How To File An Income Tax Return In Spain

This guide explains the whole process in plain English: who has to file, the dates, how to file online, how to pay or get a refund, what happens if you missed the deadline, the 2025 tax rates and allowances, and the rules that matter most to foreign residents: pensions from abroad, rental property, second homes, self-employment and foreign assets. Every figure comes from the tax office’s own 2025 manual or the Spanish official gazette, checked on 29 October 2026, and the sources are listed at the end.

How the Spanish tax year works

The Spanish tax year is the calendar year, 1 January to 31 December. There is no split year: you are either a tax resident for the whole year or a non-resident for the whole year. The return is filed the following spring, in what the tax office calls the Renta campaign. So the campaign that ran from April to June 2026 dealt with income earned in 2025 (the tax office calls it “Renta 2025”), and the campaign in spring 2027 will deal with income earned in 2026.

You count as a Spanish tax resident for a year if either of these is true:

• You spend more than 183 days of the calendar year in Spain. Short trips away still count as days in Spain unless you can prove tax residence in another country.
• The main base of your business, work or economic interests is in Spain, directly or indirectly.

The tax office also presumes you are resident if your spouse (not legally separated) and your dependent children under 18 live here, unless you show otherwise. A resident declares income from everywhere in the world, with relief for tax already paid abroad under Spain’s double taxation treaties.

Key dates: the 2026 campaign and what comes next

These are the official dates of the campaign that has just closed, set by the ministerial order of 25 March 2026 and the tax office calendar. The pattern repeats every year, so they also tell you what to expect in 2027.

Still live today: if you split your 2025 payment, the remaining 40 per cent is due by 5 November 2026 (by 2 November if you want it taken by direct debit and the first instalment was also debited). If you have not filed at all, you can still file late through the same Renta WEB service; the surcharges are explained below.

The next campaign: the return for 2026 income will open in April 2027 and close on 30 June 2027 if the usual pattern holds. The exact dates are published in the tax office’s calendar in December and confirmed by a ministerial order in March. We will update this guide when they appear.

Do you have to file a tax return in Spain?

Not everyone does. For 2025 income, you are not obliged to file if your income came only from these sources and stayed under these limits:

Two points catch foreign residents out. First, a pension from another country counts as employment income from a payer who does not withhold Spanish tax, so the lower €15,876 limit applies, not €22,000. A British, Irish or Dutch pensioner whose only income is a foreign pension of €16,000 has to file. Second, if you have a Spanish pension and a foreign one, that is two payers, and the €15,876 limit applies as soon as the smaller one is over €1,500.

You must file whatever your income if any of these apply:

• You were registered as self-employed (autónomo) at any point in the year. Since 2023 income every autónomo files, even with a loss. See our guide to registering as self-employed in Spain.
• You or anyone in your household received the minimum living income (ingreso mínimo vital).
• You want to claim relief for tax paid abroad, or you paid into a Spanish pension plan and want the deduction.

Unemployment benefit on its own no longer forces a return: the rule introduced in 2024 was withdrawn and does not apply to 2025 income. Remember, though, that the benefits office counts as a second payer alongside a salary.

Finally, nobody has to file if their total income from all sources was under €1,000 and their capital losses under €500. If tax was withheld from your pay and you are under the limits, filing voluntarily is the only way to get it back.

How to file: step by step

The tax office prepares most of the return for you from the data employers, banks and pension funds send it. Your job is to check it, add anything missing (foreign income above all) and send it. Here is the route most people take.

1. Get a way to identify yourself. Any of these works:

• A reference number (número de referencia), issued on the spot online. You give your foreigner’s identity number (NIE), the support number printed on your residence card, and box 505 of last year’s return. If you did not file last year, the last five digits of a Spanish bank account in your name are used instead.
• Cl@ve Móvil, the government’s identity app. Registering needs a one-off identity check; our guide to getting a Cl@ve PIN in Spain walks through it.
• A digital certificate on your computer, which also opens every other Spanish public office online. See how to get a digital certificate in Spain.

What to have to hand: your NIE and residence card; the annual certificate from each employer or pension payer (Spanish and foreign); bank and investment statements showing interest, dividends and any sales; the cadastral reference of any property you own (it is on the IBI bill); rent received and the costs of letting; mortgage interest if you still qualify for the old purchase deduction; receipts for donations; and last year’s return.

2. Open your tax data. From mid-March you can see the datos fiscales, the list of everything the tax office already knows: salaries, Spanish pensions, bank interest, properties, mortgage data. Check it against your own records.

