Non-Resident Tax in Spain (Modelo 210): The Complete 2026 Guide

So, the short answer first. The Modelo 210 is the income tax return that non-residents file for property they own in Spain: every year for a home that sits empty or is used by the owner, for any rent it earns, and once more for the gain when it is sold. And in June 2026 Spain moved the filing deadlines, so for most owners the month to remember is now April, not January.

That second sentence is the one that matters most this year, and I will come back to it properly, because at the time of writing even some of the tax office's own pages had not caught up with it.

A word on who is writing. My name is Daniel Bertomeu. I am the tax advisor at Expat Abogados, AEDAF #06838, and my father Juan is the lawyer of the family, abogado ICALI #4643, in practice on the Costa Blanca since 1991. We work from offices in Moraira and Dénia, and the person across the desk from me is usually British, German or Dutch, owns a home somewhere between Dénia and Calpe, and wants no surprises from Hacienda. Everything below is written for that person.

What the Modelo 210 is, and why paying IBI does not cover it

The Modelo 210 is Spain's income tax return for non-residents, the IRNR. You will also see it called Form 210 in English. Three names, one tax: IRNR is the tax itself, and the 210 is simply the form it travels on.

Now, the confusion that catches almost everyone is IBI. IBI is the local property rate, billed automatically by the town hall every year. In the province of Alicante the bill usually arrives through SUMA. A bill turns up, you pay it, and it feels like the tax side of owning a home in Spain is handled.

The 210 works the other way around. It is a state income tax, and nobody sends you a bill for it. You, or someone acting for you, must calculate it and file it. Hacienda stays silent until it decides to check.

The short version:

• IBI: local tax on ownership, billed to you, paid by residents and non-residents alike.
• Modelo 210: state income tax for non-residents, self-assessed, filed by you.

Paying one does not cancel the other. Most non-resident owners owe both, every single year. In my experience, the owners who get a letter from the Agencia Tributaria with several back years on it are almost never careless people. They simply paid the bill that arrived and never knew about the one that did not. Our non-resident tax service exists mostly for exactly that moment.

Who has to file: the 183 day rule and the three triggers

If you spend fewer than 183 days a year in Spain and own property here, you are normally a non-resident for tax purposes, and the 210 is your return. Tax residents file the ordinary Spanish return instead. That is the dividing line.

Border cases matter more than people think. Long winters in the sun, a spouse living here year-round, remote work from your terrace in Jávea: any of these can pull you towards residency without you noticing. Sporadic absences still count towards your 183 days unless you can prove tax residence in another country, and Spain even presumes you are resident if your non-separated spouse and minor children live here habitually. If your day count runs close to the line, honestly, get advice before you file anything.

Once you are clearly non-resident, three situations put the 210 on your calendar:

1. The home is empty, or you use it yourself. Spain taxes a notional "imputed income" on it every year. Most owners are in this group and most of them do not know it.
2. You rent it out. The rent is Spanish-source income, whether it arrives through Airbnb, Booking or a long-term tenant.
3. You sell. The gain goes on a 210, and the buyer withholds 3% of the price on account.

Mix them and the filings multiply. Rent the house for six weeks in summer and you file for both the rental period and the empty days. Not sure which of the three applies to you, or how many returns your situation produces? The free Modelo 210 finder walks you through it in a couple of minutes.

The 2026 deadline change: the calendar under Orden HAC/623/2026

Here is the part to slow down for. On 23 June 2026 Spain published Orden HAC/623/2026 in the BOE, reference BOE-A-2026-13573, in force from the following day. It rewrites the filing windows for the two most common 210 situations. Under the new rules, imputed income is filed from 1 April to 31 December of the year after the income accrues, and rental income with tax to pay is filed in the first 20 days of April of the following year, calendar days, whether you declare each rental separately or grouped for the year.

[VIDEO PLACEHOLDER: the 2026 Modelo 210 deadline change explained]

That single April window for rent is a bigger change than it looks. The old quarterly rhythm for rental income disappears for tax-to-pay returns. Once the transition is over, separate or grouped, everything lands in the same first 20 days of April.

The cleanest way to hold it in your head is by the year the income belongs to. Three baskets.

