As a potential owner of a holiday home or an apartment at the Costa Brava, you are probably interested to know the costs that you can be confronted with. For this reason we listed the most important ones for you below.


1.        Purchase costs
Roughly spoken, you can estimate the purchase costs at about 8,5-9%% of the official (Escritura) price. For resale properties you have to pay 7% transmission tax (“Impuesto de Transmissiones Patrimoniales” - “ITP”). For new constructed properties you have to pay 7% added value tax (“Impuesto sobre el Valor Añadido” - “IVA”), plus 0,5% additional tax.
Next to this you will have to pay the legal fees for the transaction – i.e. the notary and the land registry. You can estimate these costs at about 1,5%.
ITP is charged when you buy a property from a private person who doesn’t sell real estate professionally. This is 7% of the official price.
IVA is charged when you buy a property from a professional real estate seller. The percentage depends on the type of sale:

• When you buy a building plot without anything built on it yet, you pay 16% IVA.
• When you buy a building plot in combination with the construction of a house on it, you pay 7% IVA for the total.
• When you buy just the plot, you pay 16%, even if you have a house constructed on it at a later stage. For the new construction you pay 7% IVA then.
• When you buy a house or an apartment that is already finished – new construction or resale – you pay 7% IVA.
• When you have a swimming pool, a garage, etc. constructed with an already existing house, you pay 16% IVA.
• For smaller renovations (less than 25% of the tax based value), you pay 16% IVA.
• For bigger renovations (more than 25% of the tax based value), you pay 7% IVA.

2.        Additional costs for new constructions
When you buy a property as a new construction project, in most of the cases you have to estimate as well:

• The costs of an architect and a technical architect (aparejador) - about 10% of the building costs.
• The actual building costs as agreed with the constructor.
• The costs for a building permission or building taxes (= “Impuesto sobre construcciones, instalaciones y obras”). These will be about 2,5% of the declared value of the new construction (will be calculated by the architect). The percentage depends on the local authorities.

The costs at finishing the works, which has to be declared (“Declaración de Obra Nueva”) and officially registered. A small amount of tax has to be paid then, of about 0,5% of the tax based value of the new property.


3.        Ongoing costs
Next to the purchase costs, you will be confronted with the following ongoing costs.

• “Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmeubles”, or “IBI”). These are yearly local taxes for property owners. At the Costa Brava they will be about ½ % of the tax based value of the property.
• Local town hall taxes (“Tasas”), for rubbish removal, etc. These will usually not be more than several hundreds of Euros per year.
• Community fees. When you buy a house or an apartment in a community, you will usually have to pay a certain amount per year for communitarian expenses, such as gardening costs, maintenance of the swimming pool and building, insurances, administration fees, etc. The amount is fixed by the Community of Owners, of which you will automatically be a member.
• Income tax ( “Impuesto sobre la renta de las personas físicas”, or “IRPF”). The Spanish authorities charge foreign property owners 25% of an amount of 2% of the taxed based value, as a compensation for presumed letting incomes. When you actually do let your property, you have to declare this and pay 25% of the real incomes. When you let via a letting agency, this agency has to withhold these taxes from your incomes and pay these directly to the authorities.
• Property taxes (“Impuesto extraordinario sobre el Patrimonio”, or “IP”). As a foreigner you will pay property taxes. Up to the amount of € 167.129 you have to pay 0,2% of the tax based value. From € 167.129 up to € 334.252 you pay 0,3% and for the remaining amount – up to € 668.449 – you pay 0,5%.
• Finally you can be confronted with the costs for insurances, utility costs, sometimes your satellite-tv and you are advised to also estimate the costs of property care during your absence and maintenance costs for garden, swimming pool, etc.