3. Open Renta WEB. This is the online return itself, on the tax office website (sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es, “Renta”). Choose “Nueva declaración” and the data is pulled in. You will be asked to confirm your home address first. There is an English language option in the menus, though the help pages are in Spanish.

4. Add what is missing. Foreign pensions, foreign rental income, foreign bank interest and dividends, and the sale of assets abroad are never in the pre-filled data. Enter them in euros. Pensions go in as employment income (rendimientos del trabajo); foreign tax you have already paid goes in the box for the international double taxation deduction.

5. Check the result and choose how to pay or be refunded. Renta WEB shows whether you owe tax (a ingresar) or are due money back (a devolver). If you are married, it also calculates the joint and individual options and tells you which is cheaper.

6. Send it. You get a confirmation with a secure verification code. Keep the PDF.

Three other routes exist. Renta Directa, new in 2026, lets around nine million people with simple affairs confirm the pre-filled return in one step. The telephone plan (“Le Llamamos”): you book a slot and a tax office adviser calls you and completes the return with you, in Spanish. And from June you can book an appointment at a tax office. A gestor (accountant) will prepare a straightforward return for a modest fee, and is money well spent the first year you have income from two countries.

How you pay, and how refunds work

If the result is tax to pay, you choose when you file:

• Pay it all by direct debit (taken on the last day of the campaign), by card or Bizum through the tax office website, or at a bank with the payment reference the system gives you.
• Split it 60/40, with no interest: 60 per cent when you file and 40 per cent in early November (5 November in 2026). The split is only available for returns filed inside the campaign.

Direct debit has an earlier cut-off than the campaign itself: in 2026 it was 25 June, with the money leaving the account on 30 June.

If you are due a refund, you give a bank account on the return and the money arrives by transfer. The first refunds of each campaign go out within 48 hours of opening day. The tax office has six months after the deadline to pay; if it is later than that through no fault of yours, late payment interest (4.0625 per cent a year in 2026) is added automatically. For a return filed late, the six months run from the day you filed.

Missed the deadline? What late filing costs in 2026

A return filed after 30 June, before the tax office has written to you about it, is treated as voluntary late filing, and the cost depends on the result:

• Tax to pay: a surcharge of 1 per cent plus 1 per cent for each complete month of delay, with no penalty and no interest for the first twelve months. File in August for a return due in June and the surcharge is 2 per cent. After twelve months it becomes 15 per cent plus interest. The surcharge is cut by a quarter if you pay it and the tax promptly when the bill arrives. You cannot split the payment on a late return.
• Refund due, or nothing to pay: a fixed fine of €200, halved to €100 because you came forward unprompted, and reduced by a further 40 per cent if you accept and pay it straight away. In practice the tax office does not always impose it, but it can.

If the tax office writes first, the surcharge route closes and unpaid tax becomes a penalty of at least 50 per cent of the amount. Filing late and unprompted is always the cheaper choice.

Made a mistake on a return you already sent? Renta WEB has a “Modificar declaración presentada” option that files a corrective return (autoliquidación rectificativa) in either direction.

Income tax rates on 2025 income

Spanish income tax (IRPF) is paid half to the State and half to your region, and each region sets its own scale for its half. The figures below are the State scale, which applies everywhere, and the combined rates for Andalucía as the worked example. Your own combined rate depends on where you live.

The Andalucía scale starts its second band at €13,000 and its third at €21,100, which is why the combined rate steps up inside the State bands. Other regions differ at the top: a Madrid resident pays a combined 45 per cent above €300,000, a Valencia resident 54 per cent, a Catalonia resident 50 per cent. These are marginal rates, charged only on the slice of income inside each band, after the personal allowance explained below.

Savings income (interest, dividends and capital gains, including the gain on selling a property) has its own scale, the same in every region:

The 30 per cent top band is new for 2025 income. Nothing published so far changes either scale for 2026 income.

Allowances: the personal and family minimum

Spain does not give a tax-free allowance in the British sense. Instead a “personal and family minimum” is taxed at zero: the scale is applied to your whole income and the tax on the minimum is then taken off. The State amounts for 2025 are:

• Every taxpayer: €5,550, rising to €6,700 from age 65 and €8,100 from age 75.
• Children under 25 (any age with a disability) living with you and earning under €8,000: €2,400 for the first, €2,700 for the second, €4,000 for the third, €4,500 for each further child, plus €2,800 for each child under three.
• Parents or grandparents over 65 living with you on under €8,000 a year: €1,150 each, plus €1,400 if over 75.
• Disability: €3,000 for a recognised disability of 33 per cent or more, €9,000 at 65 per cent or more, plus €3,000 where help from others or reduced mobility is proven; the same amounts again for each dependent relative with a disability.

