Imputed income: the tax on the flat you do not let
This is the most common non-resident return and the one that surprises people most. If you are non-resident and own an urban property in Spain that is at your disposal, the law treats it as producing an income even when it sits empty all year — and that income is taxed.
What imputed income is
An income the law presumes purely from your having an urban property at your disposal, neither let nor used in a business. No money changes hands: the base is a percentage of the cadastral value. That percentage is 1.1% where the cadastral value was revised through a general collective valuation in the tax year or the previous ten, and 2% in every other case.
Who declares it
Every non-resident owner of an urban Spanish property that is not let. If it was let for part of the year, imputed income is charged only for the days it was not — the let days are taxed as rental income instead. Where there is more than one owner, each declares their own share. A couple owning 50/50 files two returns, not one.
How much you pay
The taxable base is the cadastral value times 1.1% or 2%, pro-rated by days of ownership and by your ownership share. The rate of 19% or 24% then applies depending on where you are resident. Knowing the year the cadastral value was last revised therefore matters almost as much as the value itself: the difference between 1.1% and 2% nearly doubles the bill.
No expense of any kind is deductible
Not the IBI, not the community fees, not the insurance, not a special levy, not utilities. The Spanish tax agency's manual is explicit: imputed income is taxed on that base "without deducting any type of expense". It is a deliberate asymmetry with rental income, where EU residents do deduct expenses, and it is the single most common error in hand-prepared returns.
When to file
Imputed income has the longest window in the whole tax: the entire calendar year following the one it accrued in. The direct-debit window, though, closes in December.
Common mistakes
Applying 1.1% without checking when the cadastral value was last revised. Forgetting to pro-rate when the property was bought or sold mid-year. Deducting the IBI. Filing one return for a property with two owners. And, above all, filing nothing because "the flat is empty and earns nothing".
The rate that applies
The rate depends only on where you are tax resident — not on where the property is, and not on your nationality.
Residents of the EU, Iceland or Norway
19%
Everyone else
24%
These are Spain's domestic rates. The double-taxation treaty between Spain and your country of residence may cap them lower, particularly on dividends, interest, royalties and pensions. miDeclaro does not apply a treaty rate automatically: it flags the case and routes it to a human rather than overcharging you.
A worked example with real figures
A flat with a cadastral value of €180.000, last revised in 2019, owned outright and never let during the tax year, by an owner resident outside the EU.
- Gross income
- €1,980.00
- Taxable base
- €1,980.00
- Rate applied
- 24%
- Tax due
- €475.20
- To pay
- €475.20
Computed with rate table 2025.1 — the same one miDeclaro uses to generate your return. Not a rounded estimate.
Deadlines
Annual return
1 January 2026 — 31 December 2026
Imputed income for a tax year is filed at any point during the following calendar year. There are no quarters.
Direct debit available until 23 December 2026
Check your imputed income
Tell us the cadastral value and the revision year and we will give you the exact figure, with the full breakdown of how it was reached.
Calculate my returnRates and deadlines for the 2025 tax year. Source: AEAT Non-Resident Taxation Manual (May 2025); docs/non_resident_tax_rates_spain.xlsx.