How to declare money lost to a scam on your Spanish tax return

Yes, but you should understand what deducting means here. The scam does not provide a tax credit, nor does Hacienda refund the scammed amount. What it allows is declaring a capital loss that reduces your taxable base, and therefore the tax you pay that year and, if there is a remainder, the following four years.

The Ley del IRPF (the Spanish Personal Income Tax Act) defines capital gains and losses as variations in the value of your estate that become apparent with any alteration in its composition (article 33.1). Someone taking your money through deception fits there. What decides the case is when the loss can be allocated and how it is justified, because unjustified ones are not computed (article 33.5.a).

The Dirección General de Tributos (the Spanish Directorate General for Taxes, DGT) separates two situations in its binding rulings on online, investment and cryptocurrency scams: unknown scammer and identified scammer.

Identified scammer (a company with a name and address, a platform with a known headquarters, a specific reported person): the DGT understands that there is no loss, but a credit right in your favour against whoever kept the money. This was stated in ruling V2493-24, regarding an online financial scam of around €114,500: the amounts paid do not give rise to the existence of a capital loss, because in principle there is a credit right against the reported party.

That credit only becomes a declarable loss when one of the circumstances of article 14.2.k of the Ley del IRPF occurs: a haircut becomes effective in a restructuring or payment agreement; the debtor is in bankruptcy and an agreement with a haircut is approved or the bankruptcy ends without you getting paid; or one year passes since the start of a judicial procedure, other than bankruptcy, aimed at executing the credit without you having been paid.

Be careful with that third scenario. In ruling V2101-24 the DGT clarifies that filing a criminal complaint for a scam is not enough to start counting the one year: it requires a judicial procedure aimed at executing the credit. In ruling V1098-20 (cryptocurrency investment through a Cyprus company, with a joint criminal complaint (querella)) it concluded that no loss could be computed yet.

Unknown scammer (the typical child in distress, untraceable phishing, a website that disappears without anyone being identified): there is no one against whom to have a credit. In ruling V1096-25, regarding a €5,050 scam with a police report, preliminary proceedings by an investigating court and a provisional dismissal until the perpetrators were found, the DGT concludes that, if the identity of the perpetrator is unknown, there is indeed a capital loss, which is allocated when the scam occurs and must be justified.

Capital losses are allocated to the year in which the patrimonial alteration takes place (article 14.1.c). In a scam, it depends on the scenario:

Unknown perpetrator: in the year the scam occurred. If it was in 2025 and the 2025 tax return is already filed without including it, you do not have to wait for the next one: that return is corrected.

Identified perpetrator: in the year the circumstance of article 14.2.k is met. It can be several years later, and until then there is nothing to declare. If you get the year wrong, the loss can be rejected even if it is real.

The law does not set a closed list. Tax procedures are governed by the means of proof of the Civil Code and the Civil Procedure Act (article 106.1 of the Ley General Tributaria). The DGT recalls this in ruling V1096-25: you can prove the loss by any means admitted in Law, and it is the management and inspection bodies of the Tax Agency who assess whether it is enough.

In practice, the police report alone is weak evidence: it proves that you recounted some facts, not that the money has been irretrievably lost. What gives solidity to the file are the court resolutions: the preliminary proceedings opened as a result of the report and, above all, the provisional dismissal order until the perpetrators are found, which is the situation in ruling V1096-25.

Added to this is the traceability of the money: receipts of transfers or charges, statements, the bank's response to your claim, screenshots of the platform and conversations and, if they were cryptocurrencies, the wallets and the hash of each operation. Keep it as long as Hacienda can review the tax returns in which you use the loss.

The scam loss does not come from the transfer of an asset (you did not sell anything: they took your money). That is why it does not go to the savings base, but to the general taxable base, as confirmed by the DGT in ruling V2101-24 supported by articles 45 and 48 of the Ley del IRPF.

In the general base, the loss is first offset against capital gains from the same year that do not derive from a transfer either. If the balance remains negative, it is subtracted from the positive balance of the yields and income allocations of the general base (work, economic activities or real estate capital, among others) with a limit: 25% of that positive balance (article 48.b).

What does not fit that year is offset in the following four years, for the maximum amount allowed by each one. You cannot reserve it: if there is room one year, it is applied, and after the fourth year the pending amount is lost.

Losing money in a real investment is different: if you bought real shares, funds or cryptocurrencies, they went down and you sold them at a loss, that is not a scam but a transfer loss, which goes to the savings base (article 46.b) with its own offset rules.

The rules are the same. With a fake broker or a platform that does not let you withdraw, the question is whether whoever has the money can be identified: if it is an entity with a name, address and an open judicial procedure, you will be in the credit scenario; if no one can be identified, in the direct loss scenario. If cryptocurrencies were stolen from your wallet or an exchange, there is no transfer either: the loss, when applicable, goes to the general base and is calculated on what they cost you (their acquisition value), not on what they were worth on the day of the theft, which is the criterion the DGT applies to thefts (ruling V2849-19).

What you saw on the screen of the fake platform is not tax data. The DGT speaks of a loss regarding the amounts invested or paid and not recovered (ruling V2101-24): it is calculated on the money you actually sent and was not returned, not on the balance or the fictitious gains they showed you. Nor do you have to declare as a gain a profit that never existed.

From 1 July 2026, providing crypto-asset services in Spain requires authorisation from the CNMV or a passport from another EU State (MiCA Regulation). If the platform does not appear in the CNMV or ESMA registers, or requires you to pay taxes to withdraw, it is a scam and must be reported.

If you recover something before declaring, only the unrecovered part is a loss. That is why the first step is to claim from the bank or the platform: what they return to you reduces the loss.

If you already declared the loss and collect later, the law resolves it for the credits of article 14.2.k: the collected amount is declared as a capital gain in the year of collection. You do not have to rectify the previous tax return: the loss was correctly declared when it was done. The same applies if the loss was from an unknown perpetrator and you later recover something: the recovered amount is declared as a gain in the year you collect it.

Distrust anyone who offers to recover the money in exchange for an upfront payment (it is usually a second scam) or anyone who assures you that you can deduct the scam without a police report or paperwork: it is foreseeable that Hacienda will reject that loss.

With the Claim plan after an investment, trading or cryptocurrency scam (plan_estafa_inversion file) we organise the case from day one: chronology with the evidence, letter to your bank to request the recall or chargeback, requirement to the receiving bank or exchange for the blocking and preservation of data, the police report drafted ready to file, the communication to the CNMV if the entity is not authorised and the guidance for the tax return. It does not include a criminal complaint or criminal defence, and we do not promise to recover the money: we tell you what can be claimed, from whom and in what timeframe.

With the Tax Return (modelo_100 file) we prepare and file your tax return or the rectification of the corresponding year, with the loss in the general base, the offset with the 25% limit and the pending balance for the following four years. You can see the updated amount in each file.