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Spanish Property Tax (IBI) Calculator

Work out the IBI on your Spanish home from its cadastral value and your council’s rate, with the article 68 reduction if the value has been revalued, and a projection of what you will pay over the next nine years.

Each ayuntamiento sets the rate in its ordenanza fiscal and prints it on the IBI bill. If you do not have it to hand, the fallback rate the law sets for this class of property is 0.4%.

IBI for the year
€594.00
Cost against the cadastral value
0.66%
Has your cadastral value been revalued? (why the bill keeps rising)

When a general revaluation raises the cadastral value, article 68 cushions it for nine years: the first year discounts 0.9 of the rise, and that coefficient drops by 0.1 every year until it is gone. That is why the bill grows on its own even when neither the rate nor the value moves. The base value is the taxable base of the last year before the revaluation, and it appears on the Catastro notice.

Reliefs and the empty-home surcharge

Articles 73 and 74 fix the ceilings (95 % for farming cooperatives, 50 % for protected housing, up to 90 % for large families, up to 50 % for solar panels or an EV charging point), but each council decides which ones it grants and on what conditions in its ordenanza. The article 72.4 surcharge is the opposite: up to 150 % extra on a permanently unoccupied home. Check your ordenanza and enter the percentages that apply to you.

How that number is reached

Taxable base (cadastral value)€90,000.00
Net taxable base€90,000.00
Gross tax, at 0.66%€594.00
Net tax€594.00
Total payable€594.00

The result depends on the rate and the reliefs your council approves in its IBI ordenanza fiscal, published every year in the provincial official gazette. This calculator does not invent those percentages: it applies the ones you enter.

Indicative calculation. This is not tax advice: the final bill is issued by your council from the cadastral register.

Video: how to use the calculator

1

Whoever holds title on 1 January pays it

Article 75 sets the charge on the first day of the calendar year, so the whole year’s IBI is owed by whoever held title that 1 January. Sell in March and the entire bill is still yours, not the buyer’s, however often a pro-rata split is agreed in the deed: that agreement binds the parties, not the council. And the person liable is not always the owner. Article 61.1 ranks four rights in order of precedence (administrative concession, surface right, usufruct and, last of all, ownership), so where a usufruct exists over the home, the IBI falls on the usufructuary rather than the bare owner.

2

The base is the cadastral value, and that is not market value

Article 65 runs to a single line: the taxable base is the property’s cadastral value. That value is set by the Dirección General del Catastro through the municipality’s ponencia de valores, takes in both land and building, and as a rule sits well below what the home would fetch. Do not confuse it with the valor de referencia, which is a different figure, is updated every year from notarised sale prices, and drives the ITP and inheritance tax instead. Your cadastral value appears on the IBI bill itself and in the Catastro online office.

3

Why the bill rises every year after a revaluation

This is the question almost nobody answers, and it explains most increases. When a general revaluation raises cadastral values across a municipality, article 67 requires the blow to be cushioned and article 68 says how: for nine years a coefficient of the increase is discounted, starting at 0.9 in the first year and losing a tenth every year until it is gone. The amount that coefficient applies to, the componente individual, is the difference between the new value and the old one, and it is frozen at the first year’s figure. The result: the net taxable base grows by itself every year, and the bill with it, without the council raising the rate or the Catastro touching the value.

4

Your council sets the rate, within a band

Article 72.1 fixes the minimum and fallback rate at 0.4 % for urban and 0.3 % for rural property, and the maximum at 1.10 % and 0.90 %. Inside that band each council decides in its ordenanza fiscal, published every year in the provincial gazette. That is why two identical flats two kilometres apart pay different amounts. Your municipality’s rate is printed on the bill, and it is the figure most worth having to hand before using this calculator.

5

And that is how a bill can lawfully show 1.27 %

The 1.10 % maximum is not the end of the story. Article 72.3 lets councils add percentage points on four cumulative grounds: being a provincial or regional capital, running public surface transport, providing more services than article 26 of Law 7/1985 obliges them to, and having a mostly rural municipal area. Added together, the real ceiling reaches 1.30 % on urban and 1.22 % on rural property. In the other direction, article 72.5 allows a drop to 0.1 % for six years in municipalities that have just revalued. This calculator flags a rate that falls outside anything the law permits.