So if your home stood empty in 2025, nothing changes for you yet: that return can be filed any day of 2026, up to 31 December. The 2026 income is where the new calendar bites, and for it the window does not even open until 1 April 2027. Filing a 2026 imputed return in January 2027, the way you always did, would mean filing before the window exists.

The 2026 transition for rental income

The order handles 2026 rent with a transition that is worth reading twice, because it is exactly the kind of detail that gets missed:

In plain words: if you were declaring your 2026 rent quarter by quarter, the July and October 2026 filings still happened on the old schedule. Everything from the last quarter of 2026 onwards, and anyone grouping the whole year, moves to April 2027.

And rent earned in 2025? Honestly, this is the one grey area. The order switches the new windows on for 2026 income onwards and says nothing express about 2025 rent. The reasonable reading is that it stayed under the previous rules, which for grouped annual filing meant the first 20 days of January 2026, a window long gone by the time the order was published. If 2025 rent slipped past you, treat it as a regularisation question, not as something an April window will quietly fix. I cover regularising further down.

Direct debit closes earlier than the window

If you pay by direct debit from a bank account, the cut-off is always earlier than the filing deadline itself. Under the new calendar, direct debit for imputed income runs from 1 April to 23 December of the year after accrual, so for 2026 income that means 23 December 2027. For rental income the direct debit window is 1 to 15 April, five days shorter than the filing window. For the 2025 imputed return, still under the old rules, the AEAT calendar shows 28 December 2026 as the direct debit cut-off.

My practical advice is simpler than all those dates: never plan around the final day of any window. Machines fail, banks query things, and Hacienda does not accept "the website was slow" as a reason.

What did not change

The sale of a property keeps its own deadline structure, the 1+3 window I explain in the selling section. The tax rates did not move either: 19% and 24% for rental and imputed income depending on where you live, 19% on the gain when anyone sells. And a return that comes out at zero, or in your favour, is still a return. The obligation is to file, not only to pay.

One more date for completeness. The same order also redesigns the form itself, adding new annexes, including a breakdown of deductible expenses for rented property. Those content changes apply to any 210 filed from 1 January 2027, whatever year it covers. For a typical owner the practical change is the calendar; the new boxes mostly matter to people with investment income.

Why you should not settle this with the first official-looking calendar you find

Now, the uncomfortable part, and I will say it carefully. In mid July 2026, weeks after the order was published, the AEAT's own general Taxpayer Calendar still showed the old deadlines. So did its Non-Residents manual and its "how to file and pay the 210" page. The one official page that reflected the new regime was the AEAT's specific note on the Modelo 210 deadline changes, updated on 2 July 2026.

I am not saying anyone did anything wrong. Large institutions update slowly, and the order was published mid-year. But it means that in 2026 you could look up your deadline on an official page and still walk away with the old calendar. The two anchors I trust, and the two this whole section is built on, are the order itself in the BOE, reference BOE-A-2026-13573, and that specific AEAT note on the 210. When in doubt, those two, in that order.

Imputed income: the formula, 1.1% or 2%, and three worked examples

But the house earns nothing. Why would Spain charge me income tax on it?

Well, I hear that question every week, and the logic does feel strange the first time. Spain treats a home at your disposal as a benefit in itself, puts a notional value on it, and taxes that. The consolation is that the amounts are usually modest, and the whole calculation takes two multiplications.

The formula in one line: tax due = cadastral value x (1.1% or 2%) x (19% or 24%) x (days at your disposal / 365).

Walk it through once and you can do it on the back of your IBI bill.

Step one, find your cadastral value. This is an administrative value set by the Catastro, normally well below market value. You do not need a valuation: it is printed on your annual IBI bill. In the province of Alicante that bill comes through SUMA, so dig out last year's receipt and look for "valor catastral".

Step two, apply the right percentage. The imputed income is 1.1% of the cadastral value if that value has been revised in a general collective valuation in force within the last 10 tax periods. Otherwise it is 2%. Older stock in towns that have not revised for years sits on the 2%, and that is precisely where the surprises live.

Step three, apply your rate. Residents of the EU and the EEA pay 19% on the imputed amount. Everyone else pays 24%, and since 1 January 2021 that includes UK residents.

