Can Germans buy property in Spain? Yes, and EU residence is worth five points of tax.

Can Germans buy property in Spain?

Yes. There is no general nationality or residency restriction on buying urban residential property in Spain, and a German buyer takes full ownership, pleno dominio, recorded in the Registro de la Propiedad. You need an NIE, the foreigner identity number, requested on form EX-15 in Spain or through a Spanish consulate.

The deed is signed before a notary as an escritura publica, because only a public deed can be registered, and it is registration, not payment, that protects you against third parties. The Registry extract buyers check before signing is the nota simple, which shows the registered owner, the description and any charges such as mortgages or embargoes.

What a foreign owner holds and every rule that touches it: foreign property ownership in Spain, explained.

What is being on the EU side of Spain's rules actually worth?

Three things a British or American buyer does not get. Non-resident income tax at 19% rather than 24%. The right to deduct expenses directly related to the Spanish income from let-property income. And an explicit exemption from the military authorisation that Ley 8/1975 imposes on foreigners acquiring property in restricted defence zones.

• 19% against 24%. The 19% band covers residents of the EU, Iceland and Norway. Everyone else pays 24%.
• Net, not gross. Residents of EU and EEA states with effective tax-information exchange may deduct expenses directly related to the Spanish income under the personal income tax rules. Other non-residents are taxed on gross rent under the tax agency's guidance.
• No military authorisation. The additional provision added to Ley 8/1975 by Ley 31/1990 says the limitations do not apply to natural persons holding the nationality of an EU member state. That rule is reported to bite only on rustic land in restricted zones in any case.

Read the first two carefully. They turn on tax residence, not on the passport. A German national who is tax resident outside the EU is treated as a non-EU resident, and that is exactly the trap for someone who moved to Dubai or London and kept the German passport.

Would the proposed 100% tax hit a German buyer?

Not as drafted, and in any case it is a bill and not law. The proposed complementary state tax applies to onerous acquisitions of Spanish real estate by individuals and entities not resident in the EU. A German tax resident in Germany is resident in the EU and therefore outside its stated scope.

The bill 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. It has not passed anything.

Note again what the test is. Residence in the EU, not EU nationality. A German who has become tax resident outside the EU would be inside the drafted scope. That is the same distinction that decides the 19% and 24% rates, and it is the single most useful thing on this page.

What does Germany do about a Spanish property?

Germany treats anyone with a residence or habitual abode in Germany as unlimited income tax liable under EStG section 1(1), and the country where you are tax resident can usually tax your total worldwide income. So a Spanish property is a German tax question too, and a treaty decides how the two sides fit together.

One German rule is worth knowing before you model anything. Where a double taxation agreement exempts foreign income, EStG section 32b can still count that income when setting the rate on the rest of your income, the Progressionsvorbehalt. But section 32b expressly carves out letting income from immovable property that is not in a third country, which is to say property inside the EU and EEA.

That is a real difference between a Spanish property and, say, a Dubai one, and it is exactly the kind of point to put to a German adviser rather than to a Spanish estate agent. This page is not tax advice and does not compute your position.

What does a German owner pay in Spain, year after year?

IBI, the municipal tax on the cadastral value, at a minimum 0.4% and a maximum 1.10% for urban property before council increases. Plus non-resident income tax: 19% on net rent when it is let, or 19% on imputed income of 1.1% or 2% of the cadastral value when it is empty or kept for your own use.

The imputed income is the one Germans miss, because nothing has been received. It accrues on 31 December, is pro-rated by days owned and days let, and allows no deductions. It is declared on Modelo 210, the same form used for rental income.

Wealth tax also reaches non-residents by obligacion real on assets situated in Spain, with a minimum exempt amount of EUR 700,000 and a state scale from 0.2% to 3.5%, and non-residents may apply the rules of the region where the greatest value of their Spanish assets sits. Line by line: Spain property tax for foreigners.

Can a German buyer let the property to tourists?

Only if the building lets you. Since 3 April 2025 the Horizontal Property Law requires a vote of three fifths of the owners, representing three fifths of the participation quotas, to approve, limit, condition or prohibit tourist-rental activity in a building. The same majority can raise the fee share of units used for it by up to 20%.

Above that sits regional licensing, which always applied. Catalonia has made tourist use subject to a prior urban-planning licence in 260 listed municipalities including Barcelona, capped at 10 tourist dwellings per 100 inhabitants, with existing registrations given five years to obtain the licence or cease.

The state-level short-term-rental registration number created in 2024 was annulled by the Supreme Court in 2026 for want of state competence, while the digital single window and the platforms' data-transmission duties survived. Ask the community and the region before you buy on a short-let assumption, not after.

Header photo: Krijn van Putten, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. All credits: image credits.