Catastro and Cadastral Value in Spain: How the Land Registry Sets Your IBI and Transfer Tax (2026)

The Catastro is Spain’s land registry for tax valuation, and the cadastral value (valor catastral) it assigns to every property is the number behind your IBI, your non-resident imputed income tax and, since 2022, the minimum base for transfer tax. But a Spanish property actually carries three distinct values, each set by a different authority for a different tax: the valor catastral (the Catastro’s administrative valuation), the valor de referencia (the Catastro’s annual transfer-tax floor, introduced by Ley 11/2021) and the valor de mercado (the price the property would sell for on the open market). Understanding the distinction, and knowing how to look up each figure, is the single most useful step a property owner can take to avoid overpaying local and national taxes.

What is the Catastro and what does it do in Spain?

The Catastro is the administrative registry, maintained by the Direccion General del Catastro (a directorate of the Ministerio de Hacienda), that records the physical characteristics, location and titular ownership of every property in Spain. Its job is fiscal: it identifies, describes and values each inmueble so that town halls and the national tax authority can calculate property-based levies. The Catastro holds the referencia catastral, a 20-character alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies each property, and it produces the annual padron catastral that feeds the IBI rolls.

Unlike the Registro de la Propiedad, which is about legal rights (who owns the property, what mortgages or easements burden it), the Catastro is about the asset itself: its surface area, use class, construction year and assessed value. The two registers are independent and do not always agree, a discrepancy that causes headaches when a buyer discovers the Catastro shows more square metres than the escritura. Resolving that mismatch (a diferencia de cabida) is a separate legal process from anything the Catastro does.

How is the cadastral value (valor catastral) calculated?

The cadastral value is an objective administrative valuation the Catastro sets for each property, and by law it cannot exceed market value. The Catastro derives it from three components laid out in the texto refundido de la Ley del Catastro Inmobiliario (Real Decreto Legislativo 1/2004): the value of the land (valor del suelo), the cost of construction (valor de la construccion), and a series of correction coefficients for location, age and use. At the point of approving each municipal ponencia de valores, the Catastro applies a coefficient of reference to market of 0.5, so the cadastral value starts at roughly half the prevailing market price. The Catastro’s own FAQ confirms this: the ministerial order fixes the coeficiente de referencia al mercado at 0.5, meaning a property worth EUR 1,000,000 on the open market receives a cadastral value in the region of EUR 500,000 at the point of the revision.

Two mechanisms keep cadastral values current. The first is the procedimiento de valoracion colectiva de caracter general (PVCCG), a full municipal revision triggered when market values have diverged substantially from the cadastral base, requiring a new ponencia de valores total approved by the Director General del Catastro, with a prior report from the town hall. The second is the annual coefficient update: the Ley de Presupuestos Generales del Estado may apply a multiplier to existing cadastral values, and these coefficients can vary by municipality group and property class. When a collective revision lands, the resulting IBI increase is phased in over ten years on a declining reduction schedule (90 per cent reduction in year one, falling to 0 per cent in year ten), so a revaluation does not hit the owner in a single bill. The new values take effect on 1 January of the year following the notification.

What taxes does the cadastral value drive in Spain?

The cadastral value is the base for several levies that affect both residents and non-residents. The table below sets out the main ones.

Tax	Who pays	Base	Rate / calculation	Collecting authority
IBI (Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles)	Property owner on 1 January	Cadastral value	0.4% to 1.1% (municipal rate within legal limits)	Town hall (Ayuntamiento)
Imputed income tax (IRPF / IRNR)	Owner of a non-rented, non-primary second home	Cadastral value	1.1% (revised post-2012) or 2% (older), then taxed at 19% (EU/EEA) or 24% (others)	Agencia Tributaria
Plusvalia municipal	Seller on transfer	Cadastral value of the land	Town hall percentage on the land-value gain	Town hall
Wealth Tax (Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio)	Owner above thresholds	Net wealth, property valued at the higher of acquisition cost or cadastral value (multiplier applied)	Progressive regional rates	Agencia Tributaria / CCAA

The IBI is the most visible. Town halls set the rate (tipo de gravamen) annually within limits established by Article 72 of Real Decreto Legislativo 2/2004, the consolidated text of the Ley Reguladora de las Haciendas Locales. The statutory band for urban property runs from 0.4 per cent to 1.1 per cent of the cadastral value, and each municipality publishes its rate in the ordenanza fiscal. A flat with a cadastral value of EUR 90,000 in a town charging 0.65 per cent pays roughly EUR 585 a year, before any bonifications. Our guide to IBI property tax in Spain covers the town-by-town rate variation on the Costa del Sol.