6

Reliefs: some are compulsory, others the council votes on

Article 73 creates the compulsory ones, which exist everywhere in Spain: between 50 % and 90 % for developers during construction, 50 % for protected housing for the three years after final certification, and 95 % for the rural property of farming cooperatives. Article 74 creates the discretionary ones, which exist only if your council has approved them: up to 90 % for large families, up to 50 % for solar energy systems, up to 50 % for an electric-vehicle charging point, up to 95 % for housing let at a legally capped rent. All of them come off the gross tax rather than the base, and nearly all have to be applied for.

7

The empty-home surcharge reaches 150 %

Article 72.4, in the wording given to it by Housing Act 12/2023, lets councils add a surcharge to the net tax on permanently unoccupied homes. The scale has three steps: up to 50 % where the home has stood empty for more than two years without justified cause and its owner holds four or more residential properties; up to 100 % beyond three years; and up to 50 further percentage points where the owner has two or more empty homes in the same municipality. Together the ceiling is 150 %. The statute also lists the causes treated as justified, among them a work relocation, a second home for up to four years, building work, a pending legal dispute, and a home genuinely on the market to sell or let.

Worked example

Example: an urban flat with a cadastral value of 90,000 €, in a municipality charging 0.66 %. With no revaluation involved, the year’s IBI is 594 €. Now suppose that 90,000 € comes from a revaluation that raised it from 55,000 €, and this is the third year. The componente individual is 35,000 € and the third-year coefficient is 0.7, so 24,500 € is discounted: the net base falls to 65,500 € and the bill to 432.30 €. Next year the coefficient is 0.6 and the bill rises to 455.40 €, with nobody having changed anything. Once the reduction runs out, in year ten, it is back to the 594 € we started with.

Frequently asked questions

How is Spanish IBI property tax calculated?
You start from the cadastral value, which article 65 makes the taxable base. If the value has been revalued, the article 68 reduction comes off and leaves the net taxable base. Your council’s rate, approved in its ordenanza fiscal, is applied to that base to give the gross tax. Any reliefs you qualify for are then deducted, leaving the net tax, which is what you pay.
Why does my IBI rise every year when I have not touched the property?
Most likely your municipality went through a cadastral revaluation and you are inside the nine years of the article 68 reduction. It starts at a coefficient of 0.9 and loses a tenth every year, so the base the tax is calculated on grows by itself until it reaches the full cadastral value. It can also be that the annual Budget Act updated cadastral values with coefficients, or that the council raised its rate in the ordenanza.
Where do I find my cadastral value and my council’s rate?
Both are printed on the IBI bill itself. The cadastral value can also be looked up in the Catastro online office using a digital certificate, Cl@ve or the property’s cadastral reference. The rate is published in your council’s IBI ordenanza fiscal, which appears every year in the provincial gazette and is usually on the council website too.
How much is IBI a year in Spain?
It depends on the cadastral value and your municipality’s rate, so there is no national figure. At the 0.4 % minimum, a home with a cadastral value of 80,000 € pays 320 € a year; at the extended 1.30 % maximum the same home would pay 1,040 €. Most bills on a main home fall between roughly 200 € and 800 € a year.
Who pays the IBI if I sell the house mid-year?
The seller, because article 75 charges the tax on 1 January and binds whoever held title that day. Splitting it pro rata by month is commonly agreed in the deed, and the Supreme Court has accepted that the seller may pass the buyer’s share on unless the parties agreed otherwise, but as far as the council is concerned the person liable remains whoever was on the register on 1 January.
Is there an IBI discount for large families?
Article 74.4 lets councils approve one of up to 90 %, but it is discretionary: it exists only where your council has created it in its ordenanza, and each sets its own percentage, cadastral-value bands and conditions. It usually requires the property to be your main home, and it has to be applied for, almost always within an annual window.
Can I appeal an IBI bill that looks too high?
Two different things have to be told apart. If what you dispute is the cadastral value, the appeal goes against the Catastro and is brought before the Dirección General del Catastro or the economic-administrative tribunals. If what you dispute is the assessment itself, the rate applied or a relief refused, the appeal is a recurso de reposición to the council. Confusing the two routes is the commonest reason an appeal is thrown out.
Does this calculator know my council’s rate?
No, and that is deliberate. There are 8,131 councils, each with its own ordenanza fiscal revised most years, and no citable national register of those rates. We would rather ask you for the figure, which is on your bill, than give you an invented one. What we do check is that the rate you enter fits inside what articles 72.1, 72.3 and 72.5 allow.

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Author: Thorben Rasmus Idel · Reviewed by: Nahar Geva · Last reviewed: