Klaus Weber lives in Hamburg and has owned a flat in Nerja since 2018. He has never filed a Modelo 210, the Spanish return for non-residents: not for the months when the flat stood empty, nor for the summers of 2022 and 2023, when he let it for short seasons. In 2024 and 2025 he let it continuously to a family. A neighbour has told him that "Hacienda can only go back four years", Hacienda being the name by which the Spanish tax office is commonly known, and Klaus has counted on his fingers: 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. He is wrong in both directions. There are 2021 returns that are still open and there are 2022 returns that no longer are.
The clock runs per return, not per year
Article 66 of the General Tax Act (Ley General Tributaria) sets the limitation period for the tax authorities' right to assess at four years, and article 67.1 says from when it is counted: from the day after the end of the statutory period for filing the corresponding return or self-assessment. Not from the year of the income, nor from the day it was filed. Each form has its own filing period, and therefore its own clock.
For a non-resident like Klaus, that means a single calendar year can have parts that are time-barred and parts that are still open. Up to 2023, rental income was declared quarterly, in the first twenty days of the month following each quarter; for income accruing from 2024 onwards, one annual return is filed. The imputed income for the days when the flat was available to him had to be filed by 31 December of the following year. With those rules, as at 22 September 2026 Klaus's map looks like this:
| Return | End of the filing period | Time-barred at the end of |
|---|---|---|
| Imputed income for 2020 | 31 December 2021 | 31 December 2025, already time-barred |
| Imputed income for 2021 | 31 December 2022 | 31 December 2026 |
| Rental for the 3rd quarter of 2022 | 20 October 2022 | 20 October 2026 |
| Imputed income for 2022 | 31 December 2023 | 31 December 2027 |
| Rental for the 3rd quarter of 2023 | 20 October 2023 | 20 October 2027 |
| Rental for 2024, annual | 20 January 2025 | 20 January 2029 |
| Rental for 2025, annual | 20 January 2026 | 20 January 2030 |
The imputed income return for 2025 is not even late yet: it can be filed until 31 December 2026 without a surcharge. And the 2021 one, which Klaus assumed was lost in time, will stay open for three more months.
The guide on the four-year limitation period works through the counting of dates with more cases.
What resets the counter to zero
Article 68 lists what interrupts the limitation period. Interrupting is not pausing: under paragraph 6, the full period starts again. For the right to assess, three kinds of event count:
- Any action by the tax authorities formally notified to the taxpayer and aimed at reviewing, regularising or assessing, even if it is initially directed at another obligation because of an incorrect return.
- Lodging appeals or claims, the referral of the matter to the criminal courts or a report to the public prosecutor.
- Any verifiable action by the taxpayer aimed at assessing or self-assessing the debt.
Two practical consequences for Klaus. First: if he files the 2021 imputed income return today, that return is open to review for another four years. The second is of particular interest to anyone living abroad: paragraph 5 of article 68 gives interrupting effect to steps taken in another State under mutual assistance, even if they do not have that effect there. A request for information that Hacienda channels through the German authorities can interrupt the Spanish limitation period.
There are only a few weeks left before the rental for the third quarter of 2022 becomes time-barred, and a few months for the 2021 imputed income. Nothing guarantees that a notified action will not arrive first, in Spain or through his own country. If it does, the year is reopened and what would have been a surcharge becomes an assessment with a possible penalty. The decision whether or not to file a year that is about to become time-barred should not be taken by looking at the calendar alone.
What is at stake, in euros
With a cadastral value (valor catastral) of 120,000 € revised within the last ten years, the annual imputed income is 1.1 %: 1,320 €. Klaus is resident in Germany, so he is taxed at 19 %. For a full empty year, the tax is 250.80 €. For the third quarter of 2022, with 4,200 € of rent and 1,100 € of expenses attributable to those months, the base is 3,100 € and the tax 589 €.
For each outstanding return, the calculation is done like this:
- Tax for the period, with the rate and expenses that apply.
- Surcharge under article 27: since more than twelve months have passed from the end of the filing period, 15 %.
- A 25 % reduction of that surcharge if everything is paid on filing and the surcharge is paid on time.
- Late-payment interest from the day after the twelve months.
With amounts of tax of this size, regularising the open years usually costs little more than the tax itself. If you would like us to check which returns are still open in your case, you can send us the title deed (escritura), the IBI receipt (the annual municipal property tax) and the rental history through the regularisation form.
The periods that last more than four years
Tax credits. Article 66 bis allows losses carried forward and deductions pending application to be reviewed for ten years from the end of the filing period for the year in which they arose. It cannot be used to assess that old year, but it can be used to deny the credit in a year that is not time-barred. Paragraph 3 of the same article requires the returns and accounts that support it to be kept and produced. That is why you are sometimes asked for papers from five years ago or more.
Undeclared assets abroad. Article 39 of the IRPF Act, the law on Spanish personal income tax, used to allow assets not reported on Modelo 720 to be attributed to the oldest year not yet time-barred, with no time limit. Law 5/2022 amended it following the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 27 January 2022. Today those gains are included in the period in which they are discovered, unless the taxpayer proves ownership since a period that is already time-barred.
The criminal period. Where the tax defrauded exceeds 120,000 € per tax and per year, the basic offence is time-barred after five years under article 131 of the Criminal Code, and after ten for the aggravated offence. We explain it in when it stops being a fine and becomes a crime.
Collecting and claiming run on other clocks
Once the debt has been assessed, the right to collect it is also time-barred after four years, but counted from the end of the voluntary payment period, and it is interrupted by each notified collection step. That is why a debt assessed six years ago can still be enforced if there were attachments or payment demands in between.
The same period runs in your favour. If Klaus had overpaid, for example by not deducting expenses that he could subtract as a resident of the European Union, he would have four years to ask for rectification with a refund of amounts unduly paid, counted under article 67.1 from the end of the filing period if he paid within it. And under article 68.3, that application also interrupts its own period.
Where to start a case with many years
The first document of a regularisation is not a return: it is the list of all the missing ones, with the date each becomes time-barred next to it. In Klaus's case, that list shrinks the problem, makes clear what is urgent and what is not, and avoids filing something that was no longer needed. The guide on Modelo 210 for rental income explains what goes into each return; the one on imputed income for non-residents, how the days are calculated.
If you have years you never filed and want to know which can still be claimed, the page on voluntary disclosure with Salama Tax explains how that inventory is drawn up and what it costs to bring it up to date.