Buying a home in Spain: ITP-AJD (modelo 600) and plusvalia municipal

When you buy, it depends on whether the home is second-hand or new. A second-hand home is taxed under the Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales (ITP, the Spanish transfer tax), which the buyer pays. A new build (first delivery from the developer) carries no ITP: it carries VAT at 10% plus the Impuesto sobre Actos Jurídicos Documentados (AJD, the Spanish stamp duty on notarial documents).

When you sell, the party transferring the property (the seller) settles the plusvalia municipal, whose technical name is Impuesto sobre el Incremento de Valor de los Terrenos de Naturaleza Urbana (IIVTNU). It taxes how much the urban land has risen in value since it was bought.

ITP and AJD are taxes devolved to the autonomous communities (Spain's regions): each one sets its own rate and its own reliefs. Plusvalia is a municipal tax: each town hall approves its own coefficients and its own rate. Managora identifies which tax applies to your case, calculates it and files it for you.

ITP (the Transmisiones Patrimoniales Onerosas variant) taxes the purchase of a second-hand home. The taxpayer is always the buyer. You self-assess it with modelo 600 before the regional tax authority, and it has to be filed within 30 working days counted from the day after the deed is signed.

The base it is calculated on is not just the price paid. Since 1 January 2022 (Ley 11/2021, the Spanish anti-fraud tax act), the tax is calculated on the higher of the price stated in the deed and the valor de referencia set by Catastro (the Spanish cadastre, the property register used for tax valuation). If you buy below that reference value, Hacienda (the tax authority) assesses the tax on the reference value. You can check it free of charge at the Catastro electronic office.

The rate depends on your autonomous community. Among the common regime communities the general rate ranges, as a guide, from 6% to 13%, with territories below that floor (Ceuta and Melilla at 3% and the Basque Country at 4% for a main home subject to requirements). There are very significant reduced rates for young people, large families, people with disabilities, subsidised housing (VPO) and rural or depopulated areas. You can see the exact amount for your transaction and for the service on the itp_ajd_600 service page.

AJD taxes notarial documents that can be entered in a public register. On a second-hand home no gradual AJD is payable, because it is incompatible with ITP: you pay one or the other, not both.

On a new build AJD is payable (on top of the 10% VAT), and the buyer pays it. It is also paid by anyone who executes a deed declaring a new building (declaración de obra nueva) or a horizontal division (división horizontal), for example when self-building: the taxpayer is the acquirer or the person applying for the document.

On a mortgage loan, AJD is paid by the bank, not by the customer. That was established by Real Decreto-ley 17/2018 and confirmed by Ley 5/2019 de Contratos de Crédito Inmobiliario (the Spanish mortgage credit act), for deeds signed from 10 November 2018 onwards. The AJD rate is also set by each community (as a guide, from 0.5% to 2%; some communities, such as Murcia, apply general rates above 1.5%).

The plusvalia municipal (IIVTNU) taxes the increase in the value of urban land when it is transferred. In a sale the seller pays it. In an inheritance or a gift it is paid by whoever receives the property. It is declared at the town hall within 30 working days (lifetime transfers, inter vivos) or within 6 months, extendable to 1 year (inheritances).

After Constitutional Court judgment 182/2021, which struck down the previous system, Real Decreto-ley 26/2021 introduced two ways of calculating the base, and the taxpayer can choose whichever comes out cheaper. Objective method: the cadastral value of the land multiplied by a coefficient based on the number of years elapsed. Real method: the actual increase (sale value minus purchase value), applying the proportion that the land represents of the total cadastral value.

That base is then multiplied by your town hall's rate (legal maximum of 30%). And there is a key point: if you sell without a gain (for the same price as you paid or less), the transaction is not subject to the tax and nothing is payable, under article 104.5 of the Ley de Haciendas Locales (the Spanish local tax act). Even so, you still have to declare it and provide the purchase and sale deeds to prove there was no increase.

You can claim when you paid on a sale with no gain, when the amount charged was higher than the real increase, or when coefficients that were not in force were applied. The route is an application to correct the self-assessment and refund undue payments (solicitud de rectificación de autoliquidación y devolución de ingresos indebidos) before the town hall, under article 120.3 of the Ley General Tributaria (the Spanish general tax act).

The general time limit is the 4 year limitation period (article 66 LGT) for self-assessments that are not yet time-barred. If the tax was paid through an assessment issued by the town hall (not self-assessed by you), it had to be appealed in time (1 month for a recurso de reposición, the appeal to the same authority); once it is final it is harder to review, so it is best to act as soon as possible.

A very current case: anyone who paid plusvalia between 1 and 27 January 2026 may have done so under coefficients that were later repealed, so they paid too much and can claim the difference back. An assessment issued at the end of December 2025 was still calculated with the 2024 coefficients, not the increased ones. Managora reviews your assessment, calculates the correct figure and prepares the claim for you (service page demanda_devolucion_plusvalia_stc59_2017).

For ITP, the Catastro reference value remains the minimum base and the Constitutional Court upheld it in 2026 when it dismissed the question of unconstitutionality. At regional level, Catalonia has extended the progressivity of its ITP with a scale from 10% to 13% for higher value properties, and applies an increased rate of 20% to large property holders and to the purchase of entire residential buildings; the Valencian Community has cut its general rate to 9% from 1 June 2026; Galicia applies a progressive scale (8% up to €150,000, 9% from €150,000 to €600,000 and 10% above that).

For plusvalia municipal, Real Decreto-ley 16/2025 (published on 23 December 2025, with effect from 1 January 2026) raised the coefficients by up to 40%, but Congress did not ratify it and it was repealed (published in the BOE, the Spanish official gazette, on 28 January 2026). From that date the 2024 coefficients apply again. That is why anyone who settled with the increased coefficients between 1 and 27 January 2026 paid too much.