Two refinements. The figure is prorated by days: if you bought or sold mid-year, or the home was rented for part of the year, you only impute the days it was at your disposal. And no expenses are deductible against imputed income. Not for EU residents, not for anyone.

Worked example 1, the revised value. Say your villa in Moraira shows a cadastral value of €120,000 on the SUMA bill, revised within the last 10 tax periods, at your disposal all year. The base is €120,000 x 1.1% = €1,320. A UK owner pays 24%: €1,320 x 24% = €316.80 for the year. The same villa owned by a resident of Ireland pays 19%: €1,320 x 19% = €250.80.

Worked example 2, the un-revised value. This is the one that stings. A British couple own an apartment in Calpe outright. Its cadastral value of €90,000 has not been revised within the last 10 tax periods, so the base rate is 2%. The base is €90,000 x 2% = €1,800, and at the UK rate of 24% the tax is €432 for the year. But they own it 50/50, and each co-owner files their own return: €216 each, on two separate 210s. Same flat, two returns. And notice that this cheaper, older apartment carries more imputed tax than the Moraira villa above, purely because its value was never revised.

Worked example 3, the mixed year. A UK owner lets a Dénia apartment for 100 days and keeps it for personal use the other 265. Cadastral value €100,000, un-revised, so 2%. Gross rent for those 100 days, €8,000. The rental half: as a UK resident the base is the gross rent with no deductions, taxed at 24%, so €8,000 x 24% = €1,920. The imputed half, prorated: a full year would be €100,000 x 2% = €2,000, and 265 days of it is €2,000 x (265 / 365) = €1,452.05, taxed at 24% = €348.49. Total for the year: €2,268.49, across a rental filing and a separate imputed filing.

Want your own figure instead of my examples? The free Easy210 preview runs your cadastral value, days and rate in a couple of minutes, SUMA bill in hand.

The truth is, the yearly amounts are small, and that smallness is exactly why so many owners never hear of the obligation until several years have stacked up with surcharges on top.

Rental income: 19% net or 24% gross, and the double filing

Where you live decides almost everything here.

For EU and EEA landlords, the deductions can shrink the bill substantially. The list is essentially the Spanish resident list: mortgage interest and other finance costs, capped per property at the gross rental income with the excess carried forward four years; an annual 3% depreciation on the higher of the acquisition cost or the cadastral value, excluding the land; and IBI, rubbish charges, community fees, insurance, formalisation and legal defence costs. All of it prorated by the days the property was actually let.

For UK and other non-EU landlords, under the law as it stands, the base is the gross rent with nothing taken off. The 24% stings twice: higher rate, wider base.

What counts as "the rent" when a platform sits in the middle? The legal base is the full amount you receive from the tenant for all concepts, VAT excluded. On platform commissions and cleaning fees specifically, I will be straight with you: there is no official AEAT or BOE text that names them. For EU landlords they fit the logic of the deductible expense list, but I will not dress that up as Hacienda's official position, because it is not written anywhere official. Either way, keep the full booking statements from Airbnb or Booking. That paper trail is what Hacienda asks to see.

One development worth watching if you are a UK landlord. In July 2025 Spain's National Court accepted, on free movement of capital grounds, that non-EU landlords should be able to deduct expenses. The ruling is not final and the law has not changed, so today you still file on the gross. But filing with someone who tracks that question means your right to reclaim is preserved if the doctrine consolidates. It depends on how the courts land, and honestly nobody serious will promise you an outcome.

Then there is the double filing, the single most common rental mistake I see. A holiday home rarely earns rent 365 days a year, and Spain taxes both halves: the rental return for the let days, and a prorated imputed income return for the days it stayed at your disposal. Worked example 3 above runs the numbers end to end. Two obligations, one property.

On timing, remember the section above: rental income with tax to pay now lands in the first 20 days of April of the following year, with the 2026 transition as set out in the table.

Selling: the 3% retention, Form 211 and the 1+3 window

When a non-resident sells Spanish property, the buyer holds back 3% of the price and pays it to the tax office on Form 211 within one month of completion. The seller then files a Modelo 210 for the actual gain, taxed at 19% for all non-residents, in a three-month window that opens once that first month has passed.

