You bought the house, you have the keys, and for eleven months of the year you are somewhere else. That part is fine. What is not fine is assuming ownership goes quiet when you do. Spain taxes an empty property. It does that whether you are in it or not, and it does not soften because you are a non-resident — being a non-resident is precisely what changes the bill. Here is what actually lands on you, in the order it usually arrives.
Spend more than 183 days in Spain in a calendar year and you are, as a rule, a Spanish tax resident — with everything that follows. Spend fewer and you are non-resident. That is the tax test, and it is the one that decides how your property is taxed.
The 90/180 rule is a completely different animal. It is about immigration, not tax. Non-EU passport holders can be in the Schengen area 90 days out of any rolling 180. Buying a villa in Maresme does not add a single day to that number. We say this plainly because clients regularly turn up convinced the property grants them the right to stay; it does not, and finding out at a border is an expensive way to learn it.
Three things run quietly in the background. None of them is dramatic on its own, and together they are the baseline cost of owning a villa here.
Spain taxes a notional income on a property you own and do not rent out. The logic is odd until you accept it: you own an asset in Spain, so Spain assumes it produces something, and taxes that something. It is called renta imputada, and non-residents file it on form 210.
The usual calculation is 1.1% of the cadastral value if that value was revised recently, or 2% if it was not. That amount is then taxed at 19% for EU/EEA residents and, as a rule, 24% for most other non-residents. The filing window for the previous year is the first twenty days of April. For a normal villa this is rarely a life-changing sum — often a few hundred euros — but the penalty for ignoring it is not, and the obligation does not disappear because the house stayed empty.
Rent it out and the whole regime changes. You move from imputed income to actual IRNR on the rent, with quarterly filings, and the rules on deducting expenses are not the same for everyone: EU/EEA owners can generally deduct costs such as community fees, IBI or repairs, while most other non-residents are taxed on the gross rent at 24%. That single sentence is worth a conversation with a proper asesor fiscal before you list the house.
When a non-resident sells, two things happen that surprise people. First, the buyer is legally obliged to withhold 3% of the sale price and hand it to the tax office. That is not an extra tax — it is an advance against your capital gains bill, and it is returned or offset once you file. Second, the gain itself is taxed at 19% for EU/EEA sellers and, as a rule, 24% for others. On top of that, the town charges plusvalía municipal on the increase in the land value. Since the 2021 reform, a sale at a loss usually means no plusvalía is due, but you still have to deal with the paperwork.
Here is the blunt version: property does not buy you days. If you hold a non-EU passport and want to stay longer than the 90/180 allows, you need a visa route — the non-lucrative visa if you are living off savings or income and not working locally, the digital nomad visa if you work remotely, a student visa, or one of the family routes. The golden visa that used to be bought with a qualifying property investment was closed in April 2025, so the house is now an asset you own, not an immigration product you buy. If that is your plan, get the visa advice before you get the mortgage.
Not by law. In practice, though, you will want one: IBI, waste tax and utilities are almost always collected by direct debit, and a fiscal representative works far more smoothly when there is an account to work with. Fighting this is a false economy.
Yes. The imputed income return is due once a year precisely because the house did not earn anything. Zero rent does not mean zero obligation.
Then there is no gain to tax. The 3% withholding still happens at the notary, but it comes back to you once the return is processed. Plusvalía municipal, in most loss-making cases since 2021, comes out at zero.
Set up a fiscal representative and a decent asesor fiscal before your first tax year ends, not after the first letter arrives with a surcharge attached. For a non-resident owner it is a small annual fee and it removes an entire category of unpleasant surprises. If you are buying now, ask your agent who they would put on this — a good one will have a name ready, and a bad one will change the subject.
We deal with non-resident owners every week, and we would rather tell you the running costs before you buy than after. Tell us the town and the kind of house, and we will put honest numbers next to it.
Ask us about buying in Maresme Or download the pre-signing checklist (PDF)