Irene received from her aunt Carmen, in a deed signed on 7 September 2026, a flat in Gijón that they both valued at €180,000. Between aunt and niece the reductions for kinship are much more modest than between parents and children, and the tax Irene has to pay is significant; to follow the example, let us assume €30,000. Irene does not have that amount in her account. Her question was how Modelo 651, the gift tax return, is paid, to whom and whether she can pay in instalments. It is paid to the administration that manages the tax in her case, within the thirty working days, and deferral can be requested, but under that administration's rules, not those of the state tax agency, the Agencia Tributaria.
Who a Modelo 651 is paid to
The Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones, the inheritance and gift tax, is ceded to the autonomous communities (Spain's regions), which manage and collect it. When a property is given, the competent community is the one where it is located: Asturias, in Irene's case. Modelo 651 is filed and paid at its tax office, with its payment gateway, its collaborating banks and its payment document. When non-residents are involved, in certain situations management falls to the state tax agency, with its own channels. Which applies to you is decided with the rules in the table of competences for the ISD (the Spanish initials of the tax), before touching a form.
The practical consequence is that what you know about paying income tax (IRPF) or VAT does not carry over as it is. There is no Agencia Tributaria NRC, the payment reference code a bank issues, for a regional Modelo 651: there is each community's payment system, which almost always offers online payment charged to an account and payment at a collaborating bank with the printed payment slip.
A useful point: even where in other cases the tax comes out at zero thanks to a regional relief, Modelo 651 is filed all the same, and in most regional systems a document with a zero result is generated that serves as the receipt. Without that paper, the Land Registry does not register and the bank or the notary handling the next transaction has nothing to put on file.
What Irene has to pay for this gift, and who pays each item
| Item | Who pays it | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Gift tax, Modelo 651 | Irene, as donee | Thirty working days from the day after the deed |
| Plusvalía municipal, the local tax on the increase in land value | Irene: in transfers for no consideration the taxpayer is the one who acquires | Whatever the local bylaw sets; thirty working days is the norm |
| Capital gain in income tax (IRPF) | Carmen, the donor | In her income tax return for the following year |
| Notary and Land Registry | As agreed; normally the one who receives bears them | On signing and on registration |
Three taxes for one and the same deed, two of them borne by Irene and with almost simultaneous deadlines. The plusvalía municipal has its own page on plusvalía municipal and its guide for inheritances and gifts.
If the money is not there: deferring under the rules of whoever collects
Deferral and payment in instalments also exist for this tax and are requested from the administration that manages it, within the payment period. Requesting it on time has an effect worth knowing: while it is being processed, the debt does not enter the enforcement period, so the enforcement surcharges do not run.
What does not carry over automatically is the threshold for exemption from providing a guarantee. Orden HFP/311/2023 allows the state tax agency not to require a guarantee for debts of up to €50,000, but that order governs state management. When the one collecting is an autonomous community, the limit without a guarantee, the maximum periods and the paperwork are set by its own rules, and they have to be checked before counting on them. You have the general mechanics in how a deferral is requested.
The sums for splitting €30,000 into instalments
- Assumed tax: €30,000.
- Application: filed together with Modelo 651, before the thirty working days run out.
- Proposal: twelve monthly instalments. Principal per instalment: 30,000 / 12 = €2,500.
- Interest: each instalment carries late-payment interest from the end of the voluntary period until it falls due, at that year's rate. The first carries one month of interest; the last, twelve.
- Guarantee: it depends on the community's threshold. If €30,000 exceeds it, a bank guarantee, a surety insurance or another accepted guarantee will have to be offered; with a property just received, a mortgage over that same property is sometimes proposed.
- Risk: if an instalment is missed, the administration can treat the rest as due, with the enforcement-period surcharges.
The value you declare today is the cost you will have tomorrow
Almost nobody mentions this. When Irene sells the flat one day, her gain for income tax will be calculated taking as the acquisition value the one applied in the gift tax, without it being allowed to exceed market value. Declaring a low value today to pay less on Modelo 651 is not a saving: it moves the bill to the sale, at the rate for savings income, and without escaping a possible valuation check now. If Irene is thinking of selling soon to pay the tax, it is worth looking at the two transactions together before signing the first.
Article 33 of Ley 29/1987 prevents documents subject to the tax from taking effect at public offices and registries unless it is shown that they have been submitted to the competent body. Until Modelo 651 is filed, Irene's deed will not be registered in her name. Keep the proof of filing and payment with the copy of the deed: it is the first thing the Land Registry will ask for.
Can the aunt pay the niece's tax?
It is the solution that occurs to almost everyone, and there is a catch. If Carmen hands Irene €30,000 to pay Modelo 651, that €30,000 is another gift from aunt to niece. It is added to the gift of the flat, because article 30 of Ley 29/1987 adds together gifts between the same people over three years, and it generates its own tax at the average rate of the total. It is not impossible to do it, but it has to be calculated as what it is: a gift of €210,000 and not of €180,000.
When what is given is money, the natural route is the opposite: set aside from what is received the part that will go to the tax before spending anything. With a property there is no such reserve, and that is why the cash has to be sorted out before signing, not afterwards.
Paying on the last day: what to check
Thirty working days counted from 8 September 2026, without Saturdays or Sundays and skipping 12 October, which is a national holiday, lead to Tuesday 20 October if no regional or local holidays fall in between. In Asturias 8 September is a holiday, so in Gijón the count starts on the 9th and the deadline moves to Wednesday 21 October. Each community may have its own holidays, which also count. Before leaving it to the end, check the exact day on the community's official calendar and whether the payment gateway has a cut-off time. A payment the bank processes the following day can turn a return filed on time into one with a surcharge.
If your case is like Irene's, with a large tax bill and little room, tell us about it in the inheritance and gift form: the first thing we look at is which administration collects and what it requires for deferral. The tax as a whole is on the page on inheritances and gifts.