by the current one.
Luxembourg is a jurisdiction of holding vehicles, and the convention between Spain and Luxembourg is one of the treaties that expressly withholds its benefits from certain Luxembourg holding structures. Where a Spanish property is held through a company, a civil company or an investment vehicle rather than personally, the rate, the return, the availability of treaty protection and the analysis on a future sale can all change, and not in your favour. This is a structuring question to settle before the first return is filed, not a form-filling question to discover afterwards. Tell us how the property is held and we will look at it first.
What happens on the Luxembourg return
Luxembourg taxes residents on worldwide income, so the Spanish letting is reported at home as well. For income from immovable property, Luxembourg treaty practice has generally been to exempt the foreign income while taking it into account in setting the rate applied to the income Luxembourg does tax. The familiar consequence is that the Spanish house may generate no Luxembourg tax of its own and still lift the effective rate on a Luxembourg salary or pension. Which method governs your particular receipts in your particular year is a question of Luxembourg law and belongs to your own adviser.
The two computations will not agree. Luxembourg rules on deductible charges and on depreciation are not the Spanish ones, and the Spanish apportionment of costs to days let has no local equivalent. That divergence is expected; what matters is that the Spanish tax paid is evidenced, dated and attributed to a named property, a named owner and a named year.
We are Spanish lawyers and our advice covers Spanish law. The paragraphs above are orientation so that you know what to ask and of whom. Keep your own adviser in Luxembourg; we will provide the Spanish figures, dated and receipted.
What goes wrong with Luxembourg
- Assuming a passport decides the rate. Residence decides it. A British or American national resident in Luxembourg is on the 19 % side; a Spanish national resident in Geneva is not.
- A full year of costs against a short letting season. The apportionment is compulsory.
- Declaring the rent and ignoring the empty months. Imputed income is charged on availability.
- One return for two owners. There is no joint filing in Spain.
- Holding through a vehicle without checking the Spanish characterisation. The most expensive error available on this page.
- Treating the 3 % withheld on a sale as the final tax. It is a payment on account, and where the gain is small the surplus is refundable on request.
If you let it short-term
Tax is not the only regime that applies to a holiday let in Spain. Short-term tourist letting is regulated at regional level, and in most of the places a Luxembourg owner is likely to have bought the property has to be registered before it may lawfully be advertised at all, with its own registration number quoted in the listing. The requirements vary from one region to the next and have been tightened repeatedly in recent years, and a property let without the registration can attract a penalty that has nothing to do with the tax return being correct.
The two regimes have also begun to feed each other. Letting platforms operating in the Union report the identity of their hosts, the days let and the sums paid to the tax administrations, and that information is exchanged between Member States. So the number of nights that drives your Spanish deduction is a number the Spanish authorities are likely to hold independently. That is an argument for accuracy rather than for anxiety. Our note on tourist rentals sets out what letting short-term actually involves.
How we handle Luxembourg
We register each property and each owner, take 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. Where the property is held through a structure we look at that first. We keep your certificate current. We write in French, English or Spanish, and the fee is fixed and published on the pricing page. The general rules are in our guides to non-resident property tax and form 210.
Spaniards in Kirchberg, Portuguese in Esch, and a flat let in Valencia
Luxembourg residents who write to us rarely fit the picture of the beach buyer. Mostly they are Spaniards who left to work in banking, investment funds or the European institutions and let the flat they used to live in; and nationals of other countries, often Portuguese or Italian, with a holiday apartment on the Spanish coast. The second group usually asks whether nationality changes anything. It does not: tax residence is what counts. What can change everything is how the property is held, a point the page already makes about companies.
The Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union provides that an official who moves solely to take up duties keeps, for certain taxes, the tax domicile of the country they had on entering service. If that is your situation and you came from Spain, you may still be tax resident here, in which case Modelo 210 is not your return. It is worth settling before the first one is filed.
Ana's figures: the Valencia flat let for the whole year
Ana has worked for a private bank in Luxembourg for years and is tax resident there. Her flat in Valencia, which she owns outright, is let throughout 2026 to a family at 900 € a month: 10,800 € for the year. She pays 2,100 € of interest on the mortgage still outstanding, 460 € of IBI, 840 € of community charges and 260 € of insurance. In October the boiler had to be replaced, a 690 € repair. The building alone, without the land, is worth 84,000 €, giving 3 % depreciation of 2,520 €.
| Valencia flat, 2026 | Amount |
|---|---|
| Rent collected | 10,800.00 € |
| Loan interest | − 2,100.00 € |
| IBI, community and insurance | − 1,560.00 € |
| Boiler repair | − 690.00 € |
| Depreciation of the building | − 2,520.00 € |
| Net rent | 3,930.00 € |
| Tax at 19 % | 746.70 € |
Because the flat was let all 365 days, every cost comes off in full and there is no imputed income. Had the tenant left in June and the flat stood empty until September, those months would carry imputed income and the annual costs would be apportioned. One detail Ana noticed: the reduction for letting a home that Spanish residents may apply does not exist in non-resident income tax, so someone who paid tax on the rent while living in Spain feels the change when they leave.
People who move to Luxembourg on a permanent contract often keep putting the rent into a Spanish resident income tax return for a year or two, because the software lets them. It is the wrong return for the wrong taxpayer: if you are no longer resident, that return does not apply and Modelo 210 is left unfiled. The first full year abroad is the one to check closely.
When the tenant is a company
If the rent is paid by a company or a professional using the flat for their business, the law obliges them to withhold tax from what they pay you and pass it to the tax authority on your behalf. Your annual return then does not start from zero: the net rent is declared, the tax worked out, and what was already withheld is deducted, which can produce a refund if costs were high. For that you need the withholding certificates the payer must give you. With a family as tenant, which is the usual case, there is no withholding and everything is paid through Modelo 210. And if one day you return, remember that Spain does not split the year: spend more than 183 days here in the year you come back and you are resident for all of it.