24 %, on the gross rent
| Item | Your position |
|---|---|
| Non-resident income tax rate | 24 % |
| Inside the EU, Iceland, Norway or Liechtenstein? | No |
| Costs deductible against rent? | No — the tax falls on the gross receipt |
| Residence certificate | Issued by the Direction Générale des Impôts |
| Rental return | Annual, 1 to 20 April from the 2026 tax year |
Spanish law reserves the 19 % rate and the deduction of costs for residents of the European Union, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein. Morocco is outside that group, so the 24 % applies to the rent before the community charges, the local property tax, the insurance, the letting commission and any mortgage interest have been taken into account. On 12,000 € of rent with 7,000 € of running costs, a Portuguese owner pays 950 € and you pay 2,880 € — more than half of what the flat really earned.
A very large number of the owners this page is written for hold both Spanish and Moroccan nationality, or hold Spanish residence papers from an earlier period of their life. None of that changes the answer. Spanish tax law asks where you are tax resident in the year concerned. A Spanish national living in Tangier is taxed at 24 % on the gross rent from a flat in Málaga, and a Moroccan national living in Brussels is taxed at 19 % on the profit. If your situation genuinely straddles the two countries, settle the residence question before filing, because every other answer depends on it.
In July 2026 the Spanish Supreme Court agreed to examine whether shutting owners resident outside the European Union out of the deduction is compatible with the free movement of capital, which in European law also protects capital moving to and from third countries. The point is unresolved and no refund should be promised on the strength of it. What can be done is procedural: file on the law as it stands, without deducting, and then lodge a claim to rectify the return. That keeps the year within time instead of letting it close.
The two Spanish charges
- Rental income, one return for each property and each 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 becomes 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 that value was revised in the last ten years and 2 % where it was not, apportioned by share and by days, under period code 0A. A flat kept for family visits and never let still produces this return every year. See imputed income.
Spain files by owner and not by household, so a couple owning one property lodges four returns a year, each on their own share.
Your certificate, and the treaty
The convention between Spain and Morocco dates from the end of the 1970s and, like every modern treaty, leaves income from immovable property to be taxed in the country where the property stands. To rely on it, and to have your file treated correctly, you need a current certificate of tax residence from the Direction Générale des Impôts. Spain accepts it for one year from its date, so it is an annual errand; request the calendar year that matches the Spanish return and keep the superseded ones for later queries.
Two practical points that only arise here
Getting money across. Morocco operates exchange controls, and transfers of funds abroad are regulated. Spanish tax has to be paid from an account the Spanish system can collect from, and the simplest arrangement by far is to route the rent into a Spanish account and pay the tax from it, rather than attempting to remit funds from Morocco against a Spanish deadline. Where an owner has no Spanish account, arrangements have to be made well in advance rather than in the week the return is due; a Spanish deadline does not move because a transfer was held up.
Relief at home. Morocco taxes its residents on worldwide income and gives relief for foreign tax under its domestic rules and the convention. How the Spanish rent and the Spanish tax are treated on your Moroccan return, and what evidence the Moroccan administration expects, is a question for a Moroccan adviser. We do not advise on Moroccan law and we will not guess at it. What we will do is issue the Spanish figures dated, itemised and tied to a named property and owner, which is what any relief claim will need.
What goes wrong with Morocco
- Filing on the profit. Deductions are not available to you; a return built on a net figure invites a correction with interest.
- Assuming a Spanish passport buys the 19 %. It does not.
- Filing nothing because the flat is never let. Imputed income applies regardless.
- One return for two owners. Spain has no joint filing.
- Leaving the payment to the last week. With cross-border transfers, that is how deadlines are missed.
- Treating the 3 % withheld on a sale as the final tax. It is a payment on account and is often more than the tax due.
Our method with Morocco
We register each property and each owner, take the rateable values, count the nights let, prepare every return and send you the figures before filing, and where the deduction argument is worth preserving we file and then claim rectification. We arrange the payment route in good time. We write in French, English or Spanish, and the fee is fixed and published on the pricing page. Tell us about the property and we will tell you what it would cost. The general rules are in our guides to non-resident property tax and form 210.
The family flat on the other side of the Strait
Many owners resident in Morocco lived and worked in Spain for years, hold dual nationality or old residence papers, and went back to Tangier, Tetouan, Nador or Casablanca. They kept the flat they bought here: the family uses it in summer, a trusted tenant has it during the school year, or a son studying in Granada or Seville lives in it. That mixed use is exactly what produces two different returns, and very often neither is filed, because the flat feels like «ours». Tax residence decides the rules, not the passport: a Spaniard resident in Tangier is a non-resident, and a Moroccan living and working in Brussels is taxed as an EU resident.
Nine months of tenant and a family summer
Youssef lives in Tangier and is sole owner of a flat in Algeciras. From October 2025 to June 2026 he lets it to a teacher at 550 € a month; in July, August and September the family uses it. For 2026 the tenant pays January to June (six months, 3,300 €) and, in the new school year, from October (three months, 1,650 €): 4,950 € in all, and about 273 days let. The rateable value is 52,000 €, with a revised valuation.
| Months of 2026 | Who is in the flat | Which return |
|---|---|---|
| January to June | Tenant, 3,300 € | Rental Modelo 210 |
| July to September | Youssef's family | Imputed income Modelo 210 |
| October to December | Tenant, 1,650 € | Rental Modelo 210 |
Rent: 4,950 € × 24 % = 1,188.00 €, with neither community charges nor IBI deducted. The 92 summer days: 52,000 × 1.1 % = 572 € a year; apportioned, 144.18 €; at 24 %, 34.60 €. Total for the year, 1,222.60 € across two returns; both stretches of rent go into the same annual rental return.
Often the tenant pays cash, or a relative in Spain collects the rent and keeps it for the flat's expenses. None of that changes the fact that the rent is yours and must be declared. The tenant may also have registered the contract or lodged the deposit with the regional administration, and that information reaches the tax authority. The safe course is a written contract and payment through a bank.
The flat lent to a student son
A son or niece at a Spanish university living in the flat rent-free is not a letting, but it is not nothing either: the flat remains at the owner's disposal and carries imputed income for all those days, as if it were shut. If the student pays something each month, even a token sum, it becomes a letting to be declared at 24 % of what is paid. Decide which it is and declare it as such.
Heirs on both sides of the Strait
When the flat comes by inheritance, siblings often live in different countries: one in Málaga, one in Tetouan, one in France. Each is taxed on their share according to their own residence. The brother in Spain puts his share in his Spanish resident income tax return; the sister in France files Modelo 210 at 19 % with costs; the brother in Morocco files Modelo 210 at 24 % on the gross. Three treatments of one rent, with the same split of income and days, so one person should keep the flat's accounts and hand out the figures. For the file itself, keep the deed, the latest IBI bill, the tenancy contract and proof of each payment, the year's attestation de résidence fiscale from the Direction Générale des Impôts (with a translation if it comes in Arabic), your NIE and any Spanish identity card, and copies of earlier returns.