The 3% is not your final tax. It is a payment on account, withheld because Hacienda wants security before the money leaves Spain. Your real tax is 19% of the actual gain, and the two figures rarely match. The final 210 is where you settle up or claim the difference back.

The sequence, in order:

Read that last row carefully, because the window is explained in two contradictory ways in the wild: "four months from the sale" and "three months". The correct shape is 1+3: a three-month window that only opens once one month has passed since completion. Treat it as four months flat and you can end up filing before the window opens or planning around the wrong end date. The refund of your 3% rides on getting this return in, inside the window, done properly. Unclaimed money does not come looking for you.

Sold at a loss, or with a gain smaller than the retention? File within the 1+3 window and request the refund of the excess on the same return. That is the reliable path to your money.

And one myth to retire while we are here. Brexit did not raise the sale tax to 24%. The gain on a property sale is taxed at 19% for all non-residents, EU and non-EU alike, UK included. The 24% affects rental and imputed income, never the sale itself.

If you want to see where your 3% goes step by step, the free 3% withholding explainer maps it out, and our selling a property in Spain page covers the whole disposal, retention and refund included, as a single job.

[VIDEO PLACEHOLDER: the 1+3 window and the 3% refund on a whiteboard]

Co-owners, garages and storage rooms: how many returns you actually file

The rule counts owners and cadastral references, not households. Each co-owner files their own 210 for their share, so a couple owning 50/50 files two returns, not one. And a garage or storage room with its own cadastral reference is normally declared separately, because imputed income cannot be grouped across properties: each reference generates its own return.

Add it up for a typical purchase:

• 1 apartment owned 50/50 by a couple = 2 imputed income returns
• The garage with its own cadastral reference = 2 more, one per owner
• Total: 4 returns a year, for one holiday home

A quick check that settles most doubts: if the garage arrives on its own SUMA receipt with its own reference, treat it as a separate declaration.

This count is also why honest pricing is per return, not per household. Our own imputed income filings start at €120 plus VAT per return; the second return for a couple exists because the second obligation does. And it is worth knowing before you ever get here that the number of names on the title deed is fixed on the day you buy. How you structure that is one of the quiet decisions covered in our buying a property in Spain guide, and it echoes through every tax year that follows.

Beyond two owners, things stop being mechanical. An inheritance mid-year, five siblings on one title, a usufruct split between a widow and her children: these are questions for a person, not a form, and in my experience advice at that point costs far less than unwinding a wrong filing later.

The mistakes that cost owners the most

After enough years of the same conversations, the pattern is clear. Eight errors cover almost everything:

1. Filing on the old calendar. For 2026 income onwards, imputed returns run 1 April to 31 December of the following year and rental returns land in the first 20 days of April. January belongs to the old regime.
2. Assuming IBI covers it. IBI is the council's tax, the 210 is the state's, and nobody bills you for the second one.
3. Filing one return for a couple. Each co-owner files their own return for their share. A 50/50 couple files two.
4. Forgetting the garage or trastero. Its own cadastral reference means its own declaration.
5. Using market value instead of cadastral value. The imputed base is 1.1% or 2% of the value on your IBI bill, not the price you paid.
6. Confusing the sale rate with the rental rate. Rental and imputed income run at 24% for non-EU residents; the gain on a sale is 19% for everyone. Brexit did not touch the sale rate.
7. Treating the sale window as four months flat. It is 1+3, and your 3% refund depends on respecting it.
8. Skipping the return because the home was empty. An empty home still owes imputed income every year. Silence from Hacienda is not a clearance; it just means nobody has looked yet.

If you have never filed: the four year window and surcharges

First, breathe. This is fixable, and it is fixed every week from our desks.

Nothing has happened yet for a reason. The 210 is self-assessed: Hacienda does not send annual reminders and no bill will ever arrive for it. When it does look, it can normally reach back over the last four tax years, counted from the day after each filing deadline. For a typical owner that means several years of returns landing at once, often triggered by a sale or an inheritance, which is the worst possible moment to discover them.

