IBI property tax in Spain: rates, calculation, bonifications and the empty-home surcharge (2026)

The annual municipal tax every Spanish property owner pays, calculated from the Catastro’s valor catastral at a rate the town hall chooses, now with a surcharge power for empty homes.

The IBI, short for Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles, is the annual municipal property tax that every owner of Spanish real estate pays to the local town hall. It is a direct, real tax levied on the ownership of a property, calculated by multiplying the valor catastral set by the Catastro by a percentage rate the municipality fixes in its ordenanza fiscal. For urban property the statutory rate band runs from 0.4 percent to 1.1 percent of the valor catastral, and each town hall picks its own rate within that range under Article 72 of the texto refundido de la Ley Reguladora de las Haciendas Locales, approved by Real Decreto Legislativo 2/2004. Non-resident owners are liable on exactly the same basis as residents: whoever holds title on 1 January pays for the full year.

What is the IBI and who must pay it?

The IBI is a local, direct tax on the ownership of real estate, governed by the texto refundido de la Ley Reguladora de las Haciendas Locales (TRHL), approved by Real Decreto Legislativo 2/2004 of 5 March. The taxable event is holding title to a property, or another real right over it, located within the municipality’s boundaries during the tax period, which is the calendar year. The taxpayer is whoever holds that title on 1 January of the tax year. That means a non-resident British owner of a Marbella apartment pays IBI to Marbella town hall every year, even if they set foot in Spain only for a summer fortnight. There is no residency exemption and no threshold below which the tax disappears.

The Catastro, Spain’s land registry, maintains the cadastral values for every property in the country. The valor catastral is an administrative valuation derived from the ponencia de valores, the valuation schedule the Catastro publishes for each municipality, taking account of location, floor area, construction quality and age. According to Tinsa, the valor catastral is fixed objectively for each property and should sit well below market value, unlike the valor de referencia de la Catastro introduced in January 2022, which approximates market prices for transfer tax purposes. This distinction matters: the IBI is charged on the lower valor catastral, not the higher valor de referencia.

Value concept	Who sets it	Used for	Relation to market
Valor catastral	Catastro	IBI base	Below market
Valor de referencia	Catastro (from 2022)	ITP/IVA, ISD minimum	Close to market
Valor de mercado	Open market	Sale price	The actual price

How is the IBI calculated?

The calculation is straightforward once you know two numbers: the valor catastral and the municipal rate. The formula is IBI = valor catastral multiplied by tipo de gravamen. A Marbella apartment with a valor catastral of EUR 150,000 and Marbella’s 0.65 percent urban rate produces an annual IBI of EUR 975. The same apartment in Mijas, where the rate is 0.4826 percent, would cost EUR 724, and in Torremolinos at 0.75 percent it would cost EUR 1,125. The town hall sends the bill (recibo) annually, usually between September and November, and most owners pay by direct debit.

The rate bands are fixed by Article 72 of the TRHL. For urban property, the band is 0.4 percent to 1.1 percent. For rustic (rural) property, it is 0.3 percent to 0.9 percent. Each municipality selects its own rate within the band and publishes it in the ordenanza fiscal reguladora del IBI. The rate can vary by property use within the same municipality, and some towns differentiate residential from commercial or industrial property, though the statutory ceiling remains 1.1 percent for all urban property. The rate is also subject to a coefficient of incremental limitation when a new ponencia de valores is approved, capping how much the bill can jump in a single year.

What IBI rate does each Costa del Sol town charge?

The rates below come from the Oficina de Análisis Tributario of the Diputación de Málaga, which publishes IBI urban rates for every Andalusian municipality. The figures are for 2025, the most recent available year, drawn from municipal ordinances.