For non-residents, the cadastral value also drives the imputed income calculation. The Agencia Tributaria confirms that the imputed rent is 2 per cent of the cadastral value in general, falling to 1.1 per cent for properties whose cadastral values were revised through a general collective valuation procedure that entered into force on or after 1 January 2012. That notional income is then taxed at 19 per cent for EU/EEA residents and 24 per cent for the rest. We cover this mechanism in detail in our guide to annual property taxes for non-residents in Spain.

What are the three values on a Spanish property and how do they differ?

This is the distinction that costs buyers the most money. A Spanish property carries three values, set by different authorities for different taxes, and confusing them leads to budgeting errors at completion. The table below sets out the comparison.

	Valor catastral	Valor de referencia	Valor de mercado
What it is	Administrative valuation of physical characteristics	Market-proximate reference value from notarised sale prices	The price the property would sell for on the open market
Set by	Direccion General del Catastro (ponencia de valores)	Direccion General del Catastro (annual Resolucion)	The market (buyer and seller agreement)
Legal basis	Texto refundido de la Ley del Catastro Inmobiliario (RDL 1/2004)	Ley 11/2021 (anti-fraud), modifying RDL 1/1993 (ITP/AJD) and Ley 29/1987 (ISD)	Free market transaction
Cap	Cannot exceed market value (0.5 coefficient of reference applied in the ponencia)	Cannot exceed market value (0.9 factor de minoracion, Orden HFP/1104/2021)	No cap (the market sets it)
Updated	Infrequently, via collective municipal revisions (PVCCG) or annual budget coefficients	Annually, from the full population of notarised sales in the prior year	Continuously, with every transaction
Drives	IBI (town hall), imputed income in IRPF and IRNR, wealth tax base, plusvalia land base	Minimum taxable base for ITP, AJD and ISD on transfers since 1 January 2022	The declared escritura price, which the valor de referencia acts as a floor against
Typical ratio to market	Roughly 30 to 60 per cent, starting at 50 per cent and drifting lower as market rises	Close to market, capped at 90 per cent of the module-derived figure	100 per cent by definition
Consultation	Sede Electronica del Catastro; appears on the IBI receipt and the IRPF tax data summary	Sede Electronica del Catastro; publicly consultable by referencia catastral or address	No public registry; disclosed only at the point of sale

The distinction matters because a single property carries all three, and they can diverge sharply. A Marbella apartment with a valor catastral of EUR 150,000 (set in a collective revision a decade ago and barely updated since) can have a valor de referencia of EUR 320,000 reflecting recent notarial sales in the same building, and a valor de mercado of EUR 360,000 set by the current asking prices in the area. The IBI bill runs off the lowest figure; the transfer tax on the next sale runs off the middle one; the mortgage valuation tracks the highest. Our companion guide to the valor de referencia de la Catastro covers the transfer-tax side in detail, while this page covers the cadastral value side.

What is the valor de referencia and why does it matter for buyers?

Since 1 January 2022, a second Catastro figure has mattered at the point of purchase: the valor de referencia. Introduced by Ley 11/2021 de medidas de prevencion y lucha contra el fraude fiscal, the valor de referencia is derived from the prices of notarised sales and is set annually by the Direccion General del Catastro for every municipality. It serves as the minimum taxable base for two transfer taxes: the Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales y Actos Juridicos Documentados (ITP/AJD) on resales, and the Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones (ISD) on inheritances and gifts. The 2026 values were set by the Resolucion of 27 October 2025, published in the BOE on 16 December 2025 (BOE-B-2025-46480), and have been consultable on the Sede Electronica del Catastro since 1 January 2026.

