What you pay on top of the asking price in Spain: the real percentage

You have found a house at 250,000 euros and you think you need 250,000 euros. You do not. Budget ten to fourteen per cent on top, and that is money you have to put on the notary’s table, not something you settle later. The good news: in the Comunitat Valenciana the largest item dropped by a percentage point on 1 June 2026, and there is a discount on the deed of a main home that almost nobody talks about. Below is every item, where the figure comes from, and where you can check it yourself.

The short answer, in numbers

For an existing home in the Comunitat Valenciana, with no mortgage and no lawyer:

Transfer tax (ITP): 9 per cent
Notary: roughly 600 to 1,000 euros
Land registry (Registro de la Propiedad): roughly 300 to 700 euros
Gestor: roughly 300 to 500 euros

On 200,000 euros that is 18,000 euros of tax plus around 1,200 to 2,200 euros of paperwork. Together, about 9.6 to 10.1 per cent. Add your own conveyancing lawyer, which is common on this coast, and you are usually looking at one per cent plus VAT more, so around eleven.

For a new build from a developer it works differently. No ITP, but VAT plus stamp duty:

VAT (IVA): 10 per cent
Stamp duty (AJD): 1.4 per cent, or 0.1 per cent if it becomes your main home

That gap between 1.4 and 0.1 is not a detail. On 259,000 euros it is 3,367 euros.

The rest of this piece explains where each of those numbers is written down, what the exceptions are, and which item you do not have to pay even though you expect to.

ITP or VAT: which one you pay

The dividing line is simple, and it is not about the age of the house.

Buy from a private seller and you pay ITP, the impuesto de transmisiones patrimoniales. A house built in 2024 that its owner resells a year later is second hand as far as the tax office is concerned.

Buy from a developer or builder delivering the property for the first time and you pay VAT plus AJD. That is genuine new build, obra nueva, like the townhouse project in Els Poblets.

Now the part that is wrong almost everywhere. The general ITP rate in the Comunitat Valenciana is 9 per cent, not 10. It came down under Ley 5/2025 of 30 May, published in the DOGV on 31 May 2025, and the cut applies to everything signed from 1 June 2026. The same law moved AJD from 1.5 to 1.4 per cent on the same date.

Because the cut only took effect a year after publication, the old rate is still sitting in calculators, blogs and even estate agency brochures. If you sign today, 9 per cent is the rate.

One rate did not come down. If the value is above one million euros, ITP is 11 per cent. Watch how that works: it is not a banded system. Go over the million and the eleven applies to the whole amount.

The discount on the deed that almost nobody claims

This is where the money sits for anyone buying a new build to live in.

Article 14 of the Valencian law sets AJD at 1.4 per cent, but it opens with a list of cases that pay 0.1 per cent. The first of them is, in so many words: the first copies of notarial deeds documenting the acquisition of a vivienda habitual, a main home.

There is no age limit attached, no income limit and no price ceiling. The only condition is that it becomes your habitual residence, and for that concept the law points to the definition used in Spanish income tax.

What that is in cash. On a new-build home of 259,000 euros, 1.4 per cent is 3,626 euros and 0.1 per cent is 259 euros. A difference of 3,367 euros on a single line of the return.

And no, this is not a trick to try on. You have to actually live there, the tax office checks afterwards, and the income tax definition sets conditions on how quickly you move in and how long you stay. But if you are buying a second home that will eventually become your permanent one, the conversation with your gestor about this one box is worth more than all your haggling over his own fee.

The ITP discounts, and the income limits nobody mentions

Buying second hand, the same law offers reduced ITP rates. They are all there, in two price brackets: up to 180,000 euros and above it.

Under 35 and it becomes your main home: 6 per cent up to 180,000, 8 per cent above. The condition is a taxable income of at most 30,000 euros individually or 47,000 jointly.

Large or single-parent family, main home: 3 per cent up to 180,000, 4 per cent above. Same income limits of 30,000 and 47,000, and for the special category 35,000 and 58,000.

A disability of 65 per cent physical or 33 per cent intellectual, main home: 3 or 4 per cent on the same price test. This paragraph carries no income limit.

Women who are victims of gender violence: 3 or 4 per cent, with the 30,000 and 47,000 limits.