Regions can raise these for their half of the tax. Andalucía uses €5,790 for the taxpayer (€6,990 over 65, €8,450 over 75) and higher child, parent and disability amounts.

Low earners: for 2025 income there is a new deduction in the tax bill of up to €340 for employees earning under €18,276, worth the full amount at or below the 2025 minimum wage of €16,576 and tapering above it. For 2026 income it rises to up to €590.89 for earnings up to €17,094 (the 2026 minimum wage), tapering away at €20,048. The long-standing reduction for employment income under €19,747.50 continues alongside it.

Joint or individual return?

Married couples who are not legally separated, and single parents living with their children, can file one joint return instead of two. A joint return gets one personal minimum of €5,550 (not two) plus a reduction of €3,400 (€2,150 for a single-parent household), and all the income is stacked on one progressive scale. It therefore pays almost only when one spouse has little or no income. Renta WEB does the comparison for you once both sets of data are in, and you choose afresh every year. A spouse who is tax resident in another EU country cannot join a Spanish joint return, but a compensating deduction exists for that case.

Pensioners: pensions from the UK and elsewhere

Under the double taxation treaty between the United Kingdom and Spain, private and occupational pensions and the UK State Pension paid to a Spanish resident are taxable only in Spain. They go on the Spanish return as employment income, and if HM Revenue and Customs is still taxing them at source you reclaim that from the UK rather than crediting it in Spain. Government service pensions (civil service, armed forces, police, local authority and similar) stay taxable only in the UK unless you are a Spanish national, but Spain still counts them when working out the rate on your other income, in a separate box for exempt income with progression. Other countries’ treaties follow similar lines; the tax office publishes a leaflet per country.

Because a foreign pension payer withholds no Spanish tax, the filing limit for a pensioner with only a foreign pension is €15,876, as explained above. Our guides for UK pensioners in Spain and on UK and Spanish pensions when living in Spain cover the practical side, and if you have just arrived from the UK, see how to claim a UK tax rebate when moving to Spain. Americans have their own rules: see US tax obligations while living in Spain.

Landlords, second homes and deemed income

Letting a home long term. Net rental income (rent less allowable costs) from a tenant’s permanent home is reduced before tax. For contracts signed from 26 May 2023 the reduction is 50 per cent, rising to 60 per cent for a home renovated in the two years before the contract, 70 per cent for a first let to tenants aged 18 to 35 in a designated high-pressure rental area, and 90 per cent for a new contract in such an area with the rent cut by at least 5 per cent. Contracts signed before that date keep the old 60 per cent for as long as they run. Allowable costs include mortgage interest, repairs, community fees, the IBI property tax, insurance, agency fees and depreciation of 3 per cent a year on the building (not the land). Interest and repairs together cannot exceed the rent in the year; the excess carries forward four years. A decree of 6 October 2026 rewrote these percentages for 2026 income, with 100 per cent relief for landlords who cut the rent on a renewal; it does not touch the 2025 return. Our detailed guide: declaring rental income in Spain.

Second and holiday homes: deemed income. This is the rule that surprises most foreign owners. A Spanish property that is not your main home and is not let is taxed on an imputed, or deemed, income of 2 per cent of its cadastral value (1.1 per cent in municipalities whose values were revised from 2012), for the days it was empty. There is no rent and still a tax bill, every year. It is the same rule that non-residents pay on Modelo 210.

Non-resident landlords do not use the Renta at all. They file Modelo 210: 19 per cent of rent for EU and European Economic Area residents, who can deduct costs, and 24 per cent of gross rent with no deductions for everyone else, including UK residents. Since 2024 rental income is filed once a year, and from 2026 rents onwards the window moves to the first twenty days of April. See non-resident taxes in Spain.

Self-employed (autónomos)

If you were registered as self-employed at any time in the year you must file, whatever you earned, and you will also have paid quarterly instalments (Modelo 130 or 131) during the year that are set against the final bill. Business expenses are deductible, including private health insurance premiums for you, your spouse and children under 25, within the limits explained on our self-employed health insurance page. Our guides to deductible expenses for the self-employed, the 2025 changes for the self-employed and self-employed tax and contributions go deeper.

Selling property or investments: capital gains

Gains go on the savings scale above. Two reliefs matter most: the gain on selling your main home is exempt if you are 65 or over (or severely dependent), and at any age it is exempt to the extent you reinvest the proceeds in a new main home within two years. From October 2026 the two-year rule is relaxed for people who have moved into a care home or a relative’s home. Over-65s selling other assets can shelter up to €240,000 by buying a life annuity within six months. Full details in capital gains tax in Spain.

