Non-Resident Tax Spain (Modelo 210 / IRNR)
Modelo 210 is the tax return for Spain's non-resident income tax (IRNR) — mandatory for every foreign property owner, even when the property stands vacant, whether it is rented out or not.
What is Non-Resident Tax Spain (Modelo 210 / IRNR)?
Modelo 210 is the tax return for Spain's non-resident income tax (IRNR) — mandatory for every foreign property owner, even when the property stands vacant, whether it is rented out or not. For personal use or vacancy, Spain assumes a deemed income (renta imputada), based on the cadastral value taxed at a statutory percentage. For actual rentals, real rental income is taxed instead. Both cases use the same form but follow different rules and deadlines. EU/EEA residents pay 19% on rental income and may deduct genuine expenses such as mortgage interest, community fees and local property tax. Non-EU residents pay a flat 24% on gross income, with no deductions allowed at all — a meaningful five-point difference that should factor into any net-yield calculation before committing to a purchase.
What matters about these two points
The answer box above states the case. The two points it is built from carry their own heading here — together with what each of them means in practice.
Non resident property tax Spain — two cases: personal use/vacant vs. actual rental income
Before the first return, establish which of the two cases you are in — and whether that changes during the year. Anyone who uses the property personally for part of the year and lets it for the rest has both cases in the same year and must report them separately, not combined.
Tax rate
Put the rate at the start of the yield calculation, not the end. If a change of residence takes you outside the EU/EEA, you are taxed on a different basis from then on: gross rather than net. That question belongs before the purchase, not in the first tax return.
Deadlines — subject to change
Deadlines have shifted more than once: rental income is now declared annually rather than quarterly, and from the 2026 income year the filing window for rental income moves to 1–20 April of the following year (previously 1–20 January). For deemed income from personal use or vacancy, the deadline remains 31 December of the following year. Because these dates can change by regulation, always verify the current deadline before filing rather than relying on a previously learned date.
Why this is often overlooked
A common and costly assumption: 'I don't rent it out, so I don't need to declare anything.' That's incorrect — personal use or vacancy still triggers a filing obligation via the deemed rental income. IBI is usually collected automatically and feels 'done'; IRNR, by contrast, must be actively calculated and filed — nobody does it for you.
With several owners, each files separately
A jointly owned property does not file one return. Each co-owner submits their own Modelo 210 for their share of the ownership, with their own NIE and their own payment — a married couple owning half each files two returns, not one joint one. The share that counts is the one recorded in the escritura, not the split of who paid what. This matters twice over: the tax office matches filings against the register, so a missing return by one owner is visible even if the other has paid in full, and each owner is liable only for their own share. Where one co-owner lives outside Spain and the other inside it, the two are not even on the same form.
Why EU residents pay less than non-EU residents
The difference is not only the rate. A landlord resident in the EU or EEA may deduct the costs attached to the letting — mortgage interest, IBI, community fees, insurance, maintenance, depreciation. A landlord resident outside it is taxed on the gross rent with no deductions at all, on top of the higher rate. The same flat therefore produces a very different bill. Since Brexit this affects British owners directly, and it affects anyone planning a move outside the EU. The second point: what counts is tax residency in the period concerned, not nationality — a German citizen resident in Switzerland falls into the less favourable group, and an Irish citizen resident in Spain into neither.
Related glossary terms
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