Protected housing, VPO, has its own rates: 6 or 8 per cent under the general regime, 3 or 4 under the special one.

Be honest about what this means for the average reader of this article. A couple in their fifties buying a 300,000 euro house falls into none of these categories and simply pays 9 per cent. The discounts were written for young buyers and for families on a Spanish income, and the ceilings of 180,000 euros and 30,000 euros of income rule out most foreign buyers. That is not a complaint, it is what the scheme is for.

The tax is not charged on what you pay

This is where foreign buyers most often come unstuck, and it genuinely costs money.

The base for ITP is not the price in the contract. It is the valor de referencia, the reference value the Catastro assigns to your property. If the price or the declared value is higher, the highest of those figures applies. If the price is lower, you still pay on the reference value.

An example. You buy a place that needs work for 150,000 euros while the reference value is 180,000. You pay 9 per cent on 180,000, so 16,200 euros, not 13,500.

That was litigated for years and it is now settled. The Constitutional Court dismissed the challenge unanimously in judgment 13/2026 of 12 February 2026, published in the BOE on 19 March 2026. The system stands.

And in a binding ruling of 18 May 2026 the Dirección General de Tributos said it more bluntly still: the fact that a home is in poor condition and that the purchase price is below the reference value is not, on its own, a reason to depart from that value.

What to do with it: get the reference value from the Catastro before you sign. You can do it online with the property’s cadastral reference and it costs nothing. Work out your tax from that figure, not from the asking price. If you think the figure is too high you can contest it, but you do that afterwards and with a valuation report, not with an opinion.

Notary, registry and gestor

Three items that together rarely exceed 2,200 euros, and only one of which is negotiable.

The notary. The fee is fixed by a royal decree from 1989, so it is the same everywhere. What you actually pay depends on the length of the deed, the number of sheets and the number of copies. Budget 600 to 1,000 euros for an ordinary home. An extra copy of the deed costs tens of euros.

The Registro de la Propiedad. Also a fixed 1989 tariff. Budget 300 to 700 euros to register the purchase. With a mortgage there is a second registration, but the bank pays that one.

The gestor. This is the only fee that is not regulated, so the only one you can discuss. 300 to 500 euros is normal. He files the return, pays the tax and handles the registration.

Those ranges come from comparison sites and trade blogs, not from an official price list, because for the final amount no such list exists. If you want to know exactly, ask the notary who will handle the deed for a presupuesto. You are entitled to it and it is free.

With a mortgage you pay less than you think

This is the item readers consistently overbudget, because the old stories stick.

Since the Spanish mortgage act of 2019, in force from 16 June that year, the bank pays the notary fees on the mortgage deed, the registry entry, the gestoría and the stamp duty on the mortgage. That last one moved to the bank even earlier, by a decree of 10 November 2018.

What you as a buyer pay on a mortgage is short: the valuation, roughly 250 to 450 euros, and any copies of the deed you ask for yourself.

Do watch the arrangement fee. It is not banned, it does not appear in the list above, and it can be one per cent of the loan. Budget it separately and compare banks on it.

If you signed your mortgage before 16 June 2019 the old split applied, and you may have paid costs that later case law assigned to the bank. That is reclaimable, but it is its own process and not part of a purchase today.

The plusvalía is not yours, unless the seller is foreign

The plusvalía municipal is the local tax on the increase in land value. In an ordinary sale the seller pays it.

There is one exception, and on this coast it is not a rarity but the normal case.

If the seller is a natural person who is not resident in Spain, Spanish local tax law makes the buyer the sustituto del contribuyente. In plain terms: you have to declare and pay that tax at the town hall, within a month of the deed. The economic burden stays with the seller, so in practice you withhold the amount from the price.

And note what happens once that withholding is written into the deed. The Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Central ruled on 21 October 2024 that the obligation to pay it over then falls on the buyer alone, penalties included if it does not happen. You are holding the seller’s money, so it is your loss if you miss the deadline.

Whatever the parties agree between themselves does not bind the town hall. You can agree that the seller will handle it, but the town hall comes to you.

The 3 per cent you have to withhold

Another obligation that sits with the buyer and has nothing to do with your own tax.

