Because you live abroad: the buyer withholds 3% of the price and pays it to the tax office, as an advance on your tax on the gain. It is not a tax of its own.
- The buyer pays the 3% within one month of the sale, with Modelo 211, and gives you its receipt number.
- Your tax on the gain is 19%, wherever you live: the EU, the United Kingdom or elsewhere.
- The gain is the sale price minus its costs, minus the purchase price and its costs (taxes, notary, registry, improvements; not the mortgage interest).
- In the three months that follow, each seller files a Modelo 210 for the sale. When the 3% is more than your tax, you get the difference back.
Good to know
- Plusvalía municipal: the town's tax on the rise in the land's value. For a seller who lives abroad, the buyer pays it to the town within 30 working days and usually holds it back from the price; it counts as a cost of your sale. Nothing is due after a loss.
- Bought before 1995, over 65, or reinvesting in a main home while living in the EU or the EEA? Rules of their own may lower the tax: we check them.
- Your own country may tax the gain too, usually deducting the Spanish tax. We file the Spanish side; an adviser at home handles yours.
- The year of the sale still has its usual return for the days you owned the home without renting it out.
Work out your gain, your refund and the plusvalía with our free sale simulator.