19 %, with costs allowed
| 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 Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira |
| Rental return | Annual, 1 to 20 April from the 2026 tax year |
As a Member State resident you deduct before the rate bites: loan interest, condominium charges, the Spanish local property tax, insurance, repairs, letting commission, utilities you bear and a depreciation allowance on the building, all reduced to the proportion of the year the property was actually let. Portuguese owners used to the domestic treatment of rental income, with its own list of allowable charges and its own autonomous rate, should not assume the Spanish list matches. It does not, and the Spanish return has to be built from Spanish rules.
Two charges, one address
- Rental income, one return per property and per owner, grouped into a single annual filing. The 2024 and 2025 years went in 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 property was available to you, at 1.1 % of the rateable value where it was revised in the last ten years and 2 % where it was not, scaled by share and days, under period code 0A.
There is no joint filing in Spain and no household unit. Two names on the deed means two sets of returns every year, each on its own share.
Your residence certificate
The lower rate and the double taxation convention between Spain and Portugal, which dates from the early 1990s, both depend on a current certificate of tax residence from the Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira, obtainable through the online portal. Spain accepts it for one year. The proximity of the two countries makes this more important rather than less: a Portuguese resident who spends a great deal of time in Spain may find the Spanish authorities interested in whether they are non-resident at all, and a clean run of certificates is the first and best answer to that question.
It is worth saying plainly that residence is decided by facts, not by preference. Spend more than half the year in Spain, or place your main economic interests here, and Spain may treat you as a resident taxpayer with an entirely different set of obligations. If the answer is genuinely close, settle it before filing rather than after.
What happens on the Portuguese return
A Portuguese resident declares worldwide income, and foreign rental income is reported in the annex for income obtained abroad, with a credit for the Spanish tax paid. The credit is capped at the Portuguese tax on the same income, so where the Spanish charge is larger the excess is not recovered. Because the two countries compute the taxable figure differently — the Spanish apportionment of costs to days let has no Portuguese equivalent — the numbers on the two returns will not correspond, and that is normal.
Portugal has also reshaped its incentive regimes for new residents in recent years, closing the old one to new entrants and replacing it with a narrower successor. If you moved to Portugal under any such regime, how a Spanish letting interacts with it is a question for a Portuguese adviser, and the answer depends on which regime and which year. It changes nothing on the Spanish side.
We are Spanish lawyers. The Portuguese paragraphs above are orientation so that you know what to raise with your own contabilista. Keep an adviser in Portugal; we will give them the Spanish figures, dated and receipted, in a form that supports the credit claim.
What goes wrong with Portugal
- Assuming a short border means a light touch. Spain files by property, wherever the owner lives, and a flat an hour away is treated exactly like one owned from Helsinki.
- Carrying Portuguese deduction habits into the Spanish return. The lists and the apportionment differ.
- Declaring the rent and ignoring the empty months. Imputed income arises from availability, not from use.
- One return for two owners. Spain does not permit it.
- Treating the 3 % withheld on a sale as the final tax. It is a payment on account, and the balance comes back only if it is claimed.
Selling: both countries want to look at the gain
Spain taxes the capital gain of a non-resident on Spanish property at 19 %, and unusually that rate is identical for European and non-European sellers alike, so the line that governs the rest of this page does not apply to the sale. The gain is the difference between what you paid, with the acquisition costs and taxes added if you can document them, and what you receive. The buyer is required to withhold 3 % of the price and pay it to the Spanish authorities on your account, and the balance is settled or reclaimed in a return filed within a few months of the deed.
Portugal, unlike several of the countries on this list, does tax capital gains realised by its residents on immovable property situated abroad, under its own rules on the proportion of the gain brought into charge and with credit for the foreign tax paid on the same disposal. So a Portuguese seller has two computations to reconcile rather than one, and the reconciliation depends on documents generated at the Spanish end: the original deed, the invoices for the purchase costs, the Spanish tax paid and its date. Keep all of it from the day you buy, because reconstructing it fifteen years later is expensive and sometimes impossible.
How we handle Portugal
We register each property and each owner, take the rateable values, count the nights let from your statements, apportion the costs, prepare the returns and send you the figures before anything is filed. We keep your certificate current. Correspondence is in English or Spanish, and the fee is fixed and set out on the pricing page. If your situation is unusual, including any doubt about which country you are resident in, tell us before you file. The underlying rules are in our guides to non-resident property tax and form 210.
Two kinds of reader, one country of residence
This page has two readers. The Portuguese owner from Braga or Faro with a flat in Baiona or Isla Cristina, an hour from home, and the British, French or Dutch national who lives in the Algarve and owns a house on the far side of the Guadiana. For Modelo 210 they are the same: residents of Portugal. The Portuguese buy mostly near the border — the Rías Baixas and Vigo from the north, the Huelva coast of Ayamonte, Isla Cristina and Punta Umbría from the Algarve, Badajoz or Cáceres from the Alentejo — and many use the house at weekends and let it in summer.
Isla Cristina, 2026: the same flat, two possible passports
Helen and David, British nationals resident in Tavira since 2022, own an apartment in Isla Cristina 50/50, bought for 150,000 € (60 % attributable to the building). In 2026 they let it for 70 summer nights for 8,400 €, and the agency charges 1,260 €. Year-round costs are IBI 360 €, community 600 €, insurance 190 €, utilities 900 € and depreciation 2,700 €: 4,750 € in total. The rateable value, 70,000 €, has not been revised for more than ten years.
| Line | Filed as residents of Portugal | If the form said United Kingdom |
|---|---|---|
| Income | 8,400.00 € | 8,400.00 € |
| Agency commission | − 1,260.00 € | not deductible |
| Year-round costs × 70/365 | − 910.96 € | not deductible |
| Base | 6,229.04 € | 8,400.00 € |
| Rate | 19 % | 24 % |
| Tax on the rent, each (50 %) | 591.76 € | 1,008.00 € |
| Imputed income, each: 70,000 × 2 % × 295/365 ÷ 2 | 565.75 € → 107.49 € | 565.75 € → 135.78 € |
Filed correctly, each pays 699.25 € in Spain for 2026 and the couple 1,398.50 €. With the wrong country ticked, the couple would pay 2,287.56 €: nearly 900 € more for one box. The country-of-residence field is not a statistic; it decides the rate and whether costs count. Enter the country where you live and attach that country's certificate, not the one on your passport.
Someone who moves to Portugal mid-year usually wants 19 % from 1 January. But the Portuguese certificate proves the residence Portugal recognises, and if in the first months of the year you were still resident elsewhere, or in Spain, those months are not governed by the same rules. Check exactly what period the certificate covers. And if you lived in Spain and left, your last return here was a resident income tax return, not a non-resident one.
The weekend house
For a Portuguese owner an hour from the border, the Spanish house is used in scattered weekends, bank holidays and Easter. Frequency of use does not change imputed income: forty weekends or none, every day not let is imputed, because what is taxed is availability. And personal weekends between short lettings demand a precise calendar, since a weekend of your own between two bookings moves two or three days out of the cost apportionment and into imputed income. A house inherited by several siblings who take turns is common here too: each files on their deed share, and a sibling who lets «their» month and keeps the money has not changed the fact that, for tax, the rent belongs to all of them in proportion to the deed, unless a provable agreement says otherwise.