Assets abroad: Modelo 720

Separate from the Renta, residents with assets outside Spain file an information return, Modelo 720, between 1 January and 31 March for the previous year. It covers three blocks, each with its own €50,000 threshold: foreign bank accounts; shares, funds, bonds, life insurance and annuities held abroad; and property abroad. Once filed, a block is reported again only when its value has risen by more than €20,000. No tax is paid on the form itself. The disproportionate fines of the past were struck down by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2022; the ordinary penalties for late information returns now apply, starting at €150 when you file late unprompted.

Residents with larger estates may also owe wealth tax (Modelo 714), filed in the same window as the Renta, with a state allowance of €700,000 per person plus €300,000 for the main home; several regions reduce or cancel it. Ask a gestor if your worldwide assets are anywhere near those figures.

The Beckham regime for new arrivals

People who move to Spain for a job, as a posted or remote employee (including holders of the digital nomad visa), as a company director or for approved entrepreneurial or research activity, and who were not Spanish residents in the previous five years, can opt within six months of starting to be taxed as non-residents for the year of arrival and the five that follow: a flat 24 per cent on Spanish employment income up to €600,000 (47 per cent above), no Spanish tax on most foreign income, and no Modelo 720. Since 2023 a spouse and children can opt in too. The option is made on Modelo 149 and the yearly return is Modelo 151, filed in the same window as the Renta. It is worth professional advice before you take it, as you give up the allowances above.

Private health insurance and your tax return

For an employee, private health insurance is not deductible on the Renta, but it is what most foreign residents arrange alongside their first return, because registering as resident, or renewing a non-lucrative or digital nomad visa, requires full private cover with no co-payments and no waiting periods. For the self-employed the premium is a business expense, as our self-employed health insurance page explains. HealthPlan Spain arranges Sanitas health insurance in English, with English-speaking doctors and hospitals across Spain. Compare the Sanitas Professional plan and Professional Plus plan built for the self-employed, or the plans accepted for Spanish visas, and call us on 952 835 600 for a quote in English.

Sources

All checked on 29 October 2026. Agencia Tributaria: Renta 2025 campaign hub, campaign calendar, and the Manual práctico Renta 2025 (chapters on who must file, scales, minimums, rental income, imputed income, payment and surcharges). Boletín Oficial del Estado: Orden HAC/277/2026 (campaign dates and forms), Ley 35/2006 del IRPF (consolidated text of 7 October 2026), Ley 58/2003 General Tributaria (surcharges and penalties, articles 27, 188 and 198), Ley 7/2024 (savings scale), Ley 5/2025 and Real Decreto-ley 5/2026 (minimum-wage deduction), Real Decreto-ley 29/2026 (housing measures), the double taxation convention between Spain and the United Kingdom, Ley 5/2021 de Tributos Cedidos de Andalucía, Real Decreto 1065/2007 (Modelo 720) and Orden HAC/623/2026 (Modelo 210 deadlines).

Frequently asked questions

When is the Spanish tax return due?

By 30 June each year for the previous calendar year’s income. Online filing opens in early April (8 April in 2026). If you pay by direct debit, file by around 25 June.

Do I need to file a tax return in Spain if I only have a UK pension?

Yes, once it is over €15,876 a year, because the payer withholds no Spanish tax. Below that you need not file, though filing is harmless and sometimes produces a small refund.

I earn €20,000 from one Spanish employer and nothing else. Do I file?

No, you are under the €22,000 single-payer limit. Check whether the minimum-wage deduction would give you money back; if so, file voluntarily.

Can I still file my 2025 return now?

Yes, through Renta WEB. If you owe tax, expect a surcharge of 1 per cent plus 1 per cent per full month since 30 June 2026; if you are due a refund, a possible €100 fine. Doing it before the tax office asks is always cheaper.

What is box 505?

The “base liquidable general sometida a gravamen” on last year’s return. It is one of the ways to prove your identity when asking for a reference number.

Is the return in English?

The Renta WEB menus can be switched to English; the help and the telephone service are in Spanish. Many of our clients use a gestor the first year and file themselves afterwards.

I arrived in Spain in October. Do I file for this year?

Only if you meet the residence tests for the whole calendar year, which normally means more than 183 days here. Most people who arrive after early July file their first Spanish return for the following year. Check the double taxation treaty for income taxed in your old country in the meantime.

What is deemed income on a second home?

A notional income of 2 per cent (or 1.1 per cent) of the cadastral value of a Spanish property that is neither your main home nor let, charged for the days it stood empty, even though you received no rent.