Municipality	IBI urban rate (%)	IBI on EUR 150,000 valor catastral
Benahavis	0.400	EUR 600
San Roque (Sotogrande)	0.400	EUR 600
Nerja	0.461	EUR 692
Mijas	0.4826	EUR 724
Fuengirola	0.500	EUR 750
Manilva	0.570	EUR 855
Casares	0.610	EUR 915
Marbella	0.650	EUR 975
Benalmadena	0.650	EUR 975
Torrox	0.630	EUR 945
Estepona	0.662	EUR 993
Torremolinos	0.750	EUR 1,125

The spread is wide. Benahavis, where many of Marbella’s most expensive villas actually sit, charges the statutory minimum 0.4 percent. Torremolinos, a mass-market resort town, charges 0.75 percent, nearly double. For a property with the same valor catastral, the annual IBI in Torremolinos is 87.5 percent higher than in Benahavis. In practice the valor catastral also differs between towns, because each municipality’s ponencia de valores is revised on its own cycle, so the actual bill differential can be even larger.

How does the valor catastral affect the IBI?

Because the IBI is a percentage of the valor catastral, the bill is driven by two independent variables: the rate the town hall sets and the value the Catastro assigns. The Catastro revises valores catastrales through two mechanisms. The first is a valoracion colectiva de caracter general, a full revaluation using a new ponencia de valores, which can move the valor catastral substantially. The second is an annual coefficient update set by the Ley de Presupuestos Generales del Estado, which adjusts all valores catastrales by a small percentage each year to track market movement. For 2026, Spain’s state budgets remain prorrogated from 2023, meaning no new annual cadastral coefficient has been applied this year. The valores catastrales holding steady is one reason IBI bills have not jumped as sharply as market prices: Tinsa’s IMIE index recorded a 15.48 percent year-on-year increase in the second quarter of 2026, with the average Spanish home at 2,071 EUR per square metre, just 0.4 percent below the all-time nominal high.

When a full revaluation lands, Article 74.2 of the TRHL allows town halls to cap the increase in the IBI bill for up to three years, limiting how much the cuota can rise annually. This protects owners from a sudden doubling of the bill when the Catastro catches up with years of market gains. A property whose valor catastral was set in 2005 and has not been revalued since will have a value well below today’s market price, keeping the IBI low. A property in a municipality that recently completed a revaluation will have a higher valor catastral and a higher bill, even at the same tax rate. The mechanics of how a cadastral revision moves your IBI are explained in our cadastral revision guide.

What bonifications and exemptions exist?

The TRHL establishes both mandatory exemptions and optional bonifications. Exemptions under Article 61 cover properties owned by the State, autonomous communities, municipalities and certain public bodies, as well as properties of the Catholic Church, foreign diplomatic missions and non-profit institutions. These are automatic and require no application.

Bonifications under Article 74 are potestativas, meaning the town hall decides whether to offer them in its ordenanza fiscal. The main categories are:

Bonification	Maximum relief	Eligibility
Large families (familias numerosas)	Up to 90 percent	Titleholders of an official large-family card
Solar thermal or photovoltaic	Up to 50 percent	Properties with certified solar installations
Social-rental housing	Up to 95 percent	Residential properties let at capped rents under a social housing scheme
Rural settlement areas	Up to 90 percent	Urban property in primary-activity zones with lower municipal services
Electric vehicle charging	Up to 50 percent	Properties with certified EV charging points
Post-revaluation cap	Up to 100 percent of the increase	Three-year cap on the IBI rise after a collective revaluation

A non-resident owner who lets a property under a social-rental scheme recognised by the town hall could qualify for the 95 percent bonification under Article 74.6 of the TRHL. The solar bonification is the most widely claimed: installing certified solar panels can halve the IBI for up to five years. Real Decreto-ley 7/2026, of 20 March, expanded the scope of this bonification to include installations whose use or ownership is associated with energy communities, giving town halls more flexibility to differentiate the percentage when an owner cedes space for a shared installation. These bonifications are not automatic; the owner must apply, and the town hall must have adopted the bonification in its ordenanza.

Can a town hall add a surcharge for empty homes?

