Can Americans buy property in Spain? Yes. Two tax systems will be watching it, not one.

Can Americans buy property in Spain?

Yes. There is no general nationality or residency restriction on buying urban residential property in Spain, and an American buyer takes full ownership, pleno dominio, recorded in the Registro de la Propiedad. The one thing you cannot skip is the NIE, the foreigner identity number, requested on form EX-15.

You can request the NIE in Spain at a police station or foreigners' office, or from abroad through a Spanish consulate, with the tasa modelo 790 codigo 012. Maximum resolution time is five days. It is an identification and tax number and not a residence permit.

The sale is completed before a notary as an escritura publica. Only a public deed can be registered, and registration is what protects a buyer against third parties, which is why the Spanish system puts the notary at the centre and not the estate agent. A lawyer is not legally required.

The rules in full: foreign property ownership in Spain, explained.

Does the IRS still want to hear about a house in Spain?

Yes. The United States taxes its citizens and green-card holders on worldwide income wherever they live, so rent from a Spanish property is reportable at home as well as taxed in Spain. Foreign financial accounts and certain foreign assets carry their own reports on top of the return itself.

This is the part that has nothing to do with Spanish law and everything to do with an American buyer's real cost of holding the asset.

• FBAR. A US person with foreign financial accounts above the reporting threshold files a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts. A Spanish bank account opened to pay the IBI and the community fees is a foreign financial account.
• FATCA. Certain foreign financial assets are reported on Form 8938 with the return.

This page states that the obligations exist. It does not tell you how Spanish tax already paid interacts with your US return. Take that to an adviser who handles both sides, not to the agent selling the property.

What does an American pay to buy, and why is the price not the tax base?

A resale from a private seller pays regional transfer tax, ITP, charged on the Catastro reference value or on the price if the price is higher. A new build from a developer pays 10% VAT plus regional stamp duty instead. The rate depends on the region, not on your nationality.

Regions change these rates, often in December budget laws, so check the region's own consolidated law for the date that applies to your deed. On a new build the reduced 10% VAT rate covers dwellings including up to two garage spaces sold with them, and stamp duty is set regionally: 1.2% in Andalucia, 1.4% in the Comunitat Valenciana, 1.5% in the Illes Balears. Every one-off fee: Spain property buying costs.

What rate does an American owner pay on Spanish property income?

24%, because non-resident income tax runs at 19% for residents of the EU, Iceland and Norway and 24% for everyone else. On let property the base is gross rent with no expenses deductible, since that deduction is available only to EU and EEA residents under the tax agency's guidance. Both are declared on Modelo 210.

Whether a non-EU owner can nevertheless deduct expenses by invoking a treaty non-discrimination clause has been litigated in the Spanish courts. The published guidance still says gross basis for non-EU and non-EEA residents, so that is what this page says. Do not plan around a court outcome you have not read.

If the property is empty or kept for your own use, there is still tax. Imputed income of 1.1% or 2% of the cadastral value is taxed at the same 24%, accruing on 31 December. IBI, the municipal tax on the cadastral value, runs from 0.4% to 1.10% for urban property before council increases.

Does Spain tax an American on wealth, not just income?

It can. Non-resident individuals are liable to wealth tax by obligacion real on assets situated in Spain, tested on 31 December, with a minimum exempt amount of EUR 700,000 and a state scale of 0.2% to 3.5%. A separate temporary solidarity tax applies above EUR 3,000,000 of net wealth to the same taxpayers.

Two details matter more than the headline. Non-residents may apply the rules of the region where the greatest value of their Spanish assets sits, and some regions grant large reliefs, so the region changes the answer. And the solidarity tax, created as a two-year measure, has been extended pending a review of wealth taxation in the regional-financing reform, so its end date is not fixed.

Non-residents outside the EU, and outside EEA states with information exchange, must appoint a representative resident in Spain for the solidarity tax. Do not take an amount due from any page, including this one. Get it from an adviser with the regional rules in front of them.

What happens when an American sells, and what about the proposed 100% tax?

On a sale by a non-resident the buyer withholds 3% of the price on Modelo 211 within one month, the gain is taxed at 19% for EU and non-EU sellers alike, and the seller files Modelo 210 within three months after that. The proposed 100% tax on non-EU buyers is a bill, not law.

On the bill: it is Article 4 of a parliamentary group bill filed on 22 May 2025, and on the Congreso record consulted for this page it was still waiting for its first plenary vote, where it had sat since 5 September 2025. As drafted it would apply to acquisitions by people not resident in the EU, on the greater of the cadastral reference value and the price, with transfers subject to VAT outside its scope. Do not price it in, and do not assume it is finished.

The municipal plusvalia on the increase in value of urban land is also due on a sale, at a rate set by each municipality and capped at 30%. Then the US return applies to the gain as well.

Header photo: frank müller, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. All credits: image credits.