19 %, on the profit
| 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 Belastingdienst |
| Rental return | Annual, 1 to 20 April from the 2026 tax year |
Membership of the Union buys you the lower rate and the deduction. Interest, the owners' association charges, the Spanish local property tax, insurance, maintenance, letting commission and a depreciation allowance all reduce the base, in the proportion the days let bear to the calendar year. It is an unfamiliar exercise for someone whose domestic system has never asked what a second home earned, and it depends entirely on being able to show how many nights were let and at what price.
Two Spanish charges, and neither is optional
- Rental income, one return per property and per owner, filed once for the whole year. The 2024 and 2025 years fell 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 on the days the property was at your disposal, at 1.1 % of the rateable value where it has been revised in the last ten years and 2 % where it has not, scaled to your share and to the days, under period code 0A.
Spanish law files by owner, not by household. Two names on the deed produce two of each return, every year, and there is no mechanism for combining them.
Your Belastingdienst certificate
The lower rate and the double taxation convention between Spain and the Netherlands rest on a current statement of residence from the Belastingdienst, which Spain accepts for one year from its date. Worth knowing: the convention between the two countries dates from 1971 and is among the oldest Spain still has in force. Its age matters less for rental income, where the rule that immovable property is taxed where it stands has been stable for a century, than for other kinds of income, but it is a reason to check rather than assume whenever something unusual arises.
What happens at the Dutch end
A Dutch resident declares a foreign second home in the savings and investments box, where the charge has historically been calculated from the value of the asset rather than from the rent it produced, and then claims relief to prevent double taxation, which is given by exempting a proportion of the Dutch charge corresponding to the foreign property. The practical consequence is one that surprises people: the Spanish tax you pay on the rent and the Dutch treatment of the same house are computed from completely different starting points, so there is no tidy one-for-one credit to look for.
That box has been through a long period of upheaval following a series of rulings by the Dutch Supreme Court about taxing a deemed return rather than the real one, and the legislature has been reworking it ever since. Which basis applies to your year, and how the foreign property interacts with it, is a question for a Dutch adviser and the answer has been moving. Nothing in that affects your Spanish obligations at all: Spain taxes the property because the property is in Spain, and it does so on rent and on imputed income regardless of what the Netherlands does with the same house.
We are Spanish lawyers. The Dutch paragraphs above are orientation so that you know what to raise with your own adviser, particularly given how much has changed in that box in recent years. Keep a Dutch accountant; we will give them the Spanish figures, dated and receipted.
The traps
- Believing there is nothing to file because the flat made no profit. Imputed income does not care whether you made a profit. It arises from availability.
- Deducting a full year of costs against a short season. The apportionment is compulsory.
- Filing one return for a couple. Two owners, two returns, always.
- Assuming the Dutch position answers the Spanish one. They are independent charges, relieved against one another only through the treaty, and only to the extent the treaty provides.
- Selling and forgetting the 3 %. The buyer withholds it on account of your Spanish tax. Where the gain is modest, a refund is due — but it has to be asked for, within time.
The sale, where the asymmetry is sharpest
This is the point at which the difference between the two systems becomes most visible, and it catches Dutch sellers out more than any other nationality.
Spain taxes the capital gain made by a non-resident on Spanish property at 19 %, computed as the difference between the acquisition cost and the sale price, with the purchase costs and taxes you paid on the way in added to the cost side if you can document them. The buyer withholds 3 % of the price and pays it over on your account, and the balance is settled, or reclaimed, in a return filed within months of the deed. The rate is the same for every non-resident seller, European or not.
The Dutch system, by contrast, has historically not taxed a private capital gain on real estate as such, taxing the asset annually instead. So there may be no Dutch tax on the gain against which the Spanish tax could be credited. A Dutch seller who assumes that selling a foreign house is a tax-free event because selling a Dutch one would be is in for an unpleasant surprise, and the surprise arrives at the notary's table. Ask before you sign the preliminary contract, not after.
Our method with the Netherlands
We register the properties and the owners once, take the rateable values, count the nights let from your booking statements, apportion the costs, prepare each return and send you the numbers before filing. We watch the date on your residence statement. Correspondence is in English or Spanish, and the fee is fixed and published on the pricing page. If your case has an odd feature, tell us about it. The underlying rules are in our guides to non-resident property tax, form 210 and imputed income.
Plenty of house, not much platform
Dutch owners cluster in southern Alicante and Murcia — Orihuela Costa, Torrevieja, San Miguel de Salinas, the Costa Cálida — with another large group on the northern Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol, often in bungalows bought in developments of the 1990s and 2000s. Two traits stand out. Many bookings do not come through the big platforms but through the owner's own website, a circle of acquaintances or word of mouth at the tennis club: cheaper, but nobody hands you a clean statement of nights and payments. And the house is generously lent to family, neighbours and colleagues, which has consequences on Modelo 210 that are rarely taken into account.
Orihuela Costa, 2026: fourteen weeks paid, four lent
Marieke and Joost own a bungalow 50/50, bought for 180,000 € (the building is half the price). In 2026 they let it for 14 weeks, 98 days, at 650 € a week: 9,100 €. They pay 60 € for cleaning after each stay, 840 € in all, which comes off in full because it exists only because they let. Four weeks they lend it free to family, and six they use themselves. The other costs — IBI 390 €, community 720 €, refuse charge 110 €, insurance 210 €, electricity and water 1,200 € and depreciation of 2,700 € (3 % of 90,000 €) — total 5,330 €, and only the part matching the 98 let days is deductible. The lent weeks do not count as let: there was no price.
| Step | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Income | 14 weeks × 650 € | 9,100.00 € |
| Direct costs | cleaning between stays | − 840.00 € |
| Year-round costs | 5,330 € × 98/365 | − 1,431.07 € |
| Net rent | 6,828.93 € | |
| Each owner | 50 % | 3,414.47 € |
| Rental return, each | 19 % | 648.75 € |
| Imputed income of the bungalow | 64,000 € × 2 % × 267/365 | 936.33 € |
| Imputed income return, each | half × 19 % | 88.95 € |
The 267 imputed days are everything that was not letting: their own six weeks, the four lent weeks and the months the house was shut. The rateable value here has not been revised in the previous ten years, hence 2 %. Each of them files two returns, and together they pay 1,475.40 €.
It is tempting to add the lent weeks to the let days, because more cost is deducted and less is imputed. But a stay with no price is not a tenancy: those days go to imputed income and their share of costs is not deductible. If the friend pays «something towards the electricity», the picture shifts again, and it is better to tell us than to improvise. A listing on your own website whose calendar does not match what was declared is exactly what gets examined.
Rebuilding the year when there is no platform
Without a platform statement, the evidence for the year is yours to build, easy if done as you go and very hard two years later. Keep a booking log with the guest's name, arrival and departure dates and the agreed price (a simple spreadsheet will do, if kept current); receive payments by transfer, since cash is what is hardest to explain later; keep deposits separate from the price, because a returned deposit is not income but one kept for damage may be; and note the weeks lent to family and friends, so you can show why they are not declared as let. Platform reporting covers only what passes through platforms, but a booking made elsewhere is not invisible: a registered guest, a review or an online listing leaves a trace.