Yes, and this is a change non-resident owners with multiple properties need to know about. Since 26 May 2023, Article 72.4 of the TRHL, added by Ley 12/2023 on the right to housing, allows town halls to levy a surcharge of up to 50 percent of the IBI cuota liquida on residential properties that have been vacant for more than two consecutive years without justified cause. The surcharge rises to 100 percent when the property has been empty for more than three years. The provision targets owners of four or more residential properties in the same municipality, and an additional 50 percentage points can be added when the owner holds two or more empty homes there.

The law lists causes that are automatically considered justified, meaning the surcharge cannot be applied: temporary relocation for work or study, dependency or health reasons, second homes used for holidays (up to four years of continuous non-occupancy), properties under construction or renovation, properties subject to litigation, and properties genuinely offered for sale (up to one year) or for rent (up to six months). A non-resident owner who uses their Costa del Sol apartment for summer visits and keeps it furnished and connected to utilities is not the target. But an investor who holds four or more Spanish homes and leaves several sitting empty for years could see their IBI bill double if the town hall has adopted the surcharge in its ordenanza fiscal.

IBI versus IAE: what is the difference?

The IBI and the IAE (Impuesto sobre Actividades Economicas) are both local taxes, but they tax different things. The IBI taxes the ownership of property and is paid by every owner. The IAE taxes the exercise of an economic activity, such as running a business or professional practice, and is paid only by entities whose annual turnover exceeds EUR 1 million. A non-resident owner who holds a holiday apartment and does not trade from it pays IBI and never IAE. A company operating a rental business from the property may pay both, though most small landlords are exempt from the IAE because they fall below the turnover threshold. The IBI is universal; the IAE is not.

How does IBI fit into the non-resident owner’s annual tax bill?

The IBI is one of several recurring taxes a non-resident Spanish property owner faces each year. The full annual tax calendar is laid out in our Spanish property tax calendar guide, but the IBI is the largest single municipal charge. Alongside it, a non-resident owner may pay the Modelo 210 for imputed income or rental income, wealth tax (impuesto sobre el patrimonio) on higher-value properties, and community fees. The IBI is independent of the Agencia Tributaria: it is collected by the town hall, not by AEAT, though the valor catastral that drives it also appears on the AEAT’s wealth tax return as the reference value for the property. If you are challenging the IBI, you are challenging the valor catastral, which is set by the Catastro and detailed in our cadastral value guide. The valor de referencia de la Catastro, a separate concept introduced in 2022, sets the floor for transfer tax and is explained in our reference value guide. For a full breakdown of all the property valuations that affect your tax bill, see our property valuation bases comparison.

What can you do if your IBI bill seems wrong?

If the valor catastral appears inflated relative to market value, the owner can request a revision through the Catastro. The Tribunal Supremo has confirmed in its judgment of 14 December 2021 that the valor catastral must be derived from the ponencia de valores with the coefficient of market relation (RM) of 0.5 applied, and it is not simply half the market price. If the IBI liquidation itself is wrong, a recurso de reposicion can be filed with the town hall within one month. The full appeal process, from Catastro revision through to the economic-administrative claim, is set out in our property tax appeals guide. The key point for non-resident owners is that the IBI is the one tax where the base is not set by AEAT but by the Catastro, and the collection is by the town hall, so the challenge route is different from the Modelo 210 or wealth tax appeal paths. If you are selling, note that the plusvalia municipal (IIVTNU), a separate one-off tax on land-value gain, has its own calculation and appeal route explained in our plusvalia municipal guide.

How much IBI should you budget for?

A practical budgeting rule for Costa del Sol property is to expect the IBI at 0.5 to 0.75 percent of the valor catastral, which itself typically runs at 30 to 50 percent of market value. A EUR 500,000 Marbella apartment with a valor catastral of around EUR 200,000 would generate an IBI bill of roughly EUR 1,300 per year at Marbella’s 0.65 percent rate. A EUR 2 million villa in Benahavis, where the rate is 0.4 percent, might have a valor catastral of EUR 800,000 and an IBI of EUR 3,200. These are approximate figures, and the actual valor catastral depends on when the ponencia de valores was last revised in that municipality. The recibo arrives once a year, and most town halls offer direct debit payment, which is the simplest method for an absent non-resident owner.

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.