The practical effect is that buyers can no longer declare a transfer at a price below the valor de referencia and expect the tax authority to accept it. The taxable base is the higher of the escritura price and the valor de referencia. So a resale purchased for EUR 300,000 where the valor de referencia is EUR 340,000 is taxed on EUR 340,000, not the contract price. In Andalusia, where the flat ITP rate is 7 per cent, that means the buyer pays 7 per cent of the higher figure. Our guide to property transfer tax in Andalusia 2026 explains how ITP interacts with this reference value.

The valor de referencia is published annually and is publicly consultable at the Sede Electronica del Catastro, unlike the cadastral value itself which historically required the owner’s credentials. This transparency is deliberate: the 2021 reform was an anti-fraud measure aimed at undeclared below-market transfer prices, and the Catastro publishes the reference value for every property so that buyers, sellers and notaries can see the tax floor before the escritura is signed.

How do you check your cadastral value online?

The Catastro’s online service, the Sede Electronica del Catastro (sedecatastro.gob.es), lets anyone look up a property’s cadastral value free of charge. You do not need to own the property; the data is public. The lookup works from either the referencia catastral (the 20-character code on your IBI receipt) or the property address and cadastral plot number.

For owners who have lost the referencia catastral, the same value appears on the annual IBI receipt and on the tax data summary (datos fiscales) the Agencia Tributaria issues for IRPF. If you are buying, your lawyer’s due-diligence pack should include a nota simple catastral, the one-page extract that shows the cadastral value, the surface area the Catastro holds and the titular catastral.

A common reason to check is to verify the value after a collective revision. If the Catastro has revalued your municipality, the notification arrives individually and the new value takes effect on 1 January of the following year. Because the cadastral value feeds IBI, imputed income and wealth tax, an inflated figure costs you across three levies at once. The claim window is short, one month from notification, so checking promptly matters. This sits alongside the broader illegal builds and land checks on the Costa del Sol due-diligence work a buyer should do before signing.

How does the Catastro differ from the Registro de la Propiedad?

This is the distinction that confuses most foreign buyers. Spain runs two parallel property registries, and they answer different questions.

	Catastro	Registro de la Propiedad
What it records	Physical description and tax value	Legal title, mortgages, easements
Run by	Direccion General del Catastro (Ministerio de Hacienda)	Colegio de Registradores (Ministerio de Justicia oversight)
Key document	Referencia catastral and nota simple catastral	Nota simple registral and escritura
Used for	IBI, imputed income, valor de referencia, plusvalia base	Proof of ownership, encumbrance checks, title transfer
Compulsory?	Yes, every property must be registered	Registration is voluntary but protects the buyer

A buyer needs both. The Catastro tells you what the property is and what it is taxed as; the Registro tells you who legally owns it and what is charged against it. Surface area disagreements between the two are frequent, and a diferencia de cabida (area discrepancy) procedure is required to reconcile them, typically handled by the conveyancing lawyer.

Catastro and your Costa del Sol purchase: a worked example

Consider a resale villa in Marbella with a market price (valor de mercado) of EUR 1,000,000. The Catastro holds a cadastral value of EUR 400,000, reflecting the typical 30 to 50 per cent ratio of cadastral to market value that holds once the property has aged beyond its last collective revision. The town hall charges 0.5 per cent IBI, so the annual municipal bill is EUR 2,000. A non-EU resident owner who leaves the property empty pays imputed income tax on 2 per cent of EUR 400,000 (EUR 8,000) at 24 per cent, or EUR 1,920 a year via Modelo 210. On purchase, if the valor de referencia comes in at EUR 950,000 against a escritura price of EUR 1,000,000, the buyer pays 7 per cent ITP on EUR 1,000,000 (the higher figure), so EUR 70,000 in transfer tax, plus the notary, Land Registry and lawyer fees that bring total acquisition costs to the 12 to 15 per cent band on top of the price.

The three values on this one property tell the story. The valor de mercado (EUR 1,000,000) is what the buyer pays. The valor de referencia (EUR 950,000) is what the tax authority uses as the floor for transfer tax. The valor catastral (EUR 400,000) is what the town hall uses for IBI and what the national tax authority uses for imputed income. The gap between the cadastral value and the other two is not an error; it is the structural feature of the Spanish system, and it is the reason a property can have a modest IBI bill while carrying a substantial transfer tax at the point of sale.

This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change and individual circumstances differ. Verify current requirements with an independent lawyer (abogado) or tax advisor (gestor/asesor fiscal) before acting.