The cost depends entirely on who moves first. Come forward voluntarily, before any letter, and you pay the tax plus a late-filing surcharge that grows with the delay: 1% plus another 1% for each full month late, then 15% plus interest once twelve months have passed. Penalties are excluded when you regularise voluntarily, and a quarter of the surcharge is knocked off if you pay both the debt and the surcharge on time. Wait for Hacienda to find you instead, and surcharges give way to penalties, which cost substantially more.

The way out is orderly, not heroic: confirm which years are still open, calculate each one correctly under the rules in force at the time, and file them together. For back years, letters from Hacienda, or anything already in dispute, a formal consultation with the firm maps the cheapest exit before anything gets filed. That is deliberately a conversation with a person, because the sequencing matters.

How to file it: yourself, the online tier, or a person at the firm

There are three sensible routes, and I will give you the honest version of each.

Doing it yourself is genuinely possible for a simple imputed return. With a Spanish identifier, a DNI, NIE or NIF, you can file online through Cl@ve. Without a digital certificate or Cl@ve, the AEAT form generates a pre-declaration PDF that you print, sign and present through a collaborating bank. No Spanish tax number at all? The same form has a button to self-assign an identification code. What you cannot do is sign online with no Spanish identifier whatsoever. And a fiscal representative is not compulsory in the simple case: an EU resident declaring imputed income on their own home only has to appoint one if the Administration expressly requires it.

Easy210 is this firm's own online tier, built for the case that does not need me: one owner, one property, imputed income, current year. If that is you, the truth is you do not need to pay desk rates, and I would rather tell you that here than have you find out later.

The desk earns its place with complexity. Rental income and its deductions, more than one owner, back years, a sale with the 3% in play, or any letter from Hacienda: those want a person. Our Modelo 210 work is priced flat and published in advance, imputed filings from €120 plus VAT, rental filings from €250 plus VAT, and sale filings with the refund work from €450 plus VAT. The full list is on the pricing page.

There are also anonymous online platforms out there, and the fair comparison is not price, it is accountability. A platform can push a form through; it cannot sign a legal answer to a requerimiento, a formal notice from Hacienda. Every filing that leaves this firm has been filed under the AEAT's Colaborador Social scheme since 2017, with a named ICALI lawyer behind it, real offices in Moraira and Dénia you can walk into, and client money held in the firm's formal client account. When Hacienda writes back, someone with a name answers.

Next steps

Three situations trigger the Modelo 210: an empty or own-use home, rent, and a sale. The calendar changed in June 2026, April is the new month to remember, and the yearly amounts are usually small. The cost of ignoring them for years is not.

If you want to know where you stand, start with the free Modelo 210 finder to see which returns apply to you, then the Easy210 preview for your actual figure, two minutes with your SUMA bill in hand. If your home is in Moraira, Dénia or Jávea, we keep town pages with the local detail as well.

From there, either file it yourself with the BOE order and the AEAT's 210 note beside you, hand the simple case to Easy210, or bring the complicated one to us through the non-resident tax service. Then get on with your summer.

Written by Daniel Bertomeu, tax advisor for international clients, AEDAF #06838, Expat Abogados, Moraira and Dénia. Legally reviewed by my father, Juan Antonio Bertomeu Vallés, abogado, ICALI #4643, in practice since 1991. Last reviewed July 2026. This is general orientation, not legal or tax advice for your specific situation, and Spanish tax rules change: confirm your case before acting.

Sources: Orden HAC/623/2026, de 12 de junio (BOE-A-2026-13573), in force 24 June 2026, and the AEAT's specific note on the Modelo 210 deadline changes, updated 2 July 2026 · art. 85 LIRPF and the AEAT pages on imputed income for the 1.1% / 2% rule · arts. 24 and 25 TRLIRNR (consolidated BOE-A-2004-4527) for the 19% / 24% rates, the expense rules and the 19% sale rate · art. 25.2 TRLIRNR and Orden EHA/3316/2010 for the 3% retention and Form 211 · arts. 27 and 66 LGT (consolidated BOE-A-2003-23186) for surcharges and the four-year window.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice, and does not create a lawyer–client relationship. Confirm your specific situation with a qualified adviser before acting.