If a non-resident is selling you the house, you as buyer must withhold 3 per cent of the price and pay it to the Spanish tax office within a month using form 211. That applies whether or not you are resident yourself.

It is not an extra tax on you. It is an advance payment on the seller’s capital gains tax. If his final bill is lower, he claims the difference back with form 210.

Two things to get right. Give the seller a copy of the payment receipt, because without that document he cannot complete his own return. And do not skip the withholding because the seller asks you to: if you do, you become liable for his tax and the property stays encumbered for that amount.

In practice your gestor does this, but formally it is your obligation and your name is on the form.

Two sums to take with you

Existing home at 200,000 euros, no mortgage, reference value equal to the price.

ITP at 9 per cent: 18,000 euros
Notary: 600 to 1,000
Registry: 300 to 700
Gestor: 300 to 500
Total: 19,200 to 20,200 euros, or 9.6 to 10.1 per cent. With your own lawyer at one per cent plus VAT you land at roughly 21,600 to 22,600 euros.

New build at 259,000 euros that becomes your main home.

VAT at 10 per cent: 25,900 euros
AJD at 0.1 per cent: 259 euros
Notary, registry and gestor: 1,200 to 2,200
Total: about 27,400 to 28,400 euros, or 10.6 to 11.0 per cent.

If that same new build is a second home rather than your main one, AJD goes to 1.4 per cent and adds 3,367 euros. That puts you at 12.0 to 12.3 per cent.

Run both sums on your own figures before you make an offer, and use the reference value as the base, not the asking price. How the rest of the purchase runs, from reserva to keys, is in our guide to buying a house in Spain. Without a NIE you will not even get through the notary’s door, and for your municipal paperwork afterwards there is the empadronamiento.

What this piece does not cover

Honest about the edges.

This is the Comunitat Valenciana. ITP and AJD rates are regional. Murcia, Andalusia and Catalonia apply different percentages, including to a house ten kilometres away.

The figures for notary, registry and gestor are ranges taken from comparison sites and trade publications, not a tariff list. The final amount depends on your deed.

On a possible exemption from the 3 per cent withholding for ordinary main-home purchases below a certain price, sources diverge and we found no statutory text for it. So it is not in here. Ask your gestor.

Annual costs are not included: IBI, refuse charges, the comunidad, the non-resident tax. This piece only covers what you need on the day of the deed.

And the biggest uncertainty is not ours: regional tax rules change. This cut to 9 and 1.4 per cent dates from June 2026. If you sign a year from now, check again.

Frequently asked questions

How much is added to the purchase price in Spain? In the Comunitat Valenciana roughly ten to fourteen per cent, depending on second hand or new build and on whether you use a lawyer.

How much is ITP in the Comunitat Valenciana? 9 per cent since 1 June 2026, and 11 per cent where the value is above one million euros.

Why do other sites say 10 per cent? That was the rate until 1 June 2026. The cut is in Ley 5/2025 but only took effect a year after publication.

Do I pay VAT or ITP? VAT on a new build from a developer, ITP if you buy from a private seller. VAT is 10 per cent, plus stamp duty.

What is the stamp duty on a new build? 1.4 per cent, or 0.1 per cent if the home becomes your vivienda habitual.

What amount is the tax calculated on? The Catastro’s valor de referencia, or the price if that is higher.

What if I pay less than the reference value? You still pay on the reference value. A lower price or poor condition is not, on its own, a reason to depart from it.

Who pays the notary and the registry on a mortgage? The bank, since 16 June 2019. You pay the valuation and your own copies.

Who pays the plusvalía? The seller. If he is a non-resident natural person, you as buyer must declare and pay it, within a month.

What is the 3 per cent withholding? Buying from a non-resident, you withhold 3 per cent of the price and pay it over with form 211. It is an advance on his tax.

Do I need a lawyer? Not legally. On this coast it is usual and costs about one per cent plus VAT.

Are there discounts for young buyers? Yes, 6 per cent up to 180,000 euros for buyers under 35, with income limits of 30,000 individually and 47,000 jointly.

About the authorLeonie

Leonie lives on the Costa Blanca. She writes about daily life on the coast: the markets, the walks and everything you